Artificial Heron Rookery

Not long after the North Mississipppi heron rookery was destroyed, there was talk of building an artificial rookery to get them to come back.  Now that the herons seemed to have settled on other islands, the situation isn't as dire--they found plenty other nesting opportunities.  However, if an area is missing good nesting sites for herons, it is possible to create it.  Here's an example of one in Utah at Farmington Bay WMA in Utah (thanks to Facebook, I have to work really hard not to calling Farmville WMA):

Heron nesting sites can disappear for a variety of reasons. Accumulation of heron fecal material can kill off vegetation or even the trees the birds use for nesting.  I think the trees and vegetation on the river islands stay in tact because of annual flooding, the river rises and the waters swamp this island washing a lot of the collected poop away.  But I've been to other areas that aren't prone to flooding and gradually, the vegetation dies.  After several seasons, storms or general wear and tear can cause the dead trees to fall.  Or maybe there aren't any trees there to begin with.

If nesting trees aren't available and the number of herons decreases then fake trees can be added.  Woodworking for Wildlife offers plans and info on how to build them and I've been to at least 2 places (this year alone) where fake rookeries have been readily used by herons.  Now, you can't just put up some poles at a pond and expect herons to use it.  Before you put it up or before you put up any bird house habitat try to think about the species you are trying to attract.  Herons usually forage less then four miles from their nest, so you need to make sure there are lots and lots food sources nearby.  If the food isn't there it won't be successful.  Kind of like putting up a bluebird box in the middle of the woods, that's not their habitat.

I was out with a digiscoping tour while visiting the artificial rookery and people in the group noted this box attached to one of the poles.  At first, it threw me for a loop.  I tried to think of all the bird boxes we carried at the bird store or that I'd seen around MN and couldn't figure it out. I noticed some movement, put the scope on it and discovered barn owls inside.  No wonder, we don't have barn owls in Minnesota so I would be familiar with this sort of nesting box.  Alas, I wasn't able to digiscope them but it was cool to see it in use. It makes sense, I've seen herons nest with red-tails and I'm sure a barn owl isn't much of a threat with their tiny feed.

American Woodcock Not Hiding So Well

While on one of the birding trips for the Detroit Lakes Festival of Birds, we visited Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge.  There had been a woodcock nesting right off a trail near the Nature Center.  As we walked towards it, the female appeared to have moved to right on the trail.  The refuge staff suspected that her eggs had hatched.  They are precocial when hatched meaning they can run around.  She was probably moving them from the nest, heard us coming and froze tucking the young beneath her.  Can you make her out in the above photo?

There she lurks, most likely thinking, "Haha, humans, you can't see me, I am invisible!"  We didn't get too close and after everyone had a chance to see her, we went back the way we came from.  I always wonder how may owls I walk past, now I have to wonder how many woodcocks and their chicks escape my notice.

Here's the first photo with an arrow pointing to the woodcock:

Heron Rookery Reloaded Post Tornado

Who knew this story would have such legs?!

As reported last month, the great blue heron rookery at North Mississippi Regional Park was completely obliterated by a tornado that went through north Minneapolis. I worked with some of my fellow National Park Rangers at MNRRA, the MN DNR and the Animal Humane Society to help gather what few live chicks and injured adults were remaining on the island.  We all pretty much guessed that it was late enough in the season that the herons would not rebuild.  All last week, I received several emails about herons building new nests in two different locations with my the boundaries of my National Park!

I organized a boat trip with my fellow park rangers, Carrol Henderson from the MN DNR, Bill Hudson and Brad Kopp from WCCO and Jim Williams from the Star Tribune to investigate.  I was excited, I was able to get our park's head honcho Superintendent Paul Labovitz to be my river chauffeur for the morning!  We passed the mangled rookery and even made a stop.

I was amazed at how few carcasses were left on the tornado ravaged island, we found very few compared to what was there a couple of days after the tornado.  I'm sure turkey vultures and crows took advantage of the food source and based on some of the damaged feathers found around the few remaining bones, some mammalian predators ate them too, possibly raccoon or fox.

