Upper Rio Grande

This quick and dirty blog entry is brought to you care of Leica. For some reason, I can only pick up a wireless signal at their booth--a clever plan to get people to come over and look at their optics.

Today was an AWESOME day--lots of new life birds for me. I was worried about heat, but we birded in the morning and it was cool and foggy along the Rio Grande River. The river is very swollen, they've had 40 inches of rain in the last six weeks. It was foggy and I loved seeing neotropic cormorants (above) and ringed kingfishers (they're HUGE) and green kingfishers (they're so tiny)!

We stopped at a trailer park to see an elusive brown jay that visits feeders there. No brown jay, but oodles of great-tailed grackles. For all those people who think they have it bad with common grackles, don't complain--great-tailed are MUCH bigger and MUCH noisier. One was feeding at a tray feeder and about a dozen house sparrows landed around it. The great-tailed hopped in the air and spooked all the sparrows away. So, they are good house sparrow control but only if you only want to have great-taileds at the feeder.

Eventually the sun did come out and I was amazed at how well all the birder khaki blended in with the sandy landscape. I did get some intriguing bug photos, which I will post later.

Side Note - Cinnamon, you are the best rabbit ever and I love you. You'll be getting a huge carrot top when I get home...and stay out of the kitchen.

I'm running into lots of Minnesota people here. One is Kim Eckert (one of the few Minnesota birders who doesn't have a blog).

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Well, I made it to the Rio Grande Valley. Today was just going my way. It wasn't too cold so I was able to go with my plan of wearing a skirt with some tights and sensible shoes and then as soon as I hit Houston, TX I went to powder my nose and ditched my tights and sensible shoes and put on some sandals. As soon as the plane landed in McAllen, TX I grabbed all my luggage got my rental car (and got upgraded free to a minivan WHOOT!--I LOVE driving minivans--police tend to ignore them and who wants to steal a minivan and go joyriding?) and I got a ton of work done on the Minnesota River Guide on the plane.

I followed Bouton's helpful instructions to the northern jacana and found it right away--as well as a whole gaggle of birders I know (Bouton's photos are better than mine). As more and more people arrived from the airports to get the jacana before checking in, it was almost like cheers: "Jess!", "Terry!", "Birdchick!". The bird put on quite a show, lifting it's wings to see the yellow primaries and secondaries, lifting it's giant feet, showing it's super cool wing spurs. Someone told me they could hear me squealing from the other side of the marsh. Terry from Leica casually pointed out an anhinga flying over head and I casually observed a new life bird.

I have always wondered what it would be like to be a hardcore ticker--someone who hops a flight to get a life bird, sees it and leaves after five minutes. That was almost me today. After watching the jacana put on quite a show I had to leave, my body was not adjusting well to going from 40 degree weather to 88 degrees--sweat was literally everywhere on me.

I love being in such a different habitat. Instead of red-tails on telephone poles, it's Harris hawks, instead of blue jays all over, it's kiskadees--I love this bird festival! It's awesome and if you only go to one festival in your life, make it this one.

I did have a close encounter with danger today. While walking towards the jacana with a group we heard loud buzzing and saw a loose swarm of bees moving fast over our heads. Someone warned, "Don't look up and move swiftly the other way!"

"Are those what I think they are?" I asked.

"Yep, Africanized honey bees."

Eep! I hope that the last I report on those this trip. I like adventure as much as the next gal, but it can be kept to a minimum.

Crap, my power is running out. More later.

ABA Autographs

I'm apologizing for typos up front, I'm stealing wireless at a hotel near Mom's house and must be quick. I have the go ahead for the vendormart updates and those will start on Monday. I did find a company that makes these intriguing bird whistles, including a whistle for a great tit. They got nervous when I wanted to take a photo and didn't like the idea of me putting in the blog but I'll work on them some more tomorrow. I think I may have come off a little strong when critiquing the authenticity of some of their North American bird calls. Curse me and my overwhelming need to correct bird inaccuracy. It can prevent me from making friends.

