Sneak Thieves

Mr. Neil has a cat flap on his garage...

I think I need to put a clarification up before I go further with this post. Mr. Neil has cats. I have given him all the information on the Cats Indoors Campaign, and some of his cats are strictly indoor cats, however one cat in particular cannot be an indoor cat (Mr. Neil readers know him as Fred the unlucky cat). Please do not bombard him with info on Cats Indoors, he knows it, I know it--we've discussed it, especially after the time when young Fred showed up with four puncture marks on his hind quarters in the shape of great horned owl talons. And yes, in a perfect world for me, all cats would be indoors--however, who out there lives a perfect world? It's not always an easy task to turn a free roaming outdoor cat into an indoor cat. We're not going to change every mind in one night and we're not going to get every cat out of the wild by tomorrow morning. We do what we can, as we can, and the Cats Indoors campaign is a gradual effort.

That said, Fred is an outdoor cat who lives in the garage. There is a special cat door that only opens when Fred is standing in front of it, he has a special sensor on his collar that causes it to open. We keep all of the bird seed in the garage (and beekeeping equipment). Recently, something has been coming into the garage and living large in the bird seed--most likely a raccoon. The only way that I could find that they could be getting inside, would be the cat door, I'm sure raccoon claws could outsmart a sensor. We have a motion sensitive game camera and set that up:

Raccoon one (apparently wearing a monacle) came in through the door. I had the camera too close to the cat door and the flash WAY over exposed all the images. Non Birding Bill did a lot of tweaking to get them to this state.

Raccoon two came into join the party. If one has figured it out, it's not long before others follow.

And raccoon number three--this one appears to be smaller than the first two. So far these three have kept there shenanigans to the bird seed and have left the bee supplies along. I'm not sure what the next step is going to be. On of Mr. Neil's readers has suggested a door that uses image recognition software. I suggested leaving Cabal, his large white german shepherd in the garage for a few nights.

And so, here is one of the coons leaving, a little fatter. Perhaps they will eat so much they will not fit through the door--much in the same way Pooh got stuck in Rabbit's hole after eating too much honey.

Birds Are Fledgin' Out All Over

Young chickadees are invading the feeders at Mr. Neil's house. If you look closely at this photo, you can see a little yellow where this young chickadee's bill connects with it's face. The remnants of the gape young chickadees have to help stimulate their parents to feed them. This young chickadee was figuring out how to hold a peanut between its toes and then peck out bite sized pieces. The adult chickadees are now ignoring the young birds crying for food and eating themselves. The ravenous young birds are following what they see the parent birds do and learning how to use the feeding stations. Once they figure out how to grab peanuts from the mesh feeder and sunflower seeds from the tube feeders, they explore further for food. This young bird is contemplating the eye hole on this decorative bird on top of the feeder pole. It is asking itself, "Can I eat this?"

"Let's find out!" PECK! The young bird pecked and prodded the eye hole a few times and then gave up. It was fun watching the young chickadees trying out new things. One intrepid youngster flew to the hummingbird feeder and ate the ants trying to get past the ant moat.

The young chickadees were looking fresh and well feathered.

The adults, well, they were looking a little rough. I'm sure it's a combination of the nonstop work of nesting and it's time for a summer molt (dropping those old feathers and growing in new ones).

Young titmice were also learning to feed too. The adults kept going to the peanut/sunflower feeder over and over again while the young birds begged in the tree. Eventually, one impatient young bird followed the adult to the feeder and continued to beg. As the adult continued to feed only itself, the young bird finally got the idea that it had to dig out it's own peanut or sunflower.

As the young bird finally mastered the feeders, it seemed triumphant in its discovery. "I am king of the peanuts, master of all the feeders I survey!"

I found another grosbeak photo and I'm just throwing this in to the entry to add a little color.

Albino Black-capped Chickadee

This fluffy white cuteness comes to us from Deb Pflueger of Avon, Minnesota. It's a recently fledged albino black-capped chickadee! If you look closely at the photo, you can almost see a hint of the lightest beige where the black cap and beard should be. It was in her yard on June 9, 2007 but she has not seen it since.