One of the reports of the herons rebuilding centered on islands just off of the Riverside Power Plant north of downtown Minneapolis.  Even the power plant staff sent emails asking if they needed to do anything to help keep the herons safe--how cool is that?

There are two small islands here and we found about two dozen nests.  There could be more, but it's hard to count them among the leaves.  They rebuilt quickly.  Park Ranger Gordon (who took some of the photos in this post) looked at me and said, "You know, those birds were flying around with sticks when we went to the island two weeks ago.  I didn't think they would seriously re-nest."  I agreed.

More herons came in with sticks while we circled the islands.  I've observed herons adding sticks to nests with chicks during nesting season.  I figured that they look like flimsy nests to begin with and additions are regularly added.  When we saw the herons with sticks right after their nests were destroyed, I thought it was just an attempt, not serious nesting behavior--kind of like their hormones were telling them, "this is what you need to be doing now."  But we watched more than one bird fly in with sticks while we checked the new rookery.  I wondered if we would see any birds incubating.

Sure enough, herons were incubating on this island!  Wow!  I was not expecting that.  I'll be curious to see when the chicks fledge.  It should be a three month process, but if we have a warm fall, these birds just might be successful.

As we cruised under the trees on the boat, Paul asked, "What's that bird on the branch, it looks like a lump." Carrol, Gordon, Jim and I all about jumped out of our seats--it was an adult peregrine falcon perched below all of the heron nest.

There's a peregrine falcon nest box right on the Riverside Power Plant.  I thought our chances of seeing a peregrine falcon was very good, but I didn't expect one to be hanging out in the midst of a heron rookery.  Great blue herons are not one of the preferred foods of this falcon.  I don't think the herons see it as a serious threat.  I had to give our park's superintendent some serious props for locating the falcon while all the birders in the boat missed it.

The falcon eventually flew over to its nest box but wow, what a bonus to see a peregrine mixed in with herons!  This made me happy on so many levels--I love bird resiliency and I especially love when they do not read the same books and articles that I do and do their own thing.  I'm also excited because we planned some canoe trips to view the old rookery this summer and I thought those would be bummer trips with me saying, "Well, we used to have a rookery here, but..."

This new little rookery is on that paddle route, so we'll be able to take people by the old tornado damaged island and the new one.

The one big bummer about this new rookery is that it is not easily viewable from either shore of the Mississippi River.  Because of barge companies and power plant security, you can't view it like you could from North Mississippi Regional Park.  However, not all of the herons relocated to this rookery.  Some when to Coon Rapids Dam which is totally viewable from the eastern shore of the Mississippi River!

UPDATE!  THIS ROOKERY IS VERY VISIBLE FROM THE EAST SIDE OF THE RIVER! YAY!

There's been a rookery there for years.  What's interesting is that staff told me last year that the number of birds using the rookery was shrinking, the speculation being that the herons were using the old North Mississippi Regional Park rookery.  But now, some have gone back to re-nest after the tornado.  Most of the nests were covered up, but there were quite a few on the outer edges where birds could be seen incubating.  If I really tried to focus my scope, I would make out nests deep in the leaves with chicks about five to six weeks old.  You could certainly hear older heron chicks calling.  A few years ago, I found a great horned owl nesting in this rookery, and no heron would nest next to it.  I think the owls may have partaken of some heron chicks and that may have contributed to some leaving this rookery.  Hopefully no owl will visit the nests on the outer edges of the this summer.  At the very least, the owl nesting season should be over at this point.

I did find a red-tailed hawk with two large chicks among the newer heron nests, another bonus raptor for the day!  Herons aren't high on the red-tail's preferred prey list, so I don't think it will be an issue for the herons.

So, all in all a very hopeful outcome to a devastating loss.  Bill and Brad did a very nice piece on the rookery, I was grateful they were interested in a follow up story.  The resiliency of birds never ceases to amaze me.  I'll post Jim's story when it comes up.

Heron Rookery Visit

Here's a follow up to yesterday's story about the Minneapolis tornado that destroyed the great blue heron rookery at North Mississippi Regional Park. Thanks to a lot of phone calls, my park the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, CO Todd from MN DNR and some vet techs with heron experience from the Animal Humane Society, we made it out to the heron rookery.  I was so excited that as we were making phone calls to coordinate this, people were willing to loan boats and equipment, especially since money is tight when it comes to government funded employees.

