Prepping For Snow

This guy was in front of me when I was walking home from the YWCA...I think he is having a rougher day than me.

Knowing that we are going to get socked with another 8 - 14 inches of snow, I decided to make a break for it and went for an hour's worth of digiscoping. One thing I appreciate where I live is that eagles are only a 15 minute drive away. I headed for the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge to practice taking photos at their feeders.

The peanut feeder was getting the most action with a steady stream of nuthatches (above) and woodpeckers attacking it from every angle. Birds love peanuts out of the shell, almost as much as sunflower.

Of course, where there are peanuts there can be starlings. They love nuts out of the shell too.

This guy was really quite striking with our pre-snow gray background. I got quite a few photos until a hairy woodpecker shooed him away.

There were some tray feeders at the feeding station and it was fun to watch this female cardinal feeding along side an American tree sparrow. One interesting behavior was from a male cardinal. He would fly up to the tray feeder, take a sunflower seed and fly back to the woods to eat it--much the same way a chickadee grabs seed at feeders. Normally, cardinals will stay at the feeder to eat their fill, keeping a watchful eye out for potential danger. I have seen quite a few Cooper's hawks and sharp-shins at this feeding station, I wonder if the male cardinal developed this feeding technique to avoid hawk predation or if he's just a freak?

Well, round one of the big snow has gotten off to a late start. The snow was supposed to start by noon and give us three inches before 6pm. Thankfully, for the evening rush hour the snow didn't start in earnest until after 6pm. The worst is supposed to be tomorrow with blizzard like conditions. Should be interesting.

Long-eared Owls on the Move

Okay, I have to post this before I go to the list of errands.

When I arrived at The Raptor Center yesterday for my shift an animal control officer was waiting to be helped. He picked up a long-eared owl outside of Manny's Steak House in downtown Minneapolis. Not the best hunting for a long-earred but there are some conifers there were one could do some roosting. I talked to someone from the MOU and he said that long-ears are on the move migrating back towards breeding grounds so they could be anywhere.

This particular long-eared owl had some bruising and swelling around the pelvis and a corneal edema. He either flew into a building or vehicle in downtown. It was treated and put in a crate to rest--that's good, if this bird can make the first 24 hours he has a good chance of survival. A lot will depend on how well he cornea heals.

The vets warned that after we get this second round of snow, TRC will probably get more birds admitted, especially younger red-tails that have been spending the winter here and benefiting from the lack of cover. With another 10 - 16 inches of snow on top of the 11 we got last weekend, will make hunting a bit more tricky. They said so far that the winter has been very quiet and nothing unusual to report as far as birds admitted.

I just realized with the pounding of snow this weekend I'm probably not going to make it to the Houston Festival of Owls. I so wanted to meet Denver Holt. Man, I'm bummed about that.

More Snow?? Aaaaargh!!

Blog updates are slow at the moment.

Just when we've dug out from last weekend's snow, we're getting more snow starting at noon today. I have to run some errands before it hits.

I've had two big deadlines this week--Disapproving Rabbits is one. We discovered last night that some of the best photos submitted by readers are way too small for print quality. If you or someone you know have submitted a Disapproving Rabbit photo even one that is already on the website and it was low resolution, you might want to resend it at a much larger version (the original version that comes straight from your camera). We have to send the book in by next week or it won't be printed.

In bird cam news, the National Geographic Crane Cam at Rowe Sanctuary is supposed to start up today. Whoot. I love having that on in the background in the morning and evening.

Interesting Links

I have been having such a great time watching the live video great horned owl cam I haven't been paying much attention to the Valmont Owl Cam. Fortunately, Bill Schmoker has and he captured some interesting screen shots last week when one of the owls came back with a surprising prey item. I like how the owl cached it for a bit and all you can see it the foot in the bottom of the camera view finder. Har.

Speaking of owls, I was sent this link of a young barred owl getting repeatedly nailed by what looks like blue-gray gnatcatchers. I know I was sent this a few months ago but can't remember if posted it. Either way, it's worth a look see.