Thanks, Deb, for taking such a great shot of this unusual bird.

Bird in the Hand

I'm fairly certain I've said this before in the blog, but I'm going to say it again.

I get that hummingbirds are incredible birds, but I don't get it in photos. I will look at magazines with incredible photos and I'll glance at them and think, "Yes, that's a pretty bird." But I don't get the wow factor until I see one in front of me at a feeder or flower and then it hits me, "How is that a bird and not a bug?"

Unfortunately, today I got to experience one in the hand. We get hummingbirds from time to time in the nets at Carpenter, but the more experienced banders are the ones that get them out--which is fine with me. Today, I heard a loud thump on the windows at Mr. Neil's (a bird hit the glass)--a problem we've been trying to fix. It's hard to stop Cooper's hawks and sharp-shinned hawks from driving birds into the windows. When I first heard the thump, I thought is was finch. I poked my head out the window and found a female ruby-throated hummingbird splayed on the grass. I dashed out and picked her up.

She was breathing and there was no visible blood from her beak. The hummingbirds have been fighting over feeders and territory, so I wonder if she flew into the window after being chased away from the feeder. No other bird species were in a panic when she flew like when the hawks are around. Several finches continued at the finch feeder oblivious to what happened.

You could see around her bill that she had little traces of spider webs--she has been gathering nesting material. Ruby-throated hummingbirds use spider webs to bind the nesting material together.

I took a moment to photograph her feet. Ruby-throated hummingbirds are unable to walk with their feet. They are pretty much there just for perching. If she is sitting on a branch and wants to turn around, she will have to use her wings to fly up, turn around and then land back on the perch facing the other way. Dear me, I'm looking at my finger tip in this photo and realizing I need to exfoliate.

Right as I took this photo, her eyes started to ope nand you could see her tongue slipping out at the tip of her bill. I quit taking photos and tried to keep her perched on my hand, facing away from me, so she wouldn't see me behind her--I thought that might help keep her calm. I had some nectar with me and set a drop of nectar on her bill, she licked it up. I did that a couple more times and then she straightened up, buzzed her wings and before I knew it she was hovering above my hand and then headed for the cover of a nearby pine tree.

It was an honor to have a hummer in hand, but I really do wish it had been under much different circumstances. There was something kind of surreal holding something so seemingly fragile yet has the ability to survive and nest outdoors and migrate single handedly across the Gulf of Mexico.

After a few minutes in the tree of preening and rest, she flew back over to one of the hummingbird feeders and I was able to digiscope a photo. She's the one on the left--you can see a couple of feathers on the back of her head are still out of place. It was interesting that this time a second female came in to feed and not chase her off. We have three nectar feeders going, but at the moment this Hummzinger is the most popular with the hummingbirds.

This photo isn't the best. But I love it. I had turned off the camera accidentally while I was digiscoping the hummingbirds. I turned it back on and as I was zooming in, I took a photo--that's why you can see the vignetting around the image. Anyway, as I shot the photo, a goldfinch flew in front of the feeder. Just cracked me up.

Everything BUT An Oriole

So, part of my goal on Saturday was to get some photos of orioles--I really don't have any recent ones. A pair had finally shown up at Mr. Neil's so I thought I would go out, play with his new dog, and put together our comb honey supers (yes, I'm being optimistic for later this summer). I set myself up near the feeding stations to try and get some photos of orioles on the jelly feeder. The rose-breasted grosbeaks were incredibly accommodating. They were not in the least bit shy about all the hammering Non Birding Bill and I were doing. One pair even engaged in some..."marital relations" right on the tray of the copper Aspects feeder--daring!

The goldfinches were very easy shoot as well. This male kept cracking me up--he kept raising his little "crest". I'm not sure what was getting the finches so excited, it's a bit early for them to be nesting, but it was cute.

