Cinnamon potpurri

In lieu of a post today, I present a series of miscellaneous Cinnamon pictures. The insects done wore me out.


Cinnamon is a Castor Rex, bred for their fur, which is very soft. Wild rabbits have a combination of long and short hair. Cinnamon's is all short.

She's a curious rabbit, and by that, I mean she likes to explore. Sometimes I worry she gets too bored, so we try to take her out to the park when it's not too hot, or into the hallway to let her stretch her legs. Most of the other rabbits we've had were content with the apartment, but Cinnamon likes to explore.


It took us forever to find a treat that she liked. I don't know what her life was like before we got her from the shelter (we were told the previous owners had a baby, which is why they gave her up), but we couldn't get Cinnamon to take any treats at all. It was weird.

Then one day some dried cranberries spilled on the floor and she snarfed them up like a vacuum cleaner. That was when the penny dropped and she realized that HUMANS COULD BE A SOURCE OF FOOD!
Which was all well and good until she also realized that the food came from the kitchen, the one area we don't want her to go into it, since that's where the trash is.
Combined with her naturally curious nature, it's becoming sort of a game for her to see how close she can go into the kitchen before we yell, and--more importantly--get up. When we shout, she'll pause for a moment and look back to see if we're getting up. If we don't, she just keeps on doing what she's doing. But if we get up, then she knows we mean business and she scampers off. Until she thinks we're not paying attention.

She's lost a lot of weight in the last year, which has made her even more active.

When Sharon wanted to put up a section of rabbit photos on her (then) new website, I thought it was a dumb idea. This was a site about wildlife after all; why put up pictures of domestic rabbits? Who'd wanna look at that?

"Disapproving rabbits" was the last thing I put up, and grudgingly. Joke's on me! Especially when the book comes out in October.

Okay, I'm off to read some Gene Wolfe and veg. We will hopefully have a more coherent post tomorrow.

Whoop tay yai-yay

When Sharon took off on her trip, she left behind one of the cameras she uses for digiscoping, a Nikon CoolPix 4500. It's got two very interesting things about it: one, it's capable of taking absolutely stunning close-up ("macro") shots, and two, it was forged in the fires of Hell by Lucifer himself.

They don't talk much about that second one in the promotional material.

I'm trying to explain why this post, about caterpillars, will only have two pictures in it. No matter how hard I tried, I simply could not get this camera to focus on what was right in front of it. But the CoolPix and I have bad blood between us, ever since I tried to shut off its time-delay function, which was apparently near and dear to its cold, black heart. The manual was less than useful: "To counteract time-delay function: Do not. Will cause universe implosion. If such effect is desired, please shift yourself into a parallel dimension first, and speak to the Vortex Warlock for further guidance."

So, then, caterpillars!

As you probably know, every year, Sharon "ranches" Monarch caterpillars, growing them inside a mesh container until they're become full-fledged butterflies and be set free.

This year she's ranching Black Swallowtails as well, which are a lot harder to break to the saddle, let me tell you. Also, they come from darker eggs, which means Mrs. Olson won't give us as much for them.

Ahem.

Anyway, the swallowtails are interesting: as Sharon pointed out earlier, in their initial form they're colored to look like bird poo, then look more or less like Monarchs, but when they cocoon, their chrysalis looks more like a Metapod.

Note the two silk strings attached, and the funky wood-like coloration. The other Swallowtail is green like a Monarch chrysalis, however. I'm not sure if this a natural variation, someting to do with age, or health. At any rate, it looks pretty cool, don't you think?

And it is chrysalis city in the Monarch ranch, here. We've already got about eight in cocoons, two more about to assume the J position and get started metamorphosizin', and a couple more big fat cats munching down milkweed as we speak. Soon I'll have to rope 'n' brand 'em, which is much harder than you think, seeing as the branding iron is so small.

In fact, in the time I spent off yesterday, bee-tending, they had eaten the milkweed down to the stalk and were subsisting on dead leaves on the bottom of the container. Eep! I'm sorry guys! I didn't know you'd be so voracious. I'd think you had a tapeworm, except that, well, you're a lot smaller than tapeworms.

