Birdorable Blogging Contest #2: Dawn Frary

Hello all, NBB here. Sharon is safely in Germany just now, waiting to travel to Kazakhstan tomorrow.

Today's entry is from Dawn Frary, Volunteer Owl Feeder and Wildlife Rehabilitator, Macbride Raptor Project. You can read more of her stuff at her wildlife rehabilitation blog: For the Birds.

Best. Rehab. Ever

Tonight was perhaps the best rehab session I’ve had so far in my volunteer-career as a wildlife rehabilitator.  I hadn’t rehabbed in the two weeks prior to tonight, and it felt great to get back in the flight cage and see how my feathered friends are doing.  Last Monday, I didn’t go out to the raptor center because I didn’t feel well and the week before I didn’t fly either bird because they both had additional injuries that were separate from their “regular” injuries (i.e. the injuries for which they are in the flight cage in the first place).  I didn’t want to agitate anything further so I let them be.  It looks like letting them rest was a good idea because they both were in fine form tonight.

My rehab accountrements: leather falconer gloves, rehab notebook, trusty pencil.

I began with the red tailed hawk, who I fully expected to be as much of a pain in the butt as he was last time I flew him.  If you will recall, I spent nearly an hour chasing him along the floor of the flight cage to no avail at all - he barely flew for me, so I put him back without completing his regimen of five perch-to-perches.  Tonight was completely different.  After catching him (which was the hardest part of the whole ordeal), he proceeded to give me his five perch-to-perch (P-P) flights plus an additional two P-Ps.  I felt like he and I were perfectly in sync and that he understood exactly what I wanted him to do.  He didn’t struggle while being held, and he didn’t put up a fight once I had caught him and was holding him.  His flying mechanics have improved greatly since the last time I worked with him, and he demonstrated a vast improvement in his landings.  I tried to offer him positive feedback and cheer him on while he was going through his exercises, which in my mind makes all the difference.  I completed his exercises in about 30 minutes, I think, and got him back in his cage safely and soundly.

The armpit biter great horned owl was up next.  Once he came down from his high perch on the wall, I caught him easily only to be bitten very hard on the left arm.  It left a tiny but very painful welt.  But, since I’m used to the sharp sting of his beak at this point, I got right to his wing stretches and then launched him into the air from the middle of the flight cage.  His flight had improved tremendously since our last session, as well.  His height, speed, glides, and landings were all those of a bird who was well on his way to being released back into the wild.  After being a resident of the MRP since early winter, I’m sure he is eager to get back to the woods and tell all his friends about the mean girl who made him fly back and forth inside a big cage.

The new kid: a Cooper's hawk was brought to the flight cage this week. He is under observation only for right now.

I was so thrilled after the rehab session that I literally jumped up and down afterward.  I was happy with the birds’ performances, but was also happy with myself for being what I felt was a very observant and patient rehabber.  I did not allow them to intimidate me, which I do sometimes because, well, they are large wild birds who are not happy about their current living situation and the fact that people in big leather gloves come into their space, corner them, grab them by the legs, and make them do flying exercises.

Sometimes it’s also easy to forget that there is a barrier between myself and these birds, and that barrier is called WILDNESS.  These birds, no matter now much I talk to them or anthropomorphosize them, are wild animals.  They want nothing to do with me.  When I’m holding them and looking into their eyes (from a mere six inches away) thinking about how amazing it is to be thisclose to a wild great horned owl, they are thinking, “I’d kill you right now if I could.”

It doesn’t bother me.  I signed up for this so I can’t complain about the bites or the birds’ blatant animosity toward my presence in their immediate space.  I am helping them, whether they know it (or like it) or not.  And tonight, I felt like the three of us - me, the hawk, and the owl - were all on the same page.  We danced.  I led.

They’ll thank me in the end.

I made two videos from today’s session, you can view them here and here.

Thanks, Dawn. Look for another entry tomorrow!