I am having a great time meeting bird owners from around the country. I'm keeping tabs on names and states. There are a few owners that I've talked to that I can see just have the spark and knack for running great stores and want to check them out when my travels bring them my way.

That's our Vortex crew at the ABA Convention. We have from left Bruce Mercer, Don Stokes, Lillian Stokes, me and some excited customers trying out the Stokes line of binoculars.

I am often asked what are the best bird festivals to go to. The answer depends on many factors and I have a top five that I recommend, one being an ABA Convention. I admire the folks that run the ABA. A festival in the same town year after year is tough enough to pull off. But doing a festival in a different city and state every year is a monumental challenge. Do things go wrong on an ABA convention? Yes, sometimes they do, but the staff is very responsive and dedicated to giving participants all the bang for the buck that they can. If you are looking for great birds and top guides this is the place to go. You get some of the best local and international guides on these trips and they work and bend over backwards to get you the birds. It’s also the best place to network and meet well known authors and artists. If anyone is remotely planning on trying to get a job in the birding industry (birding not bird feeding, there is a difference) this is the place to make your presence known.

There were twenty-five bird authors at the ABA all set up at a big table for autographs! That's a lotta writers crammed into one room. Here we have Steve Howell who helped illustrate the Pyle book I was so excited about (and also gave me a shearwater head) and on the right is that big hunk of burnin' author of bird song, Don Kroodsma.

Here was another fun quote overheard at the convention: "Hey Lillian, you get him from the front and I'll get him from the back!" That was me shouting as I was grabbing a photo of the two of them. I have to say, I had a fun dinner with the Stokes during the convention. Of course, it's not hard to have a good time when lobster and a few beers are involved, but I discovered that we have something in common--we all like scotch--particularly 18 year old Glenfiddich! They already had cool points in my book, but that certainly advanced them several notches.

Here's Jan Pierson on the left laughing it up with Doug "he's really not a" Pratt. Jan went out with the karaoke posse, he didn't sing but lended lots of moral support. Poor Jan! The first time I met him, I think I came off a little crazed. It was during the part of the convention when I didn't have my chord for my Powerbook. That night he was supposed to give a Powerpoint presentation and I saw he had a Powerbook. I made a beeline for his dinner table and completely interrupted his conversation to beg to use his chord. He of course needed it for his presentation and I tried in vain to negotiate using it just during mealtime. I'm sure I came off as deranged as Elaine from Seinfeld when she was asking a lady in a fellow bathroom stahl if she could "spare a square".

Now, here's something interesting. All the authors were at one giant U shaped table setup, except for Pete Dunne (above). He had his own table. Does this mean Pete can't play nice? Or does it mean that he smells bad? No, this prolific guy has two new books out, one is his Essential Field Guide and the other is The Art of Pishing (a note to non birders, that book is not about wee, but about making a pish sound with your mouth to attract birds). Because Pete had two new books his table was extra busy and that was why he was separated, I've met him and I can say with authority he can be quite nice and smells pretty good.

ABA in the News

Yesterday on our field trip we were followed by a film crew from WGME. That's one of our field trip leaders, Steve Howell using a field guide to show Amy Sinclair and the camera man some of the birds we were seeing on the trip. Amy was wearing some, shall we say "antique" binoculars. I couldn't stand it and loaned her my 8x42 DLSs. I even put my harness on her so she could see how comfortable binoculars can be. She was really impressed with how well she could see through them. Perhaps we have converted her to birding? You can watch the segment here, just look for and click on "watch streaming video".

She came with us on a great day, people were getting their 500th or 600th bird. I loved finally being able to see the adorable piping plover (above) and we saw two unusual terns, an elegant tern and a gull-billed tern. Thanks, Amy for putting birds and birders in the news!

I owe Steve a huge debt of thanks. We found a dead sooty shearwater on the beach (above). Steve was having trouble getting his macro function to work on his camera and since I love taking photos of dead stuff, I was happy to oblige. This is a tough enough bird to see out on a boat in the middle of the ocean. You just don't get a chance to appreciate a shearwater in the hand very often. You can really see that tube nose and fabulous hooked bill.