I have a hummingbird feeder called a HummZinger set up right next to the jelly feeder for the orioles. I decided to just aim the scope on those feeders just in case the orioles finally decided to make an appearance. A male ruby-throated hummingbird came in and lurked at the feeder. He took sips of nectar in between curious glances my way.

It was a glorious day to be outside. Look how the sun hit that hummingbird's ruby throat above--nice! The chorus of birds was unbelievable. A male scarlet tanager flew in and sang above me in an oak tree. I played my birdJam and he flew down, gave me once over and then stayed in the tops of the trees. It was interesting to see how quickly he figured out the song was nothing to be alarmed about--a fake. I wonder if they pick up on recordings being the same timing and phrasing every time?

I played the oriole call, and they didn't respond at all.

In the afternoon I heard one of my all time favorite songs--bobolink! Poor Non Birding Bill was dozing in the grass when I first heard the song. I gasped loudly and yelled at Bill, "Do you hear that?!" He jerked awake and said, "Huh? What's wrong? Where?" He was not as excited as I hoped he'd be at the idea of seeing a bobolink. I snuck over to the field where the song was coming from (and near the beehives) where at least four male bobolinks were singing out a territory battle (almost as choreographed as West Side Story). I managed to get a few photos--nothing great--but proof of the bobolink. I thought to myself, "How is it that I can get a bobolink photo today, but no oriole?" But, I still had time.

When I walked back to my supers, a male pileated woodpecker was on the suet log. I managed to trip over a frame and not scare him off and get a photo. Okay, a pileated photo and no oriole? Mother Nature has GOT to be toying with me.

I set the scope back towards the nectar and jelly feeders and managed to get a few more fun ones of the hummingbird. I love the above shot. He's on his way to chase out another male who wanted a chance at the feeder. I thought that while I was hammering away that I should brush up on my warbler calls. I'm one of the field trip leaders at next week's Detroit Lakes Bird Festival and need to be on my game. I like how the birdJam has a warbler playlist with no narration so I can just let that go and test myself. I had my iPod on my portable speaker and was going through the calls: song--black-throated green, song--blackburnian, song--blackpoll, song--blue-winged...when the next warbler came on, I noticed I could still hear the blue-winged. I turned off the iPod...

...and ten feet above my head was a blue-winged warbler! Let me tell you, it took some pretty fancy maneuvering just to get this shot as I tried to angle the scope straight up. The blue-winged sat there for at least five minutes, completely aloof to my straining below (and I kept the birdJam off the whole time). He was pretty mellow and even tucked up one of his feet in a relaxed position. He eventually flew away and then continued singing his buzzy "bluuuuuu wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing" call below.

So, did I get the oriole photo?

No, just another grosbeak shot. But hey, if I have to miss an oriole, I appreciate the pallet of colors I got from all the other birds on Saturday.

A Spike In Sparrows

And now, a cool titmouse shot:

We are now in the lovely town of Cleveland, OH. We have to go to bed early tonight, someone from the North Coast Nature Festival is picking us up at 4:30 am for two tv segments on WKYC. We're doing two, one at 5:15 am and one at 6:15 am. Oy.

First up, there's been a comment and a couple of private emails that people still had trouble seeing the queen bee, so I added a photo and circled the queen to that entry. Hopefully you can see her in the middle of my wiggly squiggle.

One of the fun things about being out at Mr. Neil's while hiving our colony was watching all the migrants pour in. When I arrived on Tuesday, there were several of the usual suspects singing. The only sparrow I noticed was the song sparrow (above) eating sunflower chips below the feeders.

Wednesday morning, sparrows were everywhere!

Chipping sparrows were flitting around to all the feeders. For the record, I did not fill this feeder. When I'm not around, other people fill them and it makes me chuckle to see where the seeds end up. The blue jays were going crazy trying to figure out how to get access to all the peanuts. The chipping sparrow was more interested in the sunflower chips still available at the bottom feeder port.

This little chipping sparrow kept erecting his cap. His hormones must be in overdrive.