Birdorable Guest Blogging Contest #1: Callae Frazier

NBB here. Sharon's heading off to Kazakhstan today as part of a special project for Swarovski Optik and Birdlife International, which means that it's time to begin the Birdorable Guest Blogging contest.

Our first entry is from Callae Frazier, who describes her entry as: It's an avian-related personal narrative that takes place at my childhood home in the Colorado foothills where nearly every window looks out on a bird feeder

Sky Windows

Smack! Thump.

The sound, sudden and unmistakable, resonates down the hall, through open doorways and anyone in the house familiar with it looks up, startled.  Sometimes, the echo seems to move through even the walls.  I’ve heard an impact resonate from the front of the ranch-style house to my back bedroom. More often I am in the kitchen, or living room, or study, all near the front of the house and closer to the most often hit windows.  Windows that look out on some of the busiest bird feeders among the nearly dozen seed stations set up around the house.  Clear, wide windows that birds occasionally mistake for open, wide sky.

Smack! Thump.

Dozens of species visit the area, many stay year-round.  Palm-sized, chipper, ashy mountain chickadees, with their little black caps and eye stripes and chins are fairly ubiquitous.  Ground-feeding juncos, all varieties, all stocky and stout, also spend most of the year pecking about the ground under feeders, in the driveway, or on the platform feeders.  Bullet-shaped nuthatches, white-breasted, red-breasted, and their tiny compact cousins the pygmy’s, “yank, yank, yank” their arrival at the feeder.  House finches, goldfinches, pine siskens sing their melodious, waterfall-garbled song from high atop trees before swooping down and joining the others. Orangy-red male and yellow female crossbills pass through occasionally, their high-pitched, “kip-kip-kip” calls foreshadowing their arrival.  They sit upright on the hanging feeders, and I must check, and double-check their oddly formed bills every time, marveling at how the upper mandible literally crosses over the lower one.  Winter flocks of hand-sized, yellow-bellied, thick-billed evening grosbeaks provide a bright spot of color against a snow and dark pine backdrop. Still larger birds visit as well. Mohawked, Stellar’s jays bully juncos from the driveway, and chickadees from the platform feeders with their large bodies, and raucous calls.  We know summer has arrived when the quiet mourning doves arrive in the drive, delicately pecking seeds.  The surrounding diverse sliver of habitat in a life zone typically reserved for lodgepole pine entices the birds.  And the birds entice me.

My mom tells the story of how, even when I was a little girl I loved to sit in the elevated, recessed, bench next to the entryway and watch birds for hours out the bay window.  We call the space our “window box” on account of its boxy, rectangular shape.  The window looks out on a wide, multi-level wrap around deck and I look out at birds on the platform feeder attached to the deck railing.  When young, I asked for the names of birds all the time.  Mom knew them all, and by the time I started first grade I knew my colors, letters and numbers along with the names for chickadee, nuthatch, jay and junco.  I knew that chickadees’ nasaly call sounded like their name, “chick-a-dee-dee-dee.”  My parents adopted the chickadee’s clear two-note, descending minor-third whistle, “fee-bee”, as a way to find each other in a busy space, or to get each other’s attention.  Of all the multitudes of books in the house, The Golden Guide to Birds was one I could always find on the full shelves.  Before I could write, I made up stories, sitting there in the window.  Mom listened, and committed my words to paper.  Sealed in envelopes, my words flew thousands of miles away to my Grandparents in a silver-winged bird.

Thwap!

A flutter of anticipation begins when the sound reverberates down the hall.  Approaching the window box, I search out the only sign of trauma - a bit of feathers stuck to the glass.  Pressing my face to the smooth, cool surface of the window sometimes allows me to see the tiny, feathered thing on the deck below.  The dogs, curious, will hop up the bench with me.  Their warm breath fogs up my view.  I’ve learned to leave them inside when I investigate.  They sometimes mouth stunned birds and inadvertently finish off the job.  I hold them at the front door with my knees, and slip out between jostling bodies and lolling tongues.  There, on the brown deck, I most often find a grey chickadee or dark-headed junco lying spread-legged, wings outstretched.  Larger grosbeaks and deep blue, black-crowned jays are other common casualties of our windows.