The wings of the shearwater are very long and thin, perfect for it to fly right above the waves on the ocean. I have to mention that while I was taking all these photos and posing the bird, a little boy was hovering nearby. His mother saw it and said, "Don't touch, you shouldn't touch dead things." Of course, here I am with Steve doing everything but kissing the bird. You could see the little boy was barely able to keep himself from touching it and asking his mom why we were touching it. The mom couldn't come up with a good answer and probably suspected Steve and I were nuts and shooed the boy back to their spot on the beach.

Being an expert on seabirds, Steve opened the shearwater's mouth and showed us the jagged edges on the tongue and on the upper part of its mouth that are used to push slippery fish down into its crop. I was lamenting that I wanted the head for my collection of bird parts. Since I was kind enough to take photos for Steve, he was kind enough to release the head from its body and now I have a shearwater drying out in my room. Should be interesting getting that past airport security this weekend.

Wednesday at the ABA

Since this is a bird blog, we need a bird photo. This is a chestnut-sided warbler digiscoped at Acadia. Sweet bird!

The really nice thing about American Birding Association Conventions is that you have field trips one day and workshops the next. It's nice, you don't have to worry if you're field trip bus is coming back late and you might miss a workshop. You can also run yourself totally ragged watching birds on the field trip day and then be laid back on the non field trip days. On workshop days I stay in the booth to help customers and today WildBird on the Fly at the Vortex booth joined me.

We got to meet the ABA Youth Birder of the Year, and for the life of me I can't remember his name, but he's a great young enthusiastic guy. That's Scott Cronenweth a Maine birding guide with him on the right.

I've been keeping tabs on interesting quotes we've have heard from people walking by the booth today. Here are the top five:

1. "I literally stepped into the shower with all the binoculars around my neck and then stood under the water. They were fine."

2. "Ugh. It's all coming back...this is why I said never again to a pelagic trip...(barf)"

3. "I was peeing when they found the boreal chickadee."

4. "Oh yeah, that's my future wife walkin' around over there."

5. "This is a birder's chance to mate. This convention is basically one big lek, now dance, prairie chicken, dance."

I have spent way too much money this week. I scored some great books, one being a field guide to birds of China that I have found in used bookstores. I've seen this book going for as much as $80 and I got this one for only $35. Score! The other book I was excited about was the Peter Pyle book, Identification Book of North American Birds. It's all about how to identify birds in the hand when you band them. It even teaches you how to age and sex chickadees, something you can only do in the hand. Here' s a quote from the book about eastern phoebes:

Skull--Pneumaticization completes in HY/SY from 15 Sept. Some SYs (and ASYs?) can retain windows at the rear of the skull through spring or summer.

Oh yeah, that's my kind of book! Seriously, that sentence is describing the development of air cells in bones at certain ages of the eastern phoebe. It mostly happens in the first and second year of the bird, usually by September 15.

Our booth is very popular, we have lens pens that we are selling through the ABA gift shop which can be a life saver when you are on the beach or pelagic trip and keep your glass nice and clear.

Round about three o'clock, I was needing a second wind. I was lamenting to WildBird on the Fly how much I could really use a cup of coffee. Then before I knew it, Rusty Harold (pictured above on the right) one of the convention participants walked by with a box of Dunkin' Donuts Coffee--it's really good coffee. He was kind enough to share it with me. Not only is this guy a software genius, but he's helpful to those in need of a caffeine fix. I was so grateful to him; it helped me get through the rest of the day. That coffee at 3pm is the second most important cup of the day!

At the end of the day, Amy and I went out with the Leica folks for some local lobsters. We had a great time sharing stories and spraying each other with hot lobster juice. I don't care how much finishing school you go through, there just isn't a graceful way to eat a lobster.

I got to spend some time with Bill Schmoker (pictured above). I was so glad to meet him, since I periodically link to some of his awesome photos in this blog. He looks much younger than I imagined him and I was surprised to learn that he is a middle school science teacher. I was so shocked, when I was in middle school the science teachers weren't cool at all, so Bill is a surprise.
While eating our lobster, Jeff Gordon (pictured above)--ever the naturalist and gourmand gave us a natural history lesson on how to sex our lobsters. I was pleased to discover with Jeff's coaching that I was eating both a male and a female lobster. Bill Schmoker was REALLY lucky, his female lobster was full of roe.