Prowling through the street looking to feed the cats hungry for an angry fix, I left the house first thing this morning looking for milkweed, which like Scotch tape and a corkscrew, is something you trip over constantly until you need it. What must I have looked like at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, walking the streets, my eyes glued to the edges of lawns and medians? A burglar? A drunk, staggering home? Or worst, a birder?

Ah well, I found what I was looking for, stuffed it in the container, and rustled up the cats onto the leaves, where, after a lot of exploration, they started happily munching away. I could tell that one stalk wasn't going to be enough, so later in the day I walked the Greenway for a bit, making myself a menace to the bikers as I scanned the wild growth.

Bikers, I apologize. I had hungry insects to feed, and, frankly, "On the left!" really confuses me, which I recognize is a personal problem. See, if you just ring a bell, I can generate a Pavlovian response that tells me I should dodge to the curve nearest the side I'm on. But when you say "On the Left!" First there's a shock of hearing someone bark at me, then I realize there's a person on a bike closing on me, then I have to think "Do they mean they're coming on my left, or that I should move to the left," which is really stupid, I know, because you're not saying "to the left," but there you are.

Plus, in that split second of minor panic, it takes me a second to remember which side the left is. So my natural instinct is, deerlike, to freeze in the middle of the path just so I can be certain I'll get creamed.

Anyway, some green, sluglike creatures get to stuff themselves, so that's okay.

ANOTHER PRIVATE MESSAGE TO SHARON. PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS.

Dearest Heart,

Glad to hear that you're enjoying your trip, however I find it distressing that you won't tell me where you are or when you're coming back. And why do I hear laughter and Mariachi music in the background?

I miss you. The birds do, too, apparently, because just today I saw a flock of Goshawks fly right by our window.

Warmest regards,
-NBB

END PRIVATE MESSAGE.

This post is covered in bees

Hello, all, NBB here.

As Shazz pointed out, I was initially apprehensive about her keeping bees. Given that both her and Neil's schedules are so hectic, I was convinced that his assistant Lorraine and I would end up being the bulk of the work. And while I don't have a bee phobia, the idea of intentionally walking up to a big pile o' bees and tearing their home apart to steal their honey gave me pause.

So it was a little surprising to find myself heading off to inspect the hives today, alone. Well, except for Cabal the beekeeping dog, who really serves only in an advisory capacity.

I can haz beez?

The really weird thing is that beekeeping isn't all that scary. The suit covers you completely, and the smoker causes them to instantly scurry back into the hive. Whenever we go out there, I'm more concerned about crushing a bee that I am about getting stung.

Another thing is that the bees themselves aren't aggressive. As long as you handle the boxes carefully, and smoke regularly, most of them just go about their business, even as you take the frames out, one by one. You'd think you'd get a bigger reaction, since they live and work in darkness, but opening the hive really only affects a small portion of the hive, who come out and buzz around, but don't immediately attack. Part of this, of course, is because we go out in the middle of the day, when the foragers are out collecting pollen, but still.

The only time they've become deliberately aggressive is when a frame we were handling slipped from the glove, fell about an inch, but landed on the hive with a good, solid, bonk! In a split-second, the buzzing got much louder, and Sharon and I both froze.

"I wish that hadn't happened."

"Me too."

Still, even when they're buzzing around your head, butting against the screen that shields your face, there's not really a sense of attack--though we have been stung in the gloves a couple of times. Maybe it's because before all this, my interaction was with lone bees--foragers, and all you think about is the stingers, rather than them working as a group, building a hive.

So anyway, I like the bees. They're kind of cute. Perhaps it's because they're fuzzy.

And now for your weekly bee report.

Queen Kitty II, by the Grace of God, Defender of etc., etc. had been accepted into the hive and it was hoped that she would start laying workers to replenish the hive. I'm happy to report that I believe this is happening!

Let me first apologize for the quality of the pictures; taking good shots of bees is tough enough, but add in a black screen in front of your face, direct sunlight on the view screen, and sweat dripping onto your glasses, and it's hard to feel the love when you're trying to get out of there as quickly as possible, before you need to find out if you're allergic to bees (and you realize that you left your cell phone back at the house. Screaming "911" doesn't really work as well).

