Big Half Year for Sax Zim Bog

I'm not a lister. It's not my thing, but I'm going to kinda sorta do it for six months for a good cause: Sax Zim Bog. Friends of Sax Zim Bog has set a six month challenge called the Big Half Year to raise money for their current projects. Since they recently purchased a 40 acre Black Spruce/Tamarack bog and the current priority for 2013 is to complete the Sax-Zim Bog Welcome Center on Owl Avenue, they need some funding!

The challenge is that you have to do some form of a "Big Year" for six months: see as many birds as possible, attracting the most birds to your yard, a county big year, a state big year, a bog big year--however you want to do it, do it!

So, I'm going to see how many different species of birds I can digiscope between January 1 - June 30, 2013.  (Like the above evening grosbeaks). And you can pledge your support if you feel so inclined.  You can either pledge a fixed amount or pledge an amount per bird.  I think I estimated that I'll digiscope 250 species...but I have a lot of travel between now and then (Florida, New York, Connecticut, San Francisco, Ohio), so it very easily could exceed that. If you pledge, you may just want to do a fixed amount.

There are prizes for this, but I told the organizers to take my name out of the running, my prize will be that a welcome center is there. But if you have ever visited the bog, you should consider either donating or creating a user profile and doing your own big half year to raise funds (who knows, you might also win a really cool prize).

That said, it's a small birding world and we all know each other.  I won't be offended if you choose to pledge for a different Big Half Year participant.  Again, the goal here is make Sax Zim easier for birders to navigate and preserve habitat for some pretty spanky species like great gray owls, evening grosbeaks, boreal chickadees and northern hawk owl.

I'm actually fairly curious how many different species I can digiscope in six months...based on how we did with Digiduels and The World Series of Birding.

Mad Year Of 2012

I think this is one of the strangest years I've lived through. In my brain I referred to it as Mad 2012.  Just about all of it has been wonderful and the parts that were not wonderful eventually worked themselves out to, "well I guess that really was for the best."

I'm grateful for quite a bit of it: getting time with friends, getting NBB set up doing what he loves for a living, getting the chance to finally see a spotted owl (above). But so much of it was strange and unexpected.

Some of the strange things: I was denied entry to Canada, a public radio DJ got me plowed at a science fiction convention, I went full on blond, I got to hug Dave Foley, Non Birding Bill left me alone in a sushi bar and Chris Kluwe sat next to me and we discussed cock monsters, and Jeff Gordon, the president of the American Birding Association introduced me to someone who enjoys this blog and it turned out to be one of my favorite actors, Lili Taylor--and we went birding together.

The true weirdness of the year was work. I wrote another book that's coming in 2013 and one of my freelance clients hired me full time but then a few months later laid me off, but turned right around and hired me on a contract basis.  That really could have been interpreted as a crap moment, but it really worked out for the best and part of what eased that was meeting this woman:

This is Rue Mapp of Outdoor Afro and we were part of an outdoors "think tank" this summer. Right about the time it happened, I was settling into my full time job and putting the Birdchick stuff as secondary and she had just quit her full time job to make Outdoor Afro her full time gig. As she described taking that leap, I felt a pang of envy. I loved the security of a full time job (and the benefits) but I found myself turning down projects and opportunities because I didn't have the time to leave my job. Between the job and the book, I certainly wasn't blogging as much. Rue is a fascinating woman with a clear vision and goal and you can't help but be inspired when you talk with her.

A couple of months later I was laid off.  It was a huge relief. In the same meeting I was laid off, I was contracted in for some part time bird work. After a quick phone call I learned that there were still some opportunities for me at The National Park Service, so in October, I found myself doing all the fun things that I enjoyed most about being a blogger with a flexible schedule.  I'm still glad I had a full time job for a few months, it allowed us to set up operations for NBB to start his freelance career as a writer and video producer. Now, we are both in our freelance groove and our biggest worry is how do we not kill each other on days when both of us are working from home (or on  the road, he's going to at least 1 birding festival with me--yikes).

It's taken a few weeks to get my groove settled, but taking a cue from Rue, I've set some goals for the blog in 2013 to keep it interesting.  This blog is over eight years old now and I sometimes wonder how many times I can post about an awesome chickadee eating sunflower seed or crow roosts or hawk trapping. But I've signed up for some projects that will keep it fun for me to write about and hopefully be fun to read.

Thank you to everyone who checks in to the blog, Twitter and or Facebook. I hope your 2013 is fantastic. 2012, you have been a very, very weird year, but all the same, I've had a lovely time.