This is Nicole and fellow Park Ranger Gordon holding birds we recovered.  I was especially excited to have along Laura and Nicole from AHS, they had heron grabbing experience, which made a huge difference.  Apart from minor scratches from vegetation, no human was injured.

A group who knew enough about herons to avoid adults retrieved 7 live heron chicks last night.  We recovered 2 more chicks and 3 adults this morning.  Most were taken to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Roseville, MN (apart from 2 who had injuries so severe, they were euthanized right away). If you have any spare cash, please donate it to the WRC--even if it's only $5.  This is their busy time of year and getting an unexpected drop of 9 baby herons who need lots of fish to get the adult weight of 7 pounds is expensive.  Any extra spare change you have is greatly appreciated by those folks.

We couldn't save them all, most of the chicks were dead, but we did what we could and helped those we could reach.  If you figure conservatively that there were 180 nests (though I suspect there were over 200), with each nest holding 2-3 chicks and every single nest came down, we lost over 300 healthy chicks.  We found maybe 50 dead chicks on this island, but from the way the trees fell, I'm sure most of them ended up in the river.  We found very few dead and injured adults.  I think the herons saw the tornado and took off for safer skies, leaving the chicks behind.  The few who stayed were the ones who were killed or injured.  So, sadly we lost almost an entire generation fro the summer from this one rookery, but most adults survived to breed again next year and there are several rookeries for them to use around the Twin Cities.  Herons build flimsy nests and have evolved to deal with natural disaster.  It is a sad day for the park to loose this colony, but we know in the long run, they will survive and continue to breed.

I spent the rest of the afternoon talking to the media.  I'll post links as they show up on the web.  Also, Ranger Gordon uploaded photos from today on our park's Facebook Page.  Check them out!

Star Tribune story by Jim Williams

Star Tribune story by Maria Elena Baca

WCCO's coverage of the heron rookery

MPR coverage of the heron rookery

KSTP coverage of the heron rookery

Pioneer Press coverage of the heron rookery

National Park Traveler coverage of the loss of our rookery

WRC coverage of the heron rookery

Minneapolis Heron Rookery Destroyed By Tornado

This was so not how I planned to spend my Monday.  Warning, not a pleasant post ahead. I returned from Detroit Lakes Festival of Birds yesterday and on my way home, Non Birding Bill called to warn me of a possible tornado in north Minneapolis--an area I would drive through on my way to our apartment, but far from our our building.  I mostly avoided the storm and drove through the tail end of it.  We checked Facebook and called friends to make sure people were accounted for and were relieved to find them alive.  This morning, I started my day off finishing errands and planning bird festival blog entries, some bike riding and our next podcast.  Then the emails started to come in asking what I new about the North Mississippi Regional Park Heron Rookery.

A quick check of the Minneapolis Police traffic plan confirmed my fear.  The tornado's path hit the park.  I called my boss from the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area and said, "I know it's my day off, but do you mind if I put on my uniform and go check out the situation?"  If areas were blocked off, I knew I'd have a better chance of getting in and not be perceived as a looter if I had my official badge and uniform on.  He said to go for it.

Reports from friends in the area said that herons were circling non stop around the park.  As I was driving to the exit for North Mississippi Regional Park, I saw herons circling outside of the park fence (this photo was not taken as I was driving, it was taken at the park).  I also noticed trees down around the fence and tornado debris around the highway.  My stomach sank.  I made my way around the blocked exit, entered the visitor center for the park and the employees faces confirmed my fears.  They said the rookery was gone and they were devastated.

I've blogged about this rookery a lot.  I even took someone from MPR out to it.  We use it regularly for programs for my park and people who use the trails love to check it out in the summer.  It's a testament to birds adapting to an urban area.

This is what it looked like this morning.  There are no words.  Every single nest was gone, it looked like the tornado went right through the island.  Even the few trees that managed to stay up in the face of the tornado had lost nests.  Herons were circling the island, some looking for purchase, others flew in with sticks in a half-hearted attempt to rebuild.  Everything was gone.