Plus, and I hate to gossip, but the bees just really didn't take direction well. "Throw back your wings!" I shouted. "Show me how much you love that honey! Stick out your proboscis!" Honestly, it was like they weren't listening at all. Prima donnas.


This is the top box of Kitty. Some activity there, and a lot of buzzing. The last few times we visited the hive was very lethargic (quiet), so I took this as a good sign. Pulling out the end frames:

Workers, drawing out comb, which means that they're building their own comb on top of the plastic sheets in the middle of the frame. I don't know if you can see it in this picture, but there are a lot of bees in the middle box, below this one. Pulling out the center frame:
It's almost entirely filled with honey, some of it capped. This actually made me a little apprehensive, because what we hoped for was brood: eggs that would turn into workers. At least, I pretty sure it's all honey. Sharon's the head beekeeper here and I'm just trying to remember what she told me as I watched her inspect the hive. Anyway, not seeing any evidence of eggs, I moved onto the second brood box.

Tons of activity and a lot of buzzing, which I was happy to hear. On the end of the box they were drawing out more of what looked to be honey, and making more of their funky comb (Kitty hive takes after her namesake). I was pleased by the activity, but knew that I had to keep digging until I could report to Sharon that we had larvae. So, moving into the middle frame of box 2:
Larvae! Precious, precious larvae! Now, if I remember correctly, the worker cells are relatively flush with the comb while drone cells puff out, because the males need more room for their recliners and beer. So, is this almost all future workers for the Kitty hive. In addition to this, there was a lot more activity going on inside, lots of noisy buzzing. Yay!

Having established that Kitty II was having a prosperous reign, I closed the hive and moved onto Olga.

Olga, as you'll recall, was our big hope for honey after the Kitty I decided to go on tour with her Swarm (which would be a good name for a hair metal band, late 80s. So if you're thinking about traveling back in time and living like a modern cowboy, on a steel horse you'll ride...). However, after having no end of problems with the first honey super (the wax centers kept collapsing), we added a section of plastic rounds, but left the first super on as well, just to see what the bees would do.

And here it is: The bees are building feral comb in the empty frames, which, if all goes well, will translate into edible honey for us, albeit in a very funky form. Olga, your bees are getting results, but they're not following the rules!

Suddenly I'm a chief inspector in a bad 70s cop show.

Very little activity otherwise. Moving onto the plastic rounds:

ZILCH.

We're getting completely nooged by the Olga bees, who I think might be onto us. One was constantly buzzing my head, and despite my best efforts to smoke her, she kept right on flying a patrol around my noggin. Lots of bees running around in the plastic rounds, and they'd glued them all together with propolis so tightly I had to pry them out with both hands, but not a single spot of comb.

UPDATE: Turns out the plastic rounds are supposed to have a wax foundation (like the other frames) that goes in between them. After rummaging around in the shipping boxes, I found them, added them to our second set of rounds, and swapped the boxes. Needless to say, the bees don't really appreciate two visits in one day. Ah, life.

So, this concludes your regular bee update. And now, if everyone will please close their browser windows...

A PRIVATE MESSAGE TO SHARON:

Darling, please come home. I'm sorry I made jokes about birds. I'm so, so sorry. I miss you. The pets miss you. Well, Cinnamon doesn't, but you know what I mean. I promise never to make jokes about how brown birds look exactly alike, even though they obviously do. And all those times I said you were nuts to go and stand in a field at 5 a.m.? Well, uhmmm... well, I was right about that, too, but if you come back I'll keep it to myself and only laugh when I think you're not looking.

Please, please come back.

END PRIVATE MESSAGE.

Birding books (a shopping guide)

Hello, all, NBB here.

First off, I should tell you all that Shazz (a nickname she picked up from a UK reader, as I recall) is alive and well and is getting ready for a short trip out of town, which is why I'll be your host for the next few days. I'm sure when she returns, she'll have a long series of posts detailing every single inaccurate thing I wrote about birds, or perhaps, if we're very lucky, she'll go back and annotate the posts I did write, so we'll get sort of a director's commentary.