Tonight a group of us decided to catch up on some work at the lounge in our hotel. There were quite a few locals hangin' out. When we arrived the bartender excitedly asked us to show them the video clip of Richard Attenborough's Lyrebird from the Life of Birds series (if Birding is Not a Crime has already shown this, I apologize). Amy got this photo of me showing them the clip. The whole bar was silenced and entranced as they watched this incredible bird mimic not only other birds, but camera shutters, car alarms and chainsaws. If you have never seen the clip, watch the whole thing. It will blow your socks off. The bartender had seen all fo us birders watching it the night before and thought it was totally cool. She also looked at some digiscoped photos and was impressed by those. It wouldn't surprise me if we covert her to birding by the end of the week.

At the moment we are all awaiting the arrival of Bill of the Birds. He was supposed to be in around 9:30pm, but we've been tracking his flight delays. The last we checked, he was on a flight that was to leave at 9:44pm but according to the airline's website was still waiting on the tarmac. Poor guy. We're rooting for you Bill, hang in there.

Now, it's off to bed, tomorrow brings another field trip. It is a fun part of the job but its still work. I'm not just there to have a good time, I bring along some of our optics for people to use and test out. Even if you are not an official field trip leader you do end up helping id birds on these trips. I wasn't much help with the pelagic trip since I'm such a Midwesterner but tomorrow, the birds are more my speed.

Chum Chuminy Chum Chum Churry

Today was a triumph of the human spirit on many levels. First, I had to meet my field trip group at 3:30 am. That's not a typo folks, that is 3:30 in the am. I don't know how, but I managed to get my stuff together to meet the field trip.

When I met up with the group, I was reminded of a flock of blackbirds coming to roost. The hotel situation in Bangor, ME is a little wonky; we're spread out over three different hotels, and for some reason I'm at the hotel with all the field trip leaders and not participants/exhibitors, so I have to take a shuttle bus to meet the buses that take us on the field trips. When the shuttle bus arrived with all of us, there were about 250 birders waiting in that hotel parking lot. Our crowd joined them and we began milling about trying to figure how who was going on what bus.

Then, just like someone tossed out a peanut butter suet cake to a flock a starlings, someone opened up the breakfast boxes too early. The original plan was that we were to get our boxed breakfasts as we boarded our respective buses, but there appeared to be some sort of bus snafu going on. I'm not sure if someone in charge just left the breakfast boxes unattended and people started going for them or if someone in charge was worried the crowd was getting ugly and decided to throw food at us as a last means of defense.

Once we finally got on the road, things seemed to have calmed down. However, the adventure was just beginning. The sea was angry that day, my friends! I learned later on that our boat was the only one allowed on the water, the swells were six to eight feet and our tour group felt it. I would say that at least half the participants ended up barfing at some point from motion sickness. I don't know how I escaped it, I used a combination of Dramamine, ginger ale, oyster crackers, wristbands and focused on a fixed point on the horizon when I wasn't watching birds. I felt that I won the battle of the bilge. It wasn't easy, especially when they started chumming.

For those who don't know, chumming is tossing in smelly fish stuff to attract sea birds that have a terrific sense of smell. Our chum consisted of fish oil mixed with popcorn (the popcorn helps keep the oil at the surface of the water) and chunks of fish. Shearwaters and storm-petrels came right in.

The second floor of the boat was loaded with everyone who was feeling a tad queasy. I did find these two towards the end of the trip. They looked exhausted, happy about the birds they had seen and a tad in love...awwwwww.

I had a day I haven't had in ages! I got 13 life birds on one trip, I've never been on an eastern pelagic so it was easy to rack 'em up. So many birds were being seen in different directions, I didn't know which one to look at first. Behind me was a gannet, to the right of me was a shearwater and to the left was a razorbill. AAAAARGH! Sensory overload.