Surprisingly, for the number of windows in the house (over 40), and the number of birds who have found our land an invaluable food source over the years (hundreds), remarkably few have perished.  After smacking into the windows they fall to the ground more often only stunned.  I gently scoop up the lightweight bundles, cupping their small warmth in my hand.  They breathe so fast.  Little chests heaving up and down.  Heavily lidded eyes, glazed with shock, do not acknowledge me.  Their heartbeat pounds furiously into my palm.  It is as though they go into a kind of coma, their brain and neurons checking and rechecking the stunned body.  I like to believe my hands provide them shelter and warmth.  A miniature recovery room.  A little patience, careful watching, and suddenly the “on” switch clicks.  Small glassy eyes brighten, drooping wings straighten, an alert head rises, cocks, looks about.  I hardly exhale then, waiting to see how long they will stay.

The stunned birds never fly far.  Sometimes they make it to the wide, flat bird feeder attached to the railing.  Maybe they rest there a while.  Often they dip into the plethora of seeds at their feet.  Within moments they fight off other feeders come to the feast.  I stand mere feet away, and trace the invisible impression of wing strokes crossing delicately across my palm.  Sometimes I can find small pinprick depressions where their claws pressed down.

Thwack!

I know right away if the window-smacked birds are dead.  There is something unmistakable about a dead thing.  The way the neck bends loosely, the closed eyes, sometimes a drop of blood at the base of the delicate, grey beak. The stillness.

When I was very young my parents helped me bury birds knocked off by windows.  We dug a shallow grave out in small area west of the garden.  A place that today holds bones of several well-loved pets.  I probably covered the little mound with a rock.  Felt perhaps a little sad.  But I also found the streamlined shape, soft feathers, and the delicate lightness of the little body fascinating.  A dead bird gave me a chance to see the normally fluttery critters up close.

Later, feeling silly for making bird graves, I walked some distance into the woods, and tossed them into a bush.  Something would find and eat them.  Maybe a crow or fox.  Hopefully not our indoor/outdoor cat who had a habit of bringing dead things into the house, leaving them as surprising gifts on beds, or by doors.  I might also take the dead birds and deposit them deep in the compost pile where they would slowly decompose, adding their nutrients to the existing combination of vegetable parts, egg shells, coffee grounds, plant trimmings, and hay.  Yes, I know you aren’t supposed to include meat in your compost, but when I was young I hardly considered the small flesh of birds an inappropriate addition to the compost.

In late August, when I made my regular round of plucking fresh snacks in the low, golden light of the autumn garden, I wouldn’t remember the birds I buried in the compost a year or two before.  But they’d be there.

There, in the squat carrots I’d wrest from the soil, barely wiping the soil free on my jeans before chomping down the crisp earthy sweetness.  Or there, in the round burst of sugar peas on my tongue as I popped them into my mouth one, by one.  Pop, pop, pop.  Their presence would be found in the meaty muscle of turnips and potatoes dug out of the soil with my bare hands.  The invisible bits of birds who once mistook a clear wide window for clear open sky.

Swarovski Optik Guest Blogging Contest: Finale!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we're here to announce that the winner of the Swarovski Optik Guest Blogging Contest is...

Lynnanne Fager! 

You can read Lynnanne's entry on an unusual hybrid here. Special thanks to Swarovski Optik for providing the prizes for our contest: all the posted entries will get a Swarovski binocular cleaning kit, and Lynanne will also get a nifty new pair of Swarovski Crystal Pocket Binos! If you were one of the entries we posted, we'll be sending your address to Swarovski shortly.

Thanks again to absolutely everyone who entered. We had a hard time picking just ten entries!

Digiscoping Challenges

Hello blog readers! Or should I say hola lectores del blog? I am back from my Guatemala birding adventure and am sorting through photos. I want to thank everyone who entered the guest blogging contest. There were many fantastic blog entries and I'm sorry that we couldn't post them all. Be sure to check out the voting for the top ten and select the entry you liked best (I'm having readers decide because Non Birding Bill and I had a tough enough time picking the top ten, let alone the best of all 53 entries).