Birdchick Podcast #128: ABA Nominations, Ravens Bathing/Playing, Birding

Hey! You have until December 31, 2012 to get your nominations in for the American Birding Association's annual awards: 1. ABA Roger Tory Peterson Award-Promoting the Cause of Birding

2. ABA Chandler Robbins Award-Contributions to Education/Conservation

3. ABA Claudia Wilds Award-Distinguished Service to ABA

4. ABA Robert Ridgway Award-Excellence in Publications in Field Ornithology

5. ABA Ludlow Griscom Award-Outstanding Contributions in Regional Ornithology

Get your nominations in now!

Nemesis Bird has a good article for people who may have gotten iPhones or iPads over the holidays and want to know what apps are useful.

This video claims to be ravens playing in snow...but it looks like bathing behavior to me (though weird that they are upside and rolling).

Really cool photo series of all sorts of animals but quite a few birds where you can really see how their camouflage works.

Some birders are dismayed at a habitat restoration project in CA.

Study that involves headphones on finches is a bit controversial for some.

This is noteworthy for the last paragraph.

Birdchick Podcast #128

Birdchick Podcast #127: Goosinator, Golden Eagles, Catfish Eating Pigeons

This podcast is not brought to you by Goosinator, but we're gonna talk about it anyway. Golden eagles flying off with children is not true...this is the proof...and this is why.

Screen shot 2012-12-23 at 8.17.36 PM

Non Birding Bill offers a video of a golden eagle rescuing a kid.

However, catfish eating pigeons is totally true.

Researchers are studying bustard poop. I need to get that gig.

Crazy invasion of north Atlantic seabirds in Florida, what's up with the razorbills?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you want to rehab birds, get a permit so you want have to go through this.

Cool video of a whip-poor-will trying to defend its nest from a browsing deer:

Birdchick Podcast #127

Another Day On The Job, Another Animal Part In The Tree

I honestly thought yesterday was going to be the strangest day on the particular job assignment I have here in the southern Midwest. It apparently wasn't quite over. Another day on the job, another day of animal parts in trees!

As I was walking my point, something in the trees caught my attention. Do you see anything? If you have colorblindness, you may not. Basically, I noticed a red bird not moving.

Closer inspection revealed an eviscerated male cardinal wedged and pinned to branch.  I don't think this is a case of a sharpie or Cooper's hawk dropping some prey after eating from up high in a tree.  The body of the cardinal was really wedged into the fork and hooked well on the branch. I suspect the body was cached here by a shrike, but dang on, shrikes are only 9 - 10" long and a cardinal is about 8.5" long.  That's some fancy beak work to kill a bird that size. Since shrikes don't have the talons for gripping and killing that hawks and owls do, after they kill their prey with their beak, they try to wedge it into a branch or in the case of small prey, impale it on thorns or barbed wire as a larder for later or as a way to hold it still while they hack off strips of meat.

I imagine it was a nice meal for that shrike!

Kind of excited to see what sort of dead stuff I'll find in trees today!

Yes, I've Seen The Golden Eagle Attacks Kid Video. Yes, It's Fake

If you were not on social media last night, you may have missed this discussion.  But if you are remotely into birds, especially birds of prey, someone will send you this video: WARNING IF WATCHING THIS AT WORK. THERE IS A SWEAR WORD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE0Q904gtMI&feature=youtu.be

Yes. Fake.

And in case you still don't believe that this video is as authentic as Kenny Rogers's face, here's an article on the golden eagle attacks kid hoax video that identifies the makers of the video.

So, please everyone who keeps sending me an email or text saying, "I told you an eagle could grab a kid,"...stop.

Dead Stuff In My Office

FYI: No podcast this week.  I got called away to work in Missouri for the week and well, we just don't like Skyping in for the Podcast.  We'll be back next week. Also, kinda gross photos ahead.

I have a weird lifestyle.  I don't often know where I'm going to be from day to day. Most recently that came to an extreme level when a quick phone call Wednesday afternoon turned in to me on the Illinois/Missouri border on Friday afternoon to help with a habitat survey.

As I travel, I frequently post to social media what I call Today's Office, which is basically a shot of what my outdoor office looks like that day.  Often, it's beautiful.

Then there are these sort days like I had yesterday:

Look close...that's not a bird in that tree...I think it's some sort of way to let nature clean off of a deer skull.  Apart from the weirdness of suddenly noticing a giant deer head with an amazing rack suddenly appear out of the branches like a magic eye puzzle is unsettling.  But then you just tell yourself, "Oh, those hunters." And press on.