My wife is a wonderful woman with a great sense of humor. Except when it comes to birds, an area where she has no sense of humor. At all. I can make jokes about bees carrying little pails and Cinnamon needing to color eggs for Easter, and it's all good. But jokes about pouring salt on a bird's tail are met with a stony silence, and heaven help us if we're watching a movie and characters camping on a mountain forest hear a loon call.

Which of course just makes it funnier to me.

To compensate for this, I try to give Sharon bird-related books she'll really like. Now, Sharon's pretty hardcore, so these suggestions may not apply to the birder in your life, but I thought I'd pass them on, regardless. This is primarily for the significant others of birdwatchers, because boy howdy, I think I've caused a few fights in other people's relationships by buying too good a gift, if you know what I mean.

The first thing you need to know is that there are four kinds of bird books. There are basic books, field guides, scientific books, and bird porn (here's hoping that last category doesn't get us flagged again).

Basic books have a lot of general information and pictures, and are designed for the casual bird watcher. There the kind of book you'd get someone as a housewarming present, I guess; they don't give a lot of details, because they don't want to bore the casual reader. I recognize them by picking a paragraph at random and thinking, would I read this book myself? If the answer is "yes," then I don't get it for Sharon. Don't get me wrong, these books often have useful information, and if your loved one starting out as a birder, this is probably the best place to begin.

Field Guides are pretty obvious, but need to be suited to the personality of the birder. Think of it like choosing a wand in Harry Potter. "This one? No, no, no, too heavy. How about... Yes, this is very good for birds in your area, not so much for shore birds. But then there's..."

It's probably best to let a birder choose their own field guide, though of course they can drop hints about one they'd like for someone to pick up for them (cough, cough). Guides are either use photos or paintings. Photos, of course, show you what the bird actually looks like (but are often taken from a distance), while paintings can show a lot more detail (but you kind of have to translate an artist's rendering into real-world situations).

One fun thing you can do with field guides is look for ones that refer to different countries. In addition to the fact that they probably won't have it, the birds in other countries are (gasp) usually colorful, and pleasing to look at. Guides to other countries are usually the only ones I buy for Sharon because in terms of what she needs for her day-to-day birding, she has the guides she needs: a Sibley in the car for checking field marks, and several more at home for puzzling out difficult birds.

Scientific books are the meat 'n' potatoes of what I get Sharon. And the best part is that you can usually find them really, really cheap because no one in their right mind would buy them unless they worked at a library and needed to fill up the stacks with books that no one ever checks out.

Scientific books are books written by ornithologists for ornithologists. They have very few pictures, lots of graphs, and such thrilling titles as "Biosystemics of the American Crow." When I see something like this peeking up at me from the bottom row of Half Price Books, I think "Pay dirt!" More boring makes it more better, as I learned over the course of a few Christmases, having put down books on very obscure topics (Analysis in Turkey Vulture Droppings) in favor of bird books that looked mildly interesting (to me). Fortunately for all concerned I mentioned to Sharon the terrible books I had almost bought, before I realized she'd left for the bookstore so quickly that all I was talking to was a Sharon-shaped dust cloud that slowly dissipated.

So, if you have a hard-core birder in your life (Hi, Reier!) these are the kind of books to look for. You especially want to be on the look out for The Life Histories of North American Birds by Arthur Cleveland Bent, an amateur birder who compiled data on, well, every North American Bird and published the data in a series of books through the Smithsonian (and later, Dover). Again, these are pretty much reference books, not really for reading. Unless you're married to my wife.

A story: we're lying in bed together, reading. I forget what I was reading, something nerdy no doubt about elves and Quests and so forth, but somewhere in there, Sharon let out a gasp. An audible, shocked gasp. I looked over to see what she was reading, and the chapter header was Parasitic Infestations of Peregrine Falcon Nests, 1920-1921.

The final category is Bird Porn, which means giant, full color books filled with pictures and illustrations of birds. It's hard to go wrong with picture books, but you do have to be careful when dealing with illustrations, because, well, sometimes they suck.