I had a great time and learned something very interesting while birding in Central America: digiscoping is really hard! I'm pretty good at digiscoping, I'm fortunate to be able to do it often and I'm very familiar with my equipment. I can set up the shot and get my camera on the right settings without really thinking about it. I'm also very familiar with North American birds, I can sometimes predict how they will move on a perch to get a shot.

It was not the same in Guatemala, I had all new vegetation to figure out and the birds moved in different ways.

When I give digiscoping workshops, one of the things I hear the most is how someone can't get their equipment to work--usually because they've taken (at most) 20 photos that all turned out crappy and they don't understand why. You have to take dozens, if not hundreds of photos to get one decent shot. The more you work with your equipment, the more prepared you will be when a bird shows up and in the "perfect" pose. I've helped out at enough optics booths to know that many people buy their scope and digiscoping equipment right before they leave for a trip of a lifetime, barely enough time to get familiar with their equipment. If I had a tough time, how could someone with new equipment possibly get anything good going to a new area, with new birds, and not know how to work the camera and scope?

So, here are some conclusions that I came to while birding in Guatemala:

First, I had to pick my battles. I figured out quickly that I was going to be in sensory overload being around so many new species. The group we were with was very much a listing group, not so much a photography look. We'd try like the dickens to see certain species, but not really try for photos. So, when a cool ass bird like a pink-headed warbler was found, I needed to decide, "Do I want to try and aim the scope on a warbler, quite possibly missing it completely or do I want to really savor and watch this amazingly colorful warbler?" With most new species, I chose to watch the bird instead of trying to digiscope it. I did go for the pink headed warbler after a minute and the best I got was the above photo. You can see part of its head and vent from behind a leaf in the above photo.

Second, the lighting conditions in the neotropics were rather crappy. In the forest canopy, it's shady and many birds had a knack for perching with the sun directly behind them. Add incredibly tall trees and precarious scope angles and you end up with a blurry shot of a collared trogon (above).

However, there were many times when birds perched nearby, the lighting was not too bad and I could get that great shot of a berylline hummingbird--right down to its little white socks. So, I didn't get photos of every single bird (or even very good ones) but I do have some great stories and amazing birds to share.

Guest Blogging Day 10: David McRee

And welcome to day 10 of the Swarovski Optik Guest Blogging Contest. Sharon is winging her way back to the U.S. as I write this, with tons of photos and stories about her trip to Guatemala. Thanks to all our Guest bloggers for their great entries!

Our entry for today comes from David McRee, whom you can visit on line at Blog the Beach.

When I learned that the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary in Indian Shores, Florida was having a training session for people interested in wild bird rescue, I rushed right over. Sanctuary staff and several able bird rescue volunteers showed me that there is a lot more to running a wild bird rescue operation than just bringing a bird home in a box and keeping it warm.

After a hands-on workshop that included removing fishhooks from dead cormorants, pelicans, egrets, seagulls, and crows, I was ready to learn even more. At the right moment, I revealed my secret identity as a blogger and asked to accompany the bird rescue volunteers on a mission.

Liz Vreeland, a bird rescue volunteer with boundless energy, endless patience, and a knack for getting things done, agreed to meet me mid-morning Sunday on the Skyway Bridge Fishing Pier where she often helps injured birds.
What I didn't realize was that not all injured birds are incapacitated; some have to be caught before they can be helped. How do you catch a pelican flying 50 feet in the air and trailing 20 feet of fishing line with an orange float and half a pound of lead fishing weight? Liz either knows how or figures it out.

Once she catches the birds, she knows how to determine what condition they're in and whether they need to go to the bird hospital. Hooks are extracted from captured birds, and fishing line is unwrapped from wings, feet, and bodies. Wounds are examined and the bird's condition assessed before it is either released or sent to the hospital. Liz patiently educates fishermen and onlookers, and exercises unbelievable restraint when dealing with people who think its funny to injure a bird.
There's nothing like holding a bird in your hands to really appreciate how beautiful they are. I shot some video of my day with the bird rescuers and put together a short clip.