Then you find another one:

And you note the rotting and shuttered farmhouse surrounded by goats and how it looks like something Jason would live in on the property and think, "Maybe I'll step a little livelier on this survey."

But deer decapitation wasn't the only fun body parts I found in today's office!

My field partner called me over to see "something cool" and he's not as into birds shouted, "You have to see this, it's so cool!" And he was right.  It looked like some sort of cache, possibly a fox had left a large, dark wing wedged into some trees.  Hmmm, what could this be? I had noticed some large black feathers as we were walking and took mental note.  I was trying to resist the temptation to explore the wing further because I have a completely different assignment to this survey and it doesn't involve CSI Special Bird Unit. But I couldn't help but take a photo and notice a familiar smell...mmmm...vulture.  And I wondered given my location if it was black or turkey.

We soon found the rest of the carcass...yep, turkey vulture based on the light gray edging on the underside of the wing.

As if that weren't proof enough, we found the head!! And that totally sealed the deal for turkey vulture based on the nose opening--look how huge it is! Black vultures do not have the sensitive aroma sniffing abilities that turkey vultures have.  Definitely a cool find and one of the things I love about my super wacky unpredictable schedule lifestyle.

I can neither confirm nor deny that this head is in a make shift field envelope tucked away in a back pack in my hotel room (yes, I do in fact have a permit if I did choose to pick up the decomposing vulture head). I'm more worried about recriminations that could be suffered when a particular cohabitant finds out.

Site update, and why image previews aren't working

Hello all, NBB here. As you may or may not be aware, we've been dealing with an ongoing spam attack here. The problem does not affect you, the reader nor your computers; it's an exploit designed to screw around with our rankings in search engines.

As part of trying to fix this problem, I've had to make some changes to how the site works on the back end. One effect of this is that image previews aren't working right now.

Thank you for your patience.

Why I Love Social Media

I love Bill Oddie.  I got to go birding with him last year in Israel, great birder and loads of fun.  People in the US generally aren't familiar with him unless they were fans of watching the original Doctor Who on late night public television and caught The Goodies, or are professional comedians (again, The Goodies). How awesome are The Goodies? Someone literally died laughing while watching the infamous Ecky Thump episode. You can find quite a few episodes on YouTube, I recommend Ecky Thump, Goodies The Movies AKA The British Film Industry (the ending montage is comedy gold) or Kitten Kong.  Though my friend Max would feel I was remiss if I didn't include Punky Business. It's a little Monty Python, a little Monkees with a touch of Benny Hill.  If any of that appeals to you, start Googling. Mr. Oddie is known over in the UK for not only his mad comedic skills, but as a writer, birder, naturalist and nature program host.  (That's right, he's the total package and my second favorite Bill on the planet).

Well, as fate would have it, my partner in beekeeping Mr. Neil once interviewed him in the early 1980s (and Neil is the one who introduced me to Mr. Oddie years ago, by loaning me one of his books thinking that we would be kindred spirits). And we are.  I am unbelievably honored that Mr. Oddie wrote the foreword to my book coming in 2013, 1001 Things Every Birder Should Know.

I was out with Neil today as we put some insulation around our beehives for the winter. Bill Tweeted a photo to us waving a hello:

Isn't he adorable? What a sweetheart of a guy.  So, we tweeted back:

That's me looking wacky, there's Neil looking debonaire. Also, note the distinct habitat difference between the two photos.

Neil mentioned that he wrote an article about Bill in 1984 for a magazine I wasn't familiar with called Knave.  With the help of his personal assistant Lorraine, I went to look it up in his vast archives so I could scan the article and email it to Bill...and discovered that it was a bird magazine, but in the British sense. There were a lot of naked ladies in there! Apparently it's the equivalent of Playboy. Wow.  Hair was a lot different in the early to mid 1980s (wink wink, nudge nudge). Non Birding Bill was happy to take it and scan the article for me...thanks, NBB.

So, a fun, if not educational day for me.

Birds and Beers coming up! And Random Crow

Just an FYI for Twin Cities peeps, there's a Birds and Beers this week on Thursday, December 13, 2012 at 6pm – 9pm at the Lion’s Tap in Eden Prairie, MN.

One of the things I love after a good snow is how crazy blue the sky can get in Minnesota.  This was the day after the snow dump, accented by one of the lovely crows that frequents our neighborhood. We live within five miles of the Minneapolis winter crow roost so quite a few pass over every morning and night.

This bird hunkered down for a little bit, dozing and periodically eating snow until a smaller flock of crows came by and it joined them. I wonder if the roost is so noisy that some crows just need a break for a nap during the day? Kind of like getting stuck at the party dorm in college.