And by that I mean that they're inaccurate. Or that the birder in your life doesn't like the illustrator's style. I generally don't pick up books of illustrated birds unless they're by Robert Bateman, an artist I know Sharon likes.

So, that's that. Sorry the post wasn't funnier or more interesting. I'll bring out the bees and the bunnies soon, I promise.

Falcon Fascination and Wetlands

Sharon's still recovering from having a tree fall on her while eating mushrooms, but, communicating only through eye blinks, she asked me to pass this one to all of you

Dear Sharon,

I'm writing from KQED Public Broadcasting in San Francisco. We recently did a TV story called Falcon Fascination for QUEST - our multimedia series on environment, science and nature. Here’s a brief description:

"When it comes to these Bay Area internet celebrities, you can peak into their homes 24 hours day. QUEST visits a famous pair of Peregrine Falcons in downtown San Jose, whose family dramas-- from courtship to parenthood-- are caught on webcam."

You can watch the video in a much bigger form on the KQED website.

Oh, and while I'm posting links, here's one about the Wetlands Reserve Program:

Congress is considering whether or not to include the wetlands reserve program in the next farm bill. Considering the state of affairs with wetlands in this country, this is really important to have. We've already lost 90% of our wetlands.
It has never been easier to let your representatives know about this.

Here's the link.

-NBB

The Brown Bird

Dean Martin once asked Sinatra how he always managed to get such a great crowd reaction. Frank replied that he went out and started with three songs he knew would kill, and that after that, he could do anything he wanted, and the audience would love it.

Borrowing a page from the Chairman, I've decided to kick off my stint here with something I know you'll all love: Brown Birds.

You'll note that my nickname is non-birding Bill, and not bird-hating Bill. I rather enjoy our fine feathered friends, especially from the comfort of an air-conditioned room with a high-speed wireless internet connection and cable TV, so I can, you know, have something to do after I see the birds.

Shazz, on the other hand, loves nothing more than getting up at 4 a.m. to drive 2 hours on dirt roads and stand in the freezing cold, scanning the horizon for a bird that might be there. I keep pointing out to her (as she wakes me up) that she has books with pictures of these birds in them, but she just sighs and puts on another layer of clothing.

I think these two photos, taken last Christmas, sum up what birdwatching is like for me:

Sigh.

Of course, it's not just what birders consider ideal conditions for birding (cold, damp, desolate, locust plague, raining blood). It's also the fact that they love, love, love The Brown Bird.

The Brown Bird (sepia dullus) is a creature that has evolved a remarkable form of camouflage: no other bird will eat it because it looks so uninteresting. Birders, however, posses a genetic flaw that not only allows them to see The Brown Bird, but causes them to hallucinate, causing them to think that it's actually several different birds.

To wit:


To a birder, this looks like two different birds!

However, it's not enough to see The Brown Bird sitting at your feeder, where you can, you know, find them all the time. No, birders judge status amongst their kind by the conditions under which they were seen, and will often hire a skilled professional, called a "guide," to take them to the most out of the way place, show them a brown tree in a brown copse where The Brown Bird might be seen, and then strike them repeatedly about the head with a baseball bat. Kenn Kaufman, of course, rose to fame after detailing the 1% difference in brown shading found on the wingtips of The Brown Bird while being struck by lightning! David Allen Sibley countered by drawing every bird in North America while having his blood replaced with hydrochloric acid. Then the government stepped in.

Meanwhile I go off to feed the ducks, who make a pleasant quacking noise and seem to genuinely appreciate whatever bits of food (corn, salami) I toss them.

But I kid the birdwatchers. I kid, because I love. As a recovering hardcore geek m'self (comics, etc.), I see birders as, well, collectors. And like any other kind of collector, the more detail they notice about their subject, the more joy they get out of it. Sharon is, in my not-unbiased opinion, such a great ambassador for birding because she not only has a great deal of knowledge about the subject, but is genuinely excited about birds and most importantly, gets others excited about it, too.

Even, alas, me.

I was walking to work one morning and saw something bebopping around in a hedge. "Oh," says I, "that's a yellow-rumped warbler."

And then I stopped.

And then I wanted to punch myself.