Volunteer Seabird Rescue Effort in Florida from David McRee on Vimeo.

Thanks, David! We'll be back soon with the form where you can vote for your favorite entry. And thanks again to all our writers!

Guest Blogging Day 9: Eric Brierley

Welcome back to the Swarovski Optik Blogging Contest entry! Just a few more entries to go! Today's entry comes from Eric Brierley, past president of the San Antonio Audubon Society. He helped with a banding project for many years at Mitchell Lake Audubon Center in San Antonio, TX. Currently Eric birds and blogs from Austin, TX. You can contact him on his Twitter feed, or his blog.

Cardinal Damages Digits

All the cardinals I know suffer from split personality disorder. Most of their family members are a wee bit off as well. It must be something about the pointy red thing on top of their heads. Or perhaps their feathers are on too tight. What? Of course they have feathers. Oh, you thought I was referring to a Father of the Church. No, no, no, Northern Cardinals, birds.

I 'm an avid bird watcher, also known as a 'birder'. Get it? Bird watcher, bird-er. Never mind. At any rate, for many years I helped a local bander with a bird population study. We caught birds in mist nets, put a small numbered metal band on their leg, weighed and measured them, then let them go. Often we would recapture a bird. This let us determine how long it had been in the area, and assess general health by getting its current weight, then checking feather condition and subcutaneous fat stores.

What's a mist net? Thanks for asking. They are generally 12 to 18 meters long, 2 meters high, and stretched between poles that are set into the ground. The mesh of a net is very fine and the birds can't see it well. When they fly into the net, the bird gets tangled. We checked the nets every 10 minutes to remove any captured birds. A word of caution, don't do this at home. You need a Federal permit just to have the nets.

Many birds are calm in the net once they realize that they can't free themselves. Others don't settle down until you are holding them and working to get them untangled. Cardinals are an altogether different animal. Well not really, they're birds. Okay, yes, birds are in the animal kingdom, but you know what I mean.

Have you ever seen the bill on a Cardinal? It's almost as big as ... well take my word for it, it's a real honker, and powerful, and has lots of leverage. After all, Cardinals eat seeds and nuts, and crack them open with that bill.

Here is where the fun starts. The thing to remember about Cardinals is this, they bite. Hard. Want to know what it feels like? Okay, get a pair of pliers with narrow pointed jaws. Yes, pliers have jaws. It's the part opposite the handles. Select a tender spot near the tip of one of your fingers. Gather about 1/8 of an inch of skin with the tip of the pliers. Now squeeze the handles and don't let go. Not so hard that you break the skin. Wiggle the pliers around a little to simulate a Cardinal shaking his head. Get the idea?

It’s time to walk the net lines and collect captured birds. Rounding the corner of the trail, I see a still net and a blaze of red feathers. Remember that comment about split personalities? Cardinals stay calm and cute looking until your hand gets close. Then they wig out and go for the fingers. Quick, look for a Cardinal chew toy, also known by the highly technical term “stick”. Better that it gets chomped instead of me. This proud fellow happily grabs onto the stick, and after a brief contest of wills I have him loose and into a small transport bag. I collect a couple of Yellow-rumped Warblers and a Carolina Wren from another net, stash each one in its own bag, and head back to the banding station in the back of a van just around the corner.

Arriving back at the station, I take Mr. Cardinal out of his bag. I have his head gently secured between two fingers, his back against my palm, and my thumb and other fingers softly wrapped around his body to keep him still. This is the “banders grip”.