Needless to say that in high swells, getting photos of the birds is challenging to say the least. Okay, this isn't anything to write home about, but the above photos is a souvenier to remember puffins and razorbills.

Here are a couple of razorbills flying by. I really enjoyed those birds more than I thought I would. I was ready to go away from this trip with puffins being my favorite birds, but I couldn't take my binos off of the razors.

It was a great day of birding, well worth the early morning rising. One thing about ABA trips, you get your money's worth with birds. The trip leaders are generally top notch and often there are so many leaders on one trip, you can pick the personality you're most comfortable with and hang with them for the day. I chose Jim Danzenbaker, not only because he's a great birder, but because he had a whole Richard Dreyfuss look (from the Jaws movie era) going on. After returning from the trip at 3:30 pm (12 hours after we started) I headed to the vendor area that was opening up at 4pm to work the binocular booth until the banquet at 6pm. Am I bushed? You betcha. Was it a great day? Totally. Did it make up for the Legionnaire incident? So, so very much!

I Got The Power

Thanks to Non Birding Bill and his mad shipping skills, I have a power chord for my Mac. Insert huge sigh of relief. Of course, now that I have it, many birders with Macs are arriving to the ABA Convention. Ah, life.

Now a bunch of us birders are kickin' it in the hotel lounge swapping bird stories. There are at least three bloggers here: Me, Wild Bird on the Fly, and JeffGyr. Word on the street is that Bill of the Birds is arriving tomorrow so the convention should be well covered on the bird blogs.

It's Good To Be The Bird Chick

I'm getting some great swag from the ABA Convention. When I checked in at registration I got a new bag (I'm sure Cinnamon will fit in this one too), a note pad in a waterproof cover, a puffin pin, a new name badge with pockets and a local shorebird guide.

I also got an advance reading copy of Julie's upcoming book Letters from Eden courtesy of the Houghton Mifflin booth. I'm really having to force myself to work and not read it. That totally makes up for all that went wrong yesterday!

If you're wondering if the book as cool as you think it is...yes! It's good to be the birdchick (okay, I'm done referring to myself in the third person now).

Yikes! Just realized that I am on an 11 hour pelagic field trip tomorrow before working the binocular booth. Vomit city, here I come! I should really rack up some life birds on this. I'm severely lacking sea birds.

Early ABA Report

I have maintained that the Utah landscape just isn’t ugly. Maine is giving Utah a run for its money. Doesn't the above photo just make you want to break out into Barry Manilow's Weekend in New England? Okay, the start to the ABA Convention his still a little wonky for me. Apparently, we had the hottest day in Maine in recent memory—it was 90 degrees yesterday and the Civic Center wasn’t prepared for that kind heat, so the air conditioning didn’t get kicked on in time. My boxes weren’t at the Civic Center for set up, because they were clearing out the Legionnaires' stuff (those guys are just causing problems all over the place). And one top of that, the power chord for my G4 broke and no one in nearby Maine carries Mac products and the soonest I can get one is on Tuesday. Blog entries may not be as frequent until I get the power adaptor.

I won’t be a complete whiny pants, my optimistic nature is kicking in. Even if the Legionnaire’s hadn’t caused a gum up with boxes being brought over, it would have been too hot to function in the Civic Center, so that was kind of good. And my power adaptor broke right where it connects to the Powerbook, at least it didn’t get stuck inside. I’ve also had some iPod issues the last week and the wonderful folks at birdPod are helping me out until I get my warranty repair squared away—they do have GREAT customer service. The birdPod program I'm using this week is different than the one I have--this one has photos. When I get more power for the computer, I'll describe it in more detail. It's pretty nifty.

Since set up couldn’t happen, I spent time at Acadia National Park. I did get two new birds yesterday! This funky looking duck: a common eider (that's the male on the left and if you look close in front of herring gull you should see three females laying ont the vegetation) and a black guillemot. Sweet! Acadia is a beautiful park, but I must say that places like North Dakota, Utah and northern Minnesota have completely spoiled me rotten. I'm so used to being the only person around. Acadia was jam packed with people on Sunday, and that irritated me. Didn’t they know that I wanted to listen to all those black-throated green warblers in peace? If I ever do that park again, it will be on a weekday. It reminded me so much of Duluth, only instead of having Lake Superior, it has the Atlantic Ocean. Could this view get any better? It actually did, while I was taking it in, I heard the call of a wood thrush echoing up followed periodically by a winter wren. Nice.