Most of the walking trails around the park were downed.  There was some access on the biking trail but I had to do some climbing to get around.

There was at least one dead heron on the trail at North Miss, but how many more were under the trees?

When I arrived at a point on the bank of the Mississippi River where I could view the island that once hosted the rookery, I found an injured heron.  I was unprepared.  I've handled all sorts of birds with bird banding and with picking up injured raptors for The Raptor Center.  Herons are difficult and dangerous.  They don't know that you are trying to help them, all they know is that they try to eat the weak and injured when they find it.  They will fight with that spear like beak and that long neck gives them an advantage.  I know of one rehabber who lost an eye grabbing a heron and others who have been stabbed in various appendages.  I had no protective goggles or anything to put the heron in.  It was also close to the river.  I stayed and waited a moment assessing the situation:

The heron flew to a log on the river and compound fracture on its leg was evident.  Sigh.  I was really surprised at how few injured herons I could see.  These are long, lanky, slow moving birds.  The ones that were flying had a few feathers missing but otherwise appeared okay.  How did they survive the tornado?

Some herons perched in the remaining branches and they appeared to be okay. It's almost as if what happened hasn't clearly processed in their brains.  They know the nests should be there, they should either be brooding eggs and chicks or bringing in food, but the nests are gone and so they perched in the trees and waited.

A few more were down among the vegetation on the island.  As I was there taking photos, park visitors came by wanting to help and grieving over the lost rookery.  I advised all of them to wait for park personnel to get to the herons and warned them how dangerous they can be.  I sympathized with the park and staff.  However, while there some guys in a boat came by taking photos of the island and of us.

Then these guys in hipster hats got on the island and started heading towards the herons, no gloves, no protective eye wear, nothing.  I yelled to them to stay away and they seemed surprised someone could see them and backed off.  I appreciate that people want to help, but injured herons are incredibly dangerous.  My park is working on a solution to reach them right now.  The river is still high and again these are dangerous birds, we need planning and skills.

The big question people want to know is what will the herons do now?  Will they renest?  I don't think that they will, they have a brief time for nesting in Minnesota. Nest building can take about 3 days if they really work, but can take a week or more.  Incubation is about 27 days and the young fledge (fly and leave the nest) at about 54 - 57 days.  It takes a few weeks for young herons to become independent from the adults.  So, we're looking at about a three month process meaning the chicks would fledge in late August--that's a little late, especially since the rookery is gone.

I think these guys will get the summer off to feed themselves.  There may be a few young herons who might attempt a renesting at Coon Rapids Dam a few miles north on the river, but I think the season is scrapped for most of them.  On the upside, herons build flimsy nests and this is something they have evolved to handle natural disasters.  The heron population in the Twin Cities is very stable, they will handle this and restart next year.  At the same time, it's hard to see the devastation and it's incredibly hard to watch the injured.

I couldn't help but notice all the birds on the ground.  This American redstart practically walked through my legs.  Warbling vireos, orioles and other warblers were down low, feeding off of the insects tucked around the branches of the downed trees.  I couldn't help but wonder how something that weighs about as much as a dust bunny could survive a tornado?  Did they just roll under some shrubbery when the wind blew?

As I was about to leave, a park patron walked up carrying a bawling fawn.  He said it was found in the open on the trail alone and crying out (it kind of sounded like a goat).  I was working my way towards getting him to put the fawn back where he found it (fawns normally hide while the does are out feeding and it's not unusual to find one unattended) but he said that he found a dead doe near the fawn which didn't sound optimistic for the young deer.  I ended up taking it to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.

So, all in all this was a crap Monday.  I apologize that the podcast didn't happen today and it won't happen tomorrow.  I spent the day trying to coordinate an effort to get to the heron rookery island with people experienced with herons and to see if we can get the injured adults. Plus, I'm in a morose mood, I can't imagine the podcast being fun to listen to.

One final sad note about the Minneapolis tornado. There's a report that Rob MacIntyre of the Raptor Resource Project (the folks who bring us the Decorah Eagle Cam) died while helping his neighbors clear debris.

This tornado was sad on many levels.

Warblers Eating Honey

I'm in a quandary with my beehives and my love of birds.