White-throated sparrows had arrived over night. I can never control myself around these guys. I always start whistling they're "oh sweet Canada, Canada Canada" or according to Kaufman "oh sweet, Kimberly, Kimberly, Kimberly" song. I started whistling and then many more in the surrounding bushes started singing. Love those guys.

I did find a lone Lincoln's sparrow mixed in. These are always such a pleasant surprise when they show up at the feeders. I put out some extra millet and sunflower chips for the migrating sparrows, they always put a little more fun in the sea of brown that seems to take over the feeding stations.

Back to the feeder with all the peanuts. As the chipping sparrows moved the sunflower chips out of the way, the titmice came in for the peanuts. This one worked for a good three minutes trying to get that nut out. It flew away and I wondered how long it would take it to chip it away into edible pieces.

Some mixed nuts had been put in some of the other feeders and the red-bellied woodpeckers were working those out. This one managed to pry out a hazelnut. If you closely at this photo, you can almost see the spear that is at the tip of his tongue.

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

This morning I was sipping my coffee and watching the cars in the drive way. I was (and am) exhausted from the week. I was formulating my plan for the day when I noticed what looked like a female goldfinch flitting around my car. At first glance, it looked like she was fighting her reflection going from window to window, but I thought, "Why would a female be fighting her reflection? Isn't it early for goldfinches to be this territorial?" Something did not seem right. The finch moved on to Lorraine's car and she walked in and asked, "Why is that finch on my car?"

Then the coffee kicked in. The "finch " flew over to the finch feeder with the other goldfinches (above). "That's not a finch." I said. Look at the top photo, can you see the "finch imposter" feeding on Nyjer and sunflower chips?

I dashed to get the scope:

The feeder was almost too close for the spotting scope to focus on the bird. Here is the face. It was a pine warbler! I can't believe it, I digiscoped a warbler--barely. I think with the cool weather, this migrant was working extra hard to find insects. My guess is that the warbler was gleaning smashed insects off of our cars and when that wasn't enough decided to go for the sunflower chips--something warblers will eat if they have to.

I tried to get a better shot, but got a butt shot instead. The warbler flitted around from feeder to feeder, someone had mixed in some suet nuggets in some of the feeders and it went for those as well.

I looked over at the suet log and a second pine warbler had flown in. This one went right for the fat. When a downy woodpecker flew in, the warbler flew away and waited for another turn. Mr. Neil's suet log has an arm that sticks out that makes a great perch for waiting birds. This digiscoped shot turned out much better. I thought digiscoping warblers was going to be impossible this spring (I'm no artist like Mike McDowell) but this gives me hope.

Coolest Pileated Woodpecker Post In The History Of This Blog

Holy crap, this is going to be a super cool post! Warning: Gratuitous photos of pileated woodpeckers ahead.

So, today I had a meeting with the Explore Minnesota Tourism folks at Eastman Nature Center in Elm Creek Park (cool stuff that generated from that meeting will pop up in the next few weeks). During a break in the meeting, I went to check their feeders for some digiscoping. At first I just saw the usual suspects: nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, chickadees, etc. The feeders were spread between two rooms. When I walked into the second room, I saw this:

Okay, it may be hard to get an idea of scale with this tree, but that is a large sliver of a lump up there. I knew instantly: a pileated woodpecker. Knowing how cagey these guys can be, I just set the scope up and started to photograph hoping I might get a shot of the head.

Then, the pileated flew over to the window feeders! I was way too close to digiscope, so I took a photo old school style--just through the point and shoot. I went to the back of the room and tried to digiscope.

However, the feeder was swinging violently due to the bird's weight. It was a tall order trying to get the head in the frame and in focus at the same time. I have about 50 blurry and blank photos.

Okay, there's the head, and it's kind of in focus...but the suet feeder is in the way! Although, I did like this shot because if you look at the bottom of the lower mandible you can see it's white. I have never had the opportunity to see that part of pileated, who knew it was white?