This is a cliff with a peregrine falcon aerie. Some of the young birds were fledging that day. They are in the photo, just so high up, you can't see them. Really, trust me, they are there.

Not much to report gossip wise yet—although, during dinner at a fine establishment called Captain Nick’s I noticed two birders sit at a table diagonally behind us. One of them had a shirt that showed a trogon—that’s how I knew it was a birder. Mr. Trogon Shirt was trying to get his paper wrapping off his straw. He kept blowing and blowing but the paper wouldn’t budge. He finally blew with all his might and it sailed off the straw and narrowly missed hitting a boy in the back of the head at a neighboring table. He and his dinner companion giggled and he looked to see if anyone noticed. He caught my eye and I gave him a thumbs up.

Bangor off to a Bang!

It's been an odd 24 hours.

Things started off with a bang yesterday at Carpenter Nature Center. We got in a male yellow warbler. I never realized just how yellow they are, even their toes are yellow. Hm, one of the few birds that actually matches the name ornithologists gave it. I wonder if that was a mistake? It's a bird. It's a warbler. It's yellow. Hm, if only they could have applied that logic to red-bellied woodpeckers.

We later got in a male rose-breasted grosbeak. Doesn't he look kind of...evil? Look at those eyes, that bird looks remarkably pissed off considering it doesn't have the protruding supraorbital ridge hawks have. Granted, I don't blame the birds for being irritated when being banded. After all, they don't know what the heck is going on, that we're doing this to track them and help them.

You'll note in this photo, we aren't holding the grosbeak like we do the other birds post banding. It's too dangerous with a grosbeak. Look at the size of that bill. They are huge (hence the name grosbeak, gros is French for fat). That bill is meant to crack open hard shells on seeds, but can also act as a great slicer of flesh when the need calls. So this is the best look we can get of a grosbeak in the hand without drawing blood. Even when you let grosbeaks go, you have to give them a toss. If you just open your hand, they will sometimes turn around and bite before they take off.

After the banding, I tied up all my last projects at The Raptor Center and drove home to pack. I could see rain was coming but didn't realize how bad it was going to get.

This is 35w right in the heart of Minneapolis going into hwy 94. Traffic is at a standstill because of nickel-sized hail that was falling down--right at rush hour. I stayed there for about 10 minutes. Non Birding Bill called to see how I was and as I was talking to him he and his friend just encountered half a tree laying in the middle of the road where they were. Flash flooding was all over the place, but I eventually made it home in one piece, as did NBB.

"Wait, what do you mean I'm not coming?"

As I was packing last night, Cinnamon decided to help. She didn't understand that she wasn't coming on this trip. She greatly disapproved. It wasn't pretty and no amount of parsley could contain her.

I'm now in Maine and getting ready to go to sleep to prepare for the week. Some birders are here, but currently the hotel is overrun with Legionnaires. Tonight I was in the elevator going to meet a friend for dinner. We stopped on the third floor and about ten Legionnaires loaded on to the tiny elevator. I don't do well in cramped spaces but figured we only had tree floors to go so I pressed against the back wall. Two Legionnaires well past their 60s were right in front of me. Suddenly, I felt something. I looked down and one of the older gents was patting my thigh! I thought it was a mistake but the patting continued and proceeded to go higher. So I said as loudly as I could without yelling, "Hand check!" All eyes turned in our direction.

The older gent turned in surprise, apologized and said, "I'm sorry, I thought you were a wall." Now, I love the idea of having rock solid thighs, but in reality, they are quite soft. What kind of walls was this guy used to? Padded?

I smiled and said, "I've heard about you Legionnaires. Now, hands off the display case." He removed his hand (remarkably with all his fingers intact). I couldn't get off that elevator fast enough. I better get some really good life birds on this trip.