On my way out to the Horicon Marsh Bird Festival, I stopped at Mr. Neil's for a quick check of our new beehives and some birding.  The warblers have arrived and the cool weather has forced those who arrive early in migration to search for alternate sources of food.  Yellow-rumped warblers like these would prefer insects.  Far too cool and far too few available, so the enterprising early migrants explored the bird feeders.

Despite the fact that Baltimore orioles are in the area and singing, none came to the feeders.  Yellow-rumps gladly took advantage of the grape jelly.

The warblers even jockeyed for position at the suet feeder among the four species of woodpecker that normally feed here.

Pine warblers are also hitting the feeders.  Whereas the yellow-rumps go for the suet and jelly, the pine goes for sunflower hearts.  It will also go for the suet, but seems content to eat the seeds.

While I was working around the garage, I noticed Neil's groundskeeper Hans had put out some old bee frames.  We do this so the bees from active hives will fly in and clean out the old honey.  These frames were from the hives that died over the winter.  The bees found it.  While I was working around the garage, I noticed warbles hanging out in the area.  At first, I thought the warblers were after the live bees and even said allowed, "I know you're desperate for insects, but you're far too small for eating bees."

Then, right about dusk when the honeybees were all tucked in their hives for the day, I noticed the warblers on the frames, pecking at them.  The light was dim but thanks to the auto timer on my Nikon D40 I was able to digiscope a Nashville warbler and a yellow-rumped warbler on the frames.

Based on the holes in the frame it looked like the warblers were going for dead bees.  Some of the frames had capped larvae that never hatched, so I figured the warblers were after the protein of old squishy non-hatched larvae.  We had more frames of dead larvae and honey in the garage so I set more out.  I figured the warblers could clean out the larvae and the bees could clean out the honey and help get a head start on their hives for the season.

The next morning when I went out for some birding, I checked the frames, they were covered in warblers.  Above are two yellow-rumped warblers and one Nashville warbler.  These were a small cross-section of about two dozen warblers waiting in line to feed off of my old beehive frames.  There were at least four species in the flock, the above two and pine warblers and orange-crowned.  I didn't get photos of the other two species, but got plenty of shots of the feeding frenzy.

Here are four warblers on one frame.  As I took pictures and watched them feed, it became clear that old bee larvae was not the only sustenance they were after.  They were very certainly eating honey.  I had a moment of panic...should birds be eating honey?  Honeybees are a fairly new species to North America, they came over with the early settlers.  Warblers did not evolve with honeybees.  Could they safely process honey and still migrate?

As I watched them I noticed that they tugged and chipped at wax foundation too.  Is that safe?  I've seen honeybees that have built comb out in the open on a bare branch, I remember seeing some abandon ones in Arizona and Texas...perhaps warblers have had exposure to this.

The air was so cold and their food scarce, I didn't want to take this source of food away if they were still trying to load up for their journey north.  I couldn't find anything about it on the Internet other than not using honey as a means to make nectar.  I wanted to plant myself in front of the frames all day long see how many species of warbler would come in but I had to go.

I also noted that as the sun got higher in the sky and our honeybees became more active, the bees didn't tolerate the warblers in close proximity and chased them off.  A few warblers still came in for the bounty but not four on a frame like at dawn.

I'm not sure if this is a good thing but if the warblers figured honey out, no doubt other birds will and I don't know if they should.  We already had one casualty of a tufted titmouse getting covered in honey while it explored some of our dead beehives.  I'm going to have to seek out an avian nutritionist to find out if this is a safe thing to offer birds.  If it is, this may be a new way to enjoy birds and bees and a new product to offer at bird stores.

Honey Covered Titmouse

  This is a problem that only I could have.

Non Birding Bill and I had one of those exciting married people dates: did a little dinner, sorted some tax receipts, pretty much got down last night.  While we were enjoying some sushi, my phone went off and I noticed the number was from Mr. Neil's housekeeper, Merry.  She rarely calls unless there's a bird emergency, so I picked up.  Her daughter Alicia walks Mr. Neil's dogs in the evening and when she arrived, she found a honey covered bird unable to fly on the ground.  Merry sent this photo:

Oh no!  A honey covered tufted titmouse!  How the heck did that happen?  I felt so guilty, it was as if the 2 loves of my life, birding and beekeeping found out about each other and got into a fight.  I advised Merry to do what wildlife rehabbers do with oiled birds, use luke warm water and a little bit of Dawn Detergent and gently was off the feathers.  I also asked her to check if it was banded (it was not).