The band is attached and the number is verified. I measure his tail and the length is recorded. While I'm distracted extending his wing to get the chord length, the distance from elbow to wingtip, this year old handful seizes his chance by seizing my finger. Woo, woo, woo that hurts! Now mind you I can't let go of him because we aren't done. I need that wing measurement and then I have to weigh him. Slow deep breaths, stay calm. Sounds like a Lamaze class doesn't it? I knew that breathing stuff would come in handy one day. For me.
I finish measuring and get his wing tucked back in. Somebody find me a chew toy! Ah ha, there's one in his transport bag, but he's not falling for that again. So I put him back in the bag and he calms down and lets go. It is safe to say that this Cardinal has certainly made an impression. Literally. I've got a tiny little blood blister where he latched on. This dude gets weighed in the bag. Then the weight of the bag by itself is subtracted to get the weight of the Cardinal. Clever idea isn't it? I'm not sticking my hand back in there again. No way, not me.

Now it's time to let this rascal loose in the world again. He is biting part of the bag so my fingers are safe. With the Cardinal in hand, I walk over to the tree line and let him go.

Now this bird, who has just actively defined the classic “in-your-face attitude”, with feathers, does an amazing thing. He flies in a wimpy kind of way, well, flops and flutters is actually a better description, up to a branch. He's dangling the leg with the band. He has a kind of "now what am I supposed to do" look. Perched, he lifts the leg and checks out his new bling. Apparently it doesn't meet with his standards. He gives a disdainful look and takes off, complaining loudly to his drinking buddies about the indignity of it all.

Bet he won't be whining when that cute little female Cardinal we banded earlier flies over and whispers, "It's just sooo cute. See, I've got one too." Ah, love.

Thanks, Eric! We'll be back with our last few entries!

Guest Blogging Day 8: Jeffrey Gordon

It's day eight of the Swarovski Optik Guest Blogging Contest. Today's entry comes from Jeffrey Gordon with a much-needed post for mid-winter: spring cleaning!

For more of Jeff's writing, you can visit his blog.

I'm fortunate to live in Lewes, Delaware, which just happens to be the northermost place in the world you can see Brown-headed Nuthatches. These little clowns are pretty much addicted to pines, so that's where you have to go to listen for their squeaky, animated calls.

Brown-headed Nuthatches are also very much homebodies, rarely if ever traveling far from their home patch. So much so that even though I can find them just about any day of the year, only once in recorded history has one made the trek across to Cape May, New Jersey, just 11 miles across the mouth of Delaware Bay.

In fact, Brown-headed Nuthatches are very nearly a United States endemic, ranging from East Texas across to Florida and up to Delaware. Their only non-U.S. outpost is a small and threatened population on the Bahamas.

As winter begins to loosen its grip, our nuthatches begin preparing to breed. I digiscoped this Brown-headed Nuthatch doing a little spring cleaning. You'll see her (or possibly him--I'm not sure) go into the cavity, then return with several mouthfuls of sawdust.

If you're thinking about doing a little Spring cleaning, but the thought seems just too oppressive, perhaps you can borrow a little inspiration from these nuthatches. And be thankful that you don't have to clear out your junk using your mouth!

Check back in tomorrow for our next entry!

Guest Blogging Day 7: Stacey Wittig

Welcome back to day seven! We've had quite a few entry about raptors so far, so now we're going to switch things up and talk about one of my favorite kinds of birds: corvids. Today's entrant is Stacey Wittig of the Vagabond Lulu blog, who helpfully included a bio!

Stacey is a freelance writer based in Flagstaff, AZ. Her culinary adventures have led her up the Inca Trail in Peru eating fried caterpillars and roasted guinea pig, across the plains of northern Spain on El Camino de Santiago enjoying tapas and steamed barnacles, and through the vineyards of Cinque Terre sipping Chianti Classic. “Northern Arizona is a remarkable place to call home,” declares the wandering writer who loves sour cream enchiladas at El Charro Restaurant in Flagstaff, AZ.

Take it away, Stacey!

What is the Difference between Ravens and Crows?

Flagstaff, AZ--Today I saw a crow at my bird feeder for the first time. It's not that a crow has never been there before. I just never recognized it as a crow; I always thought that it was a raven. That was until I attended Shannon Benjamin's presentation Corvid Lore: Ravens and Crows in the American Southwest at the Riordan Mansion State Historic Park in Flagstaff, AZ.