Okay, still not quite in focus but I love this because the woodpecker was in mid peck and had its eyelid lowered to protect its eyes. This looks thicker than a nictitating membrane (extra eyelid birds have that is transparent--they use it to protect pupils in flight so dust won't damage it). I'm sure they have some sort of eyelid protection since they chip off such large chunks of bark when pecking.

Whoot! It's in focus, it's not head on, but you can still see the face very well. I like how you can see the crest feathers come together in the back. Kind of reminds me of a kewpie doll.

I couldn't believe how accommodating this bird was. The whole group had gathered in the room to watch at this point. I asked one of the naturalists if the windows were tinted and she said that they are not, these birds are just that used to people. There was also a female flying around, she was eating at the tray feeder. She tried to bump the male from the feeder, but he always won.

She was fairly close to and I was able to get a head shot of her. For those who can't tell the difference between male and female pileated woodpeckers, here is what you need to look for: the female lacks the red mustache and her red crest starts halfway up her head as opposed to right at the bill. I was pretty jazzed about this photo. Finally, a crisp head shot! Double whoot!!

The female started working her way around towards another empty suet feeder. However, instead of flying up to the empty feeder...

She went right underneath us to forage for all the fallen suet chunks! What a treat to look right down on a pileated woodpecker only five feet away! I was so excited, I almost peed my pants. There were still about ten of us in the room and we call crowded around the window.

Here's my buddy Carrol Henderson taking a photo of her. It's not uncommon to see pileateds on the ground, they do forage a bit, not quite as much as northern flickers, but they do know how to dig around old fallen snags for juicy bugs.

The male didn't stray too far away. When he was finished at the other suet feeder, he flew to a tree to keep an eye on the female. My goodness, were we watching a pileated lunch date? Boy, if things keep going this well, he'll be at third base in no time.

Eventually, the birds flew off and we had to finish the rest of the meeting. Sigh.

The naturalists told us about a barred owl nest right along one of the trails. While we were finishing our meeting, I saw Sue who volunteers with me at The Raptor Center walk by the outside window. I flagged her down to say hi. She was going to look for the nest, so I told her to let me know if she found it on her way back. Five minutes later she walked past the window and gave a thumbs up--she saw the owl. Afterwards we went to look for it, we found the nest hole, but she was hunkered down for the day doing some hard incubating. Now quite what I was hoping for, but after the pileated show how can I really complain?

One last thing, we did find a disapproving jack rabbit at Eastman Nature Center. Apparently, he didn't approve of being stuffed.

Assembling the Hives

I'm starting this entry with the tufted titmouse photo above. Non Birding Bill really liked it (that's sayin' something). I set some mixed nuts in a tray of one of Mr. Neil's feeders and EVERYBODY flew in right away. The titmouse is contemplating the large Brazil nut. Look at the size of that food morsel! Alas, it is way to heavy for this mere titmouse to carry away in flight.

Today we decided to assemble our bee hives. The bees won't ship until late next month but that gives us plenty of time to prepare for their arrival. This gives me time to order anything that I discover is missing after assembly.

We were told that we are supposed to name our hives (with women's names) so NBB put together Olga...

While I put together Miss Kitty. Some readers my recall that I was thinking of using screws, but thanks to Old Drone's assurances we went with nailing the hives together and he was right, it was easy. The wood was soft and many of the nails were small so I didn't have much chance to smash my fingers.

We had to put everything together: the boxes, the floor, the top, the individual frames where the bees will build the comb for larvae and honey--ten frames for each box! It was tiring. The wax in each frame is there to encourage the bees to build their comb in an easy to access form so I can check the hive and partake of the honey.

Between frames I did sneak away to watch the birds...

The juncos sure were frisky. Lots of chirping and chasing while feeding. You could see pin feathers on some of them, I'm sure molting in fresh feathers for the breeding season was bringing on a surge of hormones in them. I enjoy their mechanical twitters in early, early spring.

"Ugh, I don't know if I'm in the mood for that much nut."

Another bird flies in to contemplate the Brazil nut. This black-capped chickadee gave it some serious thought, but instead went for half a pecan. A hairy woodpecker ended up flying away with the large prize nut.