So, she took to gently cleansing the feathers of the sticky bird, even carefully using a cotton swab to get the feathers around the face clean.  Laura Erickson has had experiencing cleaning a red-breasted nuthatch that got caught in some grape jelly and she warned that it might take a few washings to get the bird totally honey-free.

I told Merry the bird would need a warm, dark and dry place to settle, dry out and preen its feathers. I mentioned that titmice like suet, peanuts and sunflowers too, so she put some peanut suet in the cage, covered it and let the bird be til morning.  I tried to puzzle how this would happen.

None of our hives survived the winter and it's been a group effort of the groundskeeper, Hans gathering the hives and all of us taking a turn at extracting the remaining honey before too many deer mice move into the empty hives and eat what the bees did not.  Some of the hives have been left outside the house to await extraction.  What would make a tufted titmouse explore the hives?  They are not honey eaters.  I wondered if our 50 degree weather brought out some early spring insects and they were attracted to the honey, which in turn attracted the titmouse?

I also recalled last fall setting out frames that were covered in wax moth larvae for the chickadees and titmice to eat.  Did this bird recognize the frames as a source of larvae?  It could have hopped into the open box inspecting the frames, only to come out covered in honey and unable to fly?

Thank goodness we didn't have any active hives.  With that warm weather, the bees would have been out and would have gone to the titmouse to clean off the honey.  The titmouse would have struggled, causing them to sting...ew, don't even want to think about that.

When Hans found out, he went back to the house last night and moved and covered the open brood boxes so no other birds would make the same mistake as the titmouse.

I got a text this morning that the titmouse was dry and feisty so it was immediately released back to the yard, hopefully a bit wiser.  Thank goodness Alicia found the bird, had it been left out, it probably would've succumbed to the chilly air. It's sticky feathers wouldn't have been able to maintain a proper temperature in the cold night air.  No doubt a raccoon would have found it and ate too.

Who knew beekeeping would be hazardous to birds?  Now Merry has another talent to add to her resume: honey extraction from titmouse feathers.

Field Guide To Angry Birds

Around the holidays, I finally downloaded Angry Birds.  Many of my non birding friends had been telling me that I needed the game for my iTouch but I resisted.  Quite frankly, I really don't need another sedentary hobby and I know how I am with "simple games."  Where Non Birding Bill will get caught up in more complex games like Civilization, I get easily hooked into solitaire, cryptograms and what would life be without Fruit Ninja?

But Angry Birds was sweeping that nation and as a die hard birder how could I not test it out?  I waited until I didn't have hard deadlines and started playing it.  The premise is that green pigs have stolen the birds' eggs and the birds launch an all out attack to annihilate the pigs.  In turn, the pigs build elaborate forts and put on armor to guard against the furious birds hell bent on destruction.  Kind of based in reality...wild boars would eat bird eggs if they found them...but I don't see any wild birds with the ability to explode and take down a fort of glass, rock and wood.  You use a slingshot to launch the birds at the pigs and different birds have different abilities.  Physics actually plays a part in the game as to how you launch the birds.

If you are wondering why I'm explaining the game, I asked how many people played Angry Birds at a Birds and Beers and was greeted with blank stares from the entire crowd.  Not many birders play or are aware of it.

As I played the game, I tried to identify the birds.  I wondered...what real birds are the Angry Birds based on?  Here' my opinion, how does it compare with your thoughts on the id of the Angry Birds?  Some are easy:

The Red Angry Bird is a Northern Cardinal--that's a total no brainer and makes sense.  Having had more than one cardinal in my hand, that hard beak is no lie.  They are truly angry birds and capable of nasty bites.

The Yellow Angry Bird is an American Goldfinch.  In the game, it's special ability is to have sudden short bursts of speed.  This would be something more suited to a Cooper's Hawk or Sharp-shinned Hawk but that's not as funny as tiny cute bird being angry and taking out big green pigs.

