Birdchick Blog
A 22 year old female osprey returns for nesting season.
There's a great blue heron cam!
Pelicans growing at an alarming rate!
An ABA post on the agony of bird taxonomy changes. Though and April Fools prank, I'm sure some of the lamentation of listing birders is real.
And finally:
But the best part of this video is the reaction some birders had.
Cornell wants you to vote on the names for the male hawk on their live cam. I'd encourage you to write in a name. BirdsEyeLog finally came out with their app for iPhone that allows you enter bird sightings in the field. It's currently only $9.99 but will go up to $14.99 soon, get it now. It's also available for Android.
Are you seeing hummingbirds, the internet thinks it's up for debate.
Speaking of controversy...The American Birding Association is going all Exlax by starting to some stuff and discussing app and phone etiquette in the field.
There's a salmonella alert going on in Oregon, an excellent remind to one and all to clean your bird feeders!
Dueling press releases! The Department of the Interior has released new voluntary guidelines for wind farm developers to minimize the chance of killing birds. National Audubon Society says, yay while the American Bird Conservancy says boo. Can't we meet in the middle somehow?
It's that special time of year when male birds fight their reflections. There's no easy solution to this apart from covering up the offending window (on the outside) for a few days.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a live red-tailed hawk cam, check it out!
Remember the whole Scott's Wild Bird Food fine? GrrlScientist gives an in depth report and Wild Bird Marketing suggests it might be overblown. Who to believe?
Bird Proof Gel, Bird X, Bird Off Gel and Tangle Foot type bird repellents are dangerous to native birds.
Experimental nest tubes are supposed to be bluebird and swallow friendly but keep starlings out.
Incredibly mild winter leads to interesting sightings from this year's Great Backyard Bird Count. You can read the full newsletter here.
10,000 Birds asks if people actually go birding when drunk...I see a videocast experiment coming. Perhaps something along the lines of my favorite YouTube Channel: My Drunk Kitchen?
We really only talked about sandhill cranes and these crazy pictures of a black vulture getting a little too friendly with a crested caracara.
How did we get here to the 100th Podcast? Thank you for listening! Someone in the New York Daily News was really excited to use the phrase "vomit bird" in a headline.
Community upset about vultures roosting in their neighborhood and running amok. The reporter calls them turkey vultures but they sure look like black vultures to me.
In other vulture news researchers say vultures are changing the way we should age dead bodies left in the wild.
It was so sweet the way The Monitor wrote up about the awesome webcam at the Sabal Palm Sanctuary...too bad they didn't link to it. Don't worry, I will. Check it out here (you might see a green jay live). Tho all we've seen is at night and it's full of raccoons:
Birds are found dead on the University of Central Florida (migrating birds hitting windows). I almost ignored the story apart from this guy, Adam Hull and what does he have to say about it? "Birds are known to do that. They're kind of stupid." I'm guessing he's not a biology major...and looks to have a promising career in establishing guidelines for the TSA.
For those with two brain cells to rub together this a good reminder that it's migration and time for Lights Out. Learn more at FLAP.
Remember last summer when some Minnesota farmer claimed he snapped and destroyed a pelican colony with thousands of chicks? He actually got a large fine for doing it. Across the pond, Matthew Gonshaw who specializes in stealing wild bird eggs for his personal (and highly illegal) collection has been banned from visiting Scotland for 10 years.
FINALLY, the red knot has been put on the Endangered Species List for the State of New Jersey. It's not perfect, it's needs surrounding states to do the same and it needs to be on the Federal list. The population for this birds has fallen 90% in the last 2 decades going from 100,000 to 15,000...because of over harvesting of horseshoe crab eggs for fishing bait.
Artist Enrique Gomez De Molina charged in trafficking highly illegal birds to create his amazing artwork. He is claiming vigorously that he didn't know, but his email would indicate otherwise. This is the video we reference in the podcast and this is the reason why people LOVE slow loris.
In a similar story, there's a quandary over what to do with a late art collector's piece from Robert Raushenberg which features a VERY illegal bald eagle as part of it. Since it is so illegal to have a stuffed eagle and the sculpture was created after the Migratory Bird Treat and Bald and Golden Eagle Act it was valued at $0 in the estate's tax return. But because the IRS is aware of the artist's fame and that the piece could be sold on the black market illegally for a lot of money, they say it's $65 million.
You can find Sugar Bean Ice Cream on Twitter.
You can find Ken Plume singing on A Site Called Fred!
A snowy owl found its way into the Jefferson North Assembly Plant on the lower east side of Detroit. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources tries to lay some of the blame on geese for keeping lakes open and snow mobile riders falling into lakes...rather than say, "You know, there were warnings and common sense with this year's weather should have told you to stay off of lakes."
Shorebirds use their hairy tongues to slurp up tasty, tasty biofilm.
It's the Great Backyard Bird Count this weekend. Please count some birds in your backyard. Please. We were guests on someone else's podcast, Ken Plume's Bit of Chat...listen at your own risk...I apparently call myself the Han Solo of Birding and I might even rap. Yeah, I'm apologizing now.
What? A guy shoots a bald eagle and gets jail time!
Kidnapped birders still missing in the Philippines.
Mallard helps another mallard trapped in six pack holder...was it an accident or was he making the move on her?
Note: sorry about the mix-up. The podcast is active now.
Warning, this podcast has a joke that's a little blue. If you listen with kids you may have to explain some metaphors/similes of human anatomy. I blogged earlier that there's an interesting trend this winter of birders taking photos and videos of people ignoring signgs and getting way too close to snowy owls this winter and posting them online. Is this the best way to police ourselves?
Speaking of getting too close too close to snowy owls, NA Birding has an AMAZEBALLS blog post about a peregrine falcon and snowy owl encounter. If you do nothing else today, go to that blog, read it and be wowed by the great photos. One of the photos is begging to be part of the meme Come At Me, Bro.
And since we're showing photos, here's one everyone sent me last week:
Oh and for those who wondered what happened to the Hey Girl I made for American Birding Association president, it was taken down for being to racy so I'll post it here.
And finally, The Birdest doesn't want any of these emails to show up on his birding listserve...because it's too hard to hit a delete key.
I've heard this story in rumor but here's an official report: The first Snowy Owl recorded in ever in Hawaii was shot at the Honolulu Airport by a USDA official. From the article: Dan Meisenzahl told Civil Beat, "USDA officials “really are the unsung heros. Nobody hears about those guys until something like this happens. It’s just a real shame. They do an outstanding job and unfortunately they were put in a position where there were no easy answers. I can’t tell you with what a heavy heart this happened.”
Apparently, using Google for info on how to deal with snowy owls was too much of an effort for the USDA to go through.
In other news, we've had a snowy owl hanging out at the Minnesota Twins stadium and remarkably...no one has shot it yet. It's a pretty cool video staff got from the various cams around the stadium.
If you are interested in owls that are not snowy owls...there are great horned owls in New York! OMG!
In non owl news the Whooping Cranes have had a rough migration and will finish it via truck rather than ultra light.