There's a new sheriff in town

All right, everyone, it's NBB here.

Sharon's going to take a few days off from the blog, and she's left me in charge. Mwahahahahahahaha! (thunderclap)

Ahem. Sorry about that.

Sharon's left me some bloggable material, and in addition to that, I think we'll be able to dig out a few rabbits, some bees, general geekery, and maybe just maybe, we'll talk about birding from a non-birder's perspective, or "how I learned to stop worrying and enjoy the brown bird."

All opinions expressed will be my own, not the Birdchick, who will reserve the right to disapprove of anything I post. And probably will (Mwahahah. Sorry.).

We'll get started properly tomorrow, so in the mean time, enjoy this video of a raccoon, who, well, just go ahead and watch.

Friday's Fun At Carpenter

But first, a wee bit of bragging. My sister, Terri N. Graves has a front page article in the current issue of NatureScape News! If you have a copy, it's the one with the blue dragonfly photo. If you don't have one, go out and buy it right now--it's a great paper and my sister is a great writer, a bit different from me--perhaps a tad more conservative...and not as many typos. Here's her profile on their website, but here is what she actually looks like. I think she's going to be a regular contributor to their publication and I'm so excited for her. She'll write on birds, flowers, dragonflies, or whatever tickles her outdoor fancy. NatureScape News covers the whole Midwest and Terri will be their Indiana field contributor, giving her Hoosier perspective. Go, Terri! Whoot.

Well, it was a mini bogging conference on Friday at Carpenter Nature Center because Hasty Brook and Hell Ziggy showed up to join in the fun. I learned that I am not ready to get black-capped chickadees out of the nets on my own. You would be surprised at how hard they are to retrieve, because they ball up their little toes around the nets, and you have to get their feet out before you get the rest of their little bodies out. Problem is, as soon as you get the toes out, they sneak in and clamp down on more net. My particular chickadee had fluttered quite a bit and was beyond tangled. It had to be cut out, which I didn't enjoy, since banding nets cost about $70--ack. Hell Ziggy did get a photo of me above getting a song sparrow out of the nets--easy cheesy. Alas, I was an over achiever with that bird, for I not only got it out of the nets swiftly, but accidentally let it go before we had a chance to put a band on it. Ah well, easy come, easy go.

While I was working on a chickadee, I could hear that someone else was trying to get a woodpecker out of the nets. Some can be quite squeaky and vocal when you are getting them out. I wasn't sure of the species, but could tell by tone that is was a woodpecker. I was surprised when they walked in with a young yellow-bellied sapsucker (above)! We really haven't seen them around Carpenter this summer, so I imagine that this is a young bird leaving its nesting territory--kind of like a kid leaving the house at about 18 years old and living on its own. Here's what the adult looks like. It's a pretty woodpecker.

It was challenging to try and get a photo, it kept flapping and squealing. I was curious to see if any hawks would come in. I've heard that sometimes playing a "wounded woodpecker" call and bring in hawks, foxes, coyotes, and mink.

We also got in a TON of catbirds. I think they young are finally leaving the nest and we may also be getting a few moving out of territories and pondering migration. I laughed when I was looking over the photos, my shot of one of the catbirds looks rather petulant.

Hell Ziggy's on the other hand looks down right artistic (and completely in focus). I've been hearing lots of reports of catbirds eating grape jelly (and robins too). Though it is possible that these species will regularly come in for grape jelly, I wonder if the increase in reports to me has to do with the dry conditions in Minnesota or more people taking notice?

Here's a photo Hell Ziggy got of Hasty Brook releasing a goldfinch. It almost looks like she's doing the flourish at the end of a magic trick. Hasty also got to release a catbird and appeared to have a magical experience.

Hell Ziggy on the other hand wanted to go for a more hard core, if not masochistic experience of holding a cardinal...

I got a shot of it, pre-crunch. Now, that's what I call a nail biter! Har har. She took it like a trooper though, and was proud of her blood blister from the cantankerous cardinal bill.

Afterwards, we headed out for lunch and I got some much needed fun conversation. Remember, you too could be having this kind of fun, so stop out at Carpenter sometime.