The Blue Angry Bird (that morphs into a flock of three birds when tapped) has been vexing me.  It's tiny and all blue, so that makes me think Indigo Bunting...but that's the wrong shade of blue.  Could it be a Mountain Bluebird?  Or do we need to look at birds outside of North America and could it be an African Blue Flycatcher?  It does have a slight crest and that is about the same color of blue.  This bird's special ability is to break out into three birds when you tap the screen after launching it.

This is the Egg Dropping bird.  I think it's an artistic version of your average chicken, right down to the little orange patches on the cheek.  Note on the above real life chicken that the skin around the eye is yellow.  I will say that its face does remind me of a goose, but I think its body is more egg shaped because it drops egg.  I feel comfortable calling this chicken.

I think the Black Angry bird that explodes is based on a myna bird, most specifically, the Crested Myna.  Look at the color scheme between the two.  The Angry Birds version is more stylized but you can see the the little crest and the red and yellow.  I think there might be some elements of the Common Hill Myna in there too.  And that's a family of birds that always kind of looks angry anyway.  Good thing the real life ones do not explode, it would make keeping them as pets incredibly dangerous.

The Green Angry Bird which acts like a boomerang in the game has got to be Emerald Toucanet, a bird that I've seen in Panama and Guatemala.  Although, I didn't see actually do anything remotely boomerang like.  But compared to the other birds in the game, it's smaller--like the toucanet and has a giant schnoz...or beak.

And then there is the Mighty Eagle, which you never fully see but enough hints are dropped that has to be a Bald Eagle.  Number one, you can see that the head is white.  But the real key is that you never fling this bird--you fling a tin of sardines and the eagle casts a shadow and bounces in for the tin annihilating every pig in sight in the process.  Bald Eagles are capable of hunting but are just as content to eat carrion and dead fish--this so has to be a Bald Eagle. It is hands down my favorite Angry Birds character...even if you do have to pay extra to get it.

So those are my thoughts of the Angry Birds...how about you?  Do you agree with the id?  Incidentally, I linked to a trailer earlier for the movie Rio.  Word from the producers is that an Angry Birds version of the birds in the movie will be coming so you can fling Spix Macaws, Red-crested Cardinals, Canaries and perhaps a Keel-billed Toucan.  What really cool is that the game touches on the issue of illegal trapping for the pet bird trade. More awareness of that cannot be a bad thing.

Let's Get Weird With Honey

Here is a curious article about an interesting hurdle faced by some urban beekeepers in Brooklyn...their honey is turning out bright red!  Guess what the culprit is: Red Dye #40 from Dell’s Maraschino Cherries Company.  So people who want hives in the neighborhood to contribute to the whole slow foods/locally grown/organic/natural movement are being betrayed by bees who cannot resist heavy syrup no matter how many native nectar rich plants are around.

Speaking of weird honey, Lorraine and I finally got around to putting some of our extracted honey into jars.  Kind of fascinated by our honey colors this year.  We usually only have light colored honey, but this year we have both light and dark.  Both taste fabulous, the darker honey is a bit more...rich in flavor, while the light is delicate and subtle in its sweetness.

I was not having the best day.  A project I have been working on for some time received a setback yesterday.  Every time I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with this project, I get the rug yanked out from under me.  This time it's a financial setback on the project. Lorraine and I had planned on bottling honey today, but when I saw the snow and ice as I got out of bed this morning, I texted Lorraine that I was bad company and decided to stay home to brood a bit about my problem.  She called and said, "No, that's not what you need to do, you need to come out here and help me with the honey and talk."

Well...how could I argue with that?

We have some honey that has been drained from comb and then we have comb with honey called Ross Rounds.  Both are safe for human consumption.  We decided to get a little arty with our bottling and put chunks of wax and comb honey in our jars.  We'd then pour extracted honey over it.  It looked cool and it gives our friends the chance to try comb honey if they want but still get plenty of the straight liquid variety.  As we admired how cool the wax comb looked in the jars...we wondered what else we could put in there...like the above Buddah.  We were quite pleased with the results and wondered how far we could go with this madness.