And while we are on the subject of raptors, Diva Kitty sent a link to a blog where a hawk got a mourning dove. The blog identifies the hawk as a sharp-shinned, but it's actually a Cooper's hawk (note the flat head, dark cap and the fact that it is much larger than its quarry). The blogger got some sweet shots. It's pretty amazing, she got the dove through a caged tray. I didn't know mourning doves could fit through those and am amazed by the hawk's ability to get quarry in extreme circumstances.

And finally, I was so overwhelmed with the glamour of birding that I forgot to mention that the latest installment I and the Bird is up. For newer blog readers, I and the Bird is a bi-weekly compilation of bird related blog entries. It's great way to find other birding related blogs out there.

I think I'm caught up...

Snow Bunny

Minnesota weather forecasters have been predicting a big snow all week long, and they were correct. It basically it snowed all weekend long, most of it coming Saturday night. I took care to load up the feeder before the sun set thinking that our flying squirrel activity at night would keep the ledge fairly snow free. I put out the Droll Yankee X-1 Seed Saver thinking that the cover would keep the seed from getting buried in snow. However, an angrily chipping cardinal at dawn alerted me that the plan did not work, the snow still managed to cover all the seed on the tray as well as the seed on the ledge.

"What the heck is all this crap anyway?"

Blog reader Nancy W. worried that my living in an apartment may not show how much snow we got in the Twin Cities so she kindly sent a photo of her back door this morning. We got about a foot in the metro area but south of us in Winona, MN they got two feet. Thanks, Nancy!

I still think you could get an idea how bad the roads were. Here was a car that got a little stuck and a little turned around below our apartment. Fortunately for the driver there were some guys with snow shovels roaming the neighborhoods looking for people to help out--seriously, they were just walking around with shovels looking for people to help out out of the snow. That's one of the many reasons I love living here, during a snow emergency it's a given that you will help people stuck in snow and ice and if you get stuck, someone will be by to help you too.

The city started plowing all the allies on Sunday, and a bulldozer was needed to move it out of the way. Yar!

Friday night we had to do our usual grocery shopping, it didn't occur to us that people would be loading up before the storm hit. Usually people are fairly low key about a snow storm in Minnesota and there isn't a run on food staples. Non Birding Bill and I always joke that where we grew up (Indiana for me, Ohio for him) that anytime there was any snow people would go out and load up on milk, bread and eggs. For some reason there was a freak out in our local grocery store and the milk and bread section was obliterated. Also, since we live in an eclectic little neighborhood other staples were missing: soy sauce, flour tortillas and soy milk. You can see photos of it at NBB's Blog.

"Okay, enough of this nonsense, let's go back inside. Bunny rights!"

We took Cinnamon out for few minutes for a hop in the snow. We had to dig out our car so we thought we would use some of our bunny's mad diggin' skills to help. She wasn't so interested in helping but did like to explore some of the larger mounds of snow.

It's Official: Birding Is Glamorous!

"I'd like to thank the academy and SonicWALL for this designation of Glamour/Society!"

SonicWALL has sent me (and many readers) an announcement regarding a change of their original designation for this site:

The request has been reviewed and rated as: "41.Glamour/Society"

Glamour? Birdchick.com? How did they come up with that assessment? This even tops when someone from the Minnesota Companion Rabbit Society said I was tasteful!

Does this mean that I have attained my goal of showing the world that you can be a birder without being a geek? I'm glad that despite the photo of me in chest waders, the photos of maggots in an eagle ear, the ugly pelican chicks, the rat guts, and quail guts that this site is STILL considered glamorous! I'm a bit baffled about the "society" part.

Is it because I kick it with celebrities like Sinbad (above)? Let's not forget that I've met Donny Osmond, Phil Donahue, and a film crew from the Colbert Report.

Maybe, it's because I like to dress up when I go to the grocery store? Like the time Maddy, Mr. Neil, and I made a stop for a last minute late night supper?