Raised in Minnesota, I surely know what a crow looks like. When I moved "Out West" I became acquainted with ravens. For some reason, somewhere during my own southern migration, I came to believe that crows live near the corn fields of the Midwest, and ravens were the black birds of the western skies.

Back to my feeder. I knew that the big, glossy black birds with thick beaks bounding around my feeder were ravens. I just hadn't been discerning enough to notice that some of those cackling black birds had smaller, pointed beaks. Some of my Flagstaff ravens were actually crows. So much for bird watching.

At the lecture, Shannon quickly put to bed my notion that crows live only in the bread basket of this fair nation. Further, she explained that crows and ravens fraternize. "Crows and ravens socialize, especially when it comes to food," Benjamin explained, pointing to a slide of ravens and crows together at a typical Flagstaff bird-sighting location: a dumpster in front of Ponderosa Pine trees. "Crows' tails are blunt, while Raven's tails are pointed, or diamond shaped," she continued. Another slide, this time raven from the backside, ala pointed tail.

Crow with straight tail feathers and narrow, long beak.

Is that bird flapping or soaring? The flappers are crows. Ravens soar in a fashion much like hawks or eagles. That's probably why I must take a second look at ravens flying against the sun, when I am trying to spot Red-tailed Hawks on my way home from town.

Want one more definitive difference between crows and ravens? Ravens are larger and have shaggy throat feathers. Perhaps that's why the raven's cry sometimes sounds more like a croaky frog.

Shannon explained that ravens and crows are part of the Corvid family. Corvids are known for their high intelligence. In fact, their brain-weight-to-body-weight ration is that of a chimpanzee. Corvids are clever problem solvers who learn and modify their behavior accordingly. Even so, Corvids mate for life.

Corvids are curious and collect and cache shiny objects. Perhaps their similarity to our own human behavior causes us to relate to ravens and crows. Ever feel ravenous? Have you complained about "crow's feet" at the lid of your eye? Measured distance "as the crow flies?"

The Stellar Jay is also a member of the
Corvid family, and a regular at my feeder.

Many Native American cultures have noticed the Corvid's s resemblance to humans. The Hopi believe that Crow Mother is the creator mother of all Hopi spirits. Zuni storytellers like to explain "How the Black Bird Taught Coyote to Dance." One tribe of the Sioux calls themselves the "Crow."

And now I am "eating crow" as I look at my feeder and watch as those human-like black birds, that I thought were ravens, become two distinct species.

Thanks for the great entry, Stacey! We'll be back tomorrow with another entry in the Swarovski Optik Guest Blogging Contest!

Guest Blogging Day 6: Holly

NBB here. Hope you all had a good weekend! We're back today with an entry from a young birder named Holly, who documents a familiar feeling to all birders: getting nooged, as Sharon puts it.

Hi! My name is Holly, I am 9 years old. Me and my dad, and my brother went looking for the Great Horned Owl of Dakota County. I was so excited; I hurried and grabbed my binoculars, my birding book, put on my coat and I was outta there!!

It took a long time to get there because we missed the exit; my dad got frustrated.

As we got back on track we found the spot, we parked and got outta the car. We had to climb a wall and step on a lamp post, then my dad helped me up.

I looked at the nest through my binoculars while my dad took three pictures.
He tried to take a picture of the nest with his cellphone using the binoculars; it was cool!!
We then crossed the street and went in the tall grass that went crunch, crunch. We went in until we were in front of the tree. I saw that the tree used to be an old treehouse. The nest was very high up.

We went back across the street and went in the car and left.

It was fun, but we did not find the Great Horned Owl, and that was fine with me!

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us, Holly. Learning to enjoy birding even when you don't see the bird is a big part of becoming a birder. Enjoying warmth and sleeping in, however, can lead to raging sanity. FYI.

Okay, we'll be back tomorrow!

Guest