We did finish both of our hives, and after assembly I realized that our starter kit only came with two brood boxes for each hive. The class that I took recommended that for over wintering bees in northern states that I should have a third brood box for each hive, so looks like I'll be doing a little ordering this week.

I have to admit, I was really not looking forward to assembling these, fearing it would be really complicated. I think this stems from having to assemble aluminum purple martin houses at the bird store. I hated those things! Don't get me wrong, I think aluminum martin houses can work well to attract martins, but assembling them is about as fun as stubbing all ten toes. You have to follow the directions EXACTLY and if you get something wrong at step five, you won't notice until step 487 when the roof won't line up with the box--and you have to take it apart and start over. Whereas with a bee hive, if you make a mistake or split the wood--the bees will just fill it with propolis.

Ah, martin house assembly is coming back to me now...ahhhh....I would always try to tell customers that it was important for them to assemble their own martin house so they could truly understand it and I also would lie and say how much fun it is to put together on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Putting the hive together was much more simple and quite pleasant and I'm looking forward to assembling the third brood boxes.

Incidentally, if you're thinking of getting a purple martin house, get the plastic gourds, they are usually cheaper, are easy to snap together (if not already assembled at purchase), are more resistant to predators and save bird store employees (and you) hours of assembly grief.

Me Want Spring Now!

"Dude, hold your horses, I'm molting as fast as I can!"

Note all the little pin feathers on this goldfinch's head--it's going full force for the breeding plumage--sign of spring.

Holy Mackerel! When I came home from beekeeping class followed by a Hera concert (loves me some Icelandic folk music) I found tons of messages on the Minnesota bird listserv on signs of spring--especially early migrants. People are seeing meadowlarks, killdeer, bluebirds and...brace yourself...grackles! Yo, if you are not keen on grackles and you want to try and avoid them, now is a good time to start switching one of your feeders to all safflower to give the other birds a chance to acclimate to it.

Today we learned about honey and wax extraction in beekeeping class. Yum. I also learned that among the beekeeping community "raw" is a four letter word when used in advertised honey. I have mentioned before that I am a fan of Really Raw Honey. Many in the bee keeping world aren't too pleased with honey being called advertised as raw, because all honey is raw. Also, there is some resentment that honey with visible wax, propolis, bee parts, etc. being advertised as raw and charged a premium is selling poorly filtered honey at an outrageous price. I don't care about the "raw" issue, I just really like the way Really Raw Honey tastes--it doesn't have that weird after taste that you find with liquid honey. I also really like the thick, creamy consistency of Really Raw Honey and wanted to know how to encourage my bees to create a thick honey. Apparently, it has to do more with the types of flowers than any kind of processing. One of the instructors told me that the bottom line is that the honey that comes from my own hives will taste better than any other honey I ever purchase because I helped create it. Makes sense.

This whole bee thing is fascinating. They are not native to North America, they were introduced. They evolved for pollinating Europe and Africa. We have hummingbirds in North and South America for our pollinating which they don't have in Europe in Africa. Honey bees really like to pollinate exotic plants (plants geared and evolved for attracting insect pollinators like bees) and that can be a problem. I actually found places on the Internet advertising Loosestrife Honey. If you don't know the woes of Purple Loosestrife, read about it here. We go to great lengths to cultivate the non native honey bee because it is an important part of our economy--it is illegal to set up a hive without arranging the frames in just the right way in order to prevent the spread of diseases. Coming from a birding background where non natives tend to be bad news, this whole bee attitude kind of throws me for a small loop. Imagine of house sparrows and starlings produced some kind of sweet edible liquid...

At any rate, I have my certificate and feel ready for the challenge of beekeeping this spring and summer. If you are remotely interested in beekeeping, I highly recommend the University of Minnesota's short course on beekeeping. The class had about 100 people and they were from as far as Vermont to take part. They do a good job of walking you through your first year and give you some great literature to get you started. I can't wait until the end of April when we get our two packages of bees!