Perhaps it's my ability to accessorize with any raptor at a moments notice?

Is it the hip, travelin' lifestyle that Non Birding Bill and I have adopted?

Is it Cinnamon and her high standards? She does have a book deal...

Or maybe, it is just the birds:





Yeah, I think it's the birds.

It's Official: I'm Not Porn!

This very nice email showed up in the comments section from the post regarding my site being categorized as pornography:

As a SonicWALL employee, I apologize for the improper categorization of your site. We strive for accuracy, and your feedback helps us toward that goal. Your rating review requests should be processed within a few days. Please send an email to products@sonicwall.com if this is not corrected within that time.

Joe Levy

What a nice email and I honestly didn't expect a result this soon. Thank you so much to all who sent in a request to SonicWALL and thanks, Joe, for taking the time to leave a comment.

I don't know if I'll be getting much birding done today outside of filling all of my feeders. Weather forecasters are predicting "the big one" this weekend. I was going to go banding this morning but my car has been making that screeching noise that means, "Yo, woman, replace my breaks NOW!" Responsibility calls, I need to get that taken care of before the snow starts tonight.

Sometimes it's such a bummer being a grownup.

Birding Misidentification By Car

I had a meeting today to sort through directions for one of the Audubon guide books I'm helping with--tedious, hard to stay focused work but I tried to set the goal of a varied thrush. One had been reported near the Audubon Offices in St. Paul so I thought I would go look for it when we finished the meeting.

After the meeting, I drove over to the reported area and didn't see it. I stuck around about a half hour to forty-five minutes but no varied thrush. I suppose I could have lurked in the neighborhood longer but I've seen this species in San Francisco and didn't have to work that hard, I was getting hungry and decided to head home.

I drove by the airport to see if I could find one of the snowy owls perched out and I did:

However, it was not in a spot where I am allowed to park, bring out my scope and digiscope the bird without a stern talking to by airport security. I snapped one photo, rest assured that the lump on the corner of that building is indeed a snowy owl.

After dodging around in rush hour traffic I got back to my neighborhood. When I was about a block away waiting at a traffic light, I noticed across the street a bird perched high in a tree:

The shape and size made me think "pigeon" but it seemed strange to see one of the neighborhood pigeons sitting out in the open and high in a tree at dusk. The traffic light was still red so I aimed my binos for a quick glance on the bird and could see that it was a small falcon. My friend Amber told me that she had seen a female kestrel the other day (in winter only the males tend to stick around in Minnesota). Curious, I drove around the block to get a view of the bird in better light--was this a female kestrel?

I had my scope handy and pulled up to a corner, aimed it on the falcon and took some fast photos in the dwindling light. In the small view finder the bird looked to be a merlin. Not common, but not unheard of in my neighborhood either. I was really hungry and the light was dimming fast so I went home. When I downloaded the photos from the camera I found the bird to be something quite different:

Look at that huge malar stripe (vertical stripe under the eye). Also notice how the wing tips go all the way to the tip of the tail--that's no merlin, that's a peregrine falcon! This has to be the smallest male I have ever seen in my life (for non birders, in the raptor world, females are larger than males).

Now, some of you may be wondering how on Earth could I mistake a merlin for a peregrine--aren't peregrines noticeably larger? Wouldn't that be obvious? Not always. A female merlin can be 12 inches in length, a male peregrine falcon can be a small as 14 inches in length. I don't know about you, but I have trouble determining length at a distance--especially hashing out a couple of inches here and there.

Also, this bird was out of context for me. Most of my peregrine falcon experience is seeing them on buildings or cliffs, not sitting perched on a branch in a tree. It didn't occur to me right away that a falcon perched in a tree could be a peregrine. I wish I hadn't been so hungry at the time I took these photos, I would have been curious to see the bands on his legs.

No varied thrush but cool birds today. And a good lesson for me to pay more attention to what I'm focusing on in a view finder--not just making sure it's focused.