I noticed a Weeping Angel figurine and told Lorriane that I wished we could try that.  She said, "It's my figurine, let's do it."

The affect was cool and terrifying.  If you have seen the Doctor Who episode, you know why this is the most terrifying and dangerous honey ever.  If not...well...I guess Lorraine and I seem a little weird, but that's okay.

The shenanigans helped put my project in perspective.  I'm always thrilled to rediscover that no matter what life throws at me on a long project, friends and beekeeping are a great escape.

Do You See That Pauraque?

I'm going to start this post off with landscape shots that have a brown bird called a common pauraque in them.  See if you can find the bird(s) and at the end of the post, I'll put up the photos pointing out where they are and you can see if you were able to find them.

Let's start with an easy one, there's one common pauraque in this photo.

There's one pauraque in this photo.

There's one pauraque in this photo.

This is the hardest one, but there sure is a pauraque in this photo.

There are actually 2 pauraques in this photo, one easy...one almost impossible.

Most of my birding time during the Rio Grande Valley Birding Fest was spent at Estero Llano Grande State Park.  Partly because I love it but also because some of my other favorite birding sites in the area were closed due to flooding.  I went there several times with both Birdspot and WildBird on the Fly.  One of the target birds on the trails is a common pauraque, a nightjar that is similar to nighthawks and whip-poor-wills.  I've heard them and I've seen them flushed on roads at night in Central America, but I've never seen a roosting pauraque.

I knew people were seeing between 1 - 3 at a time and I was hopeful we'd find more than one.  We sure did, above is one of the pauraques.  With that cryptic brown plumage, you can understand how they might be easy to miss.  They are active at dawn and dusk and fly around to catch insects with their mouths wide open.  Don't let that tiny beak fool you, it belies a mouth worthy of any mother-in-law.

The park rangers and other birders were very helpful to point out the general areas of where the nightjars were being seen, but you still had to some work.  Here's the trail near alligator lake where they typically have been found roosting.  Note the white sign, it warns people to stay on the trails so the pauraques do not get flushed.  Note the pile of brush on the left side of the trail, that's where the pauraques were.  I suspect the brush was placed there to encourage people to stay on the trail and not wander in looking for the birds and inadvertently flushing them.

Check it out: Disapproving Pauraque! We found one right away and I was happy for that.  These nightjars were a challenge to digiscope.  Number one: they were in the shade.  I could get around that by using the timer on my camera and minimize camera shake for a long exposure.  However, the second and the most challenging problem was that the birds were too darned close to focus in my spotting scope!  The sticks that were protecting the pauraque roosting location blocked some angles and I wasn't about to move the sticks, they were there to help the pauraques. But with patience and creative angling, I managed to grab some shots.

As I was setting up the above digiscoped shot, I found a second and then a third, each closer than the last.  The third pauraque we found was literally three feet away from the trail. Finding the pauraques reminded me of morel hunting.  Once you find one, you instantly see all the other mushrooms surrounding you.  It was the same with pauraques, once you found one, the other popped out like an image in a magic eye painting.

Many of the pauraque photos like the above bird were not digiscoped because they are just too close.  I always wonder how many owls I pass under on a regular basis, not I wonder how many pauraqes, poor-wills and other nightjars I have almost stepped on in my birding travels.  The pauraques did seem to be everywhere in South Texas.  Birdspot and I were wandering around Frontera Audubon, watching a brown thrasher that was working some leaves, when all three  of us--especially the thrasher jumped with a leaf toss flushed a pauraque.  I wonder how often other birds flush nightjars.  And I wonder if they are irritated because of the scare?

And now to see how you did with finding the pauraques in the first five photos:

Here's common pauraque number one.  This one may have been too easy, that eye sticks out.  But I walked past it at least twice before I finally realized it was three feet from the trail.

Hidden pauraque #2.

Pauraque nestled all snug among sticks.

I realize that even though it's circled, this pauraque is hard to see, so here is a zoom in of the cryptically plumaged nightjar:

Even up close, you can see how well their feathers work in their habitat!

The one in the front is fairly obvious, but the one in the back is really hard to see.  Here's a close up:

See, there really is a parauque by those sticks!

Ah, nothing makes me as happy as looking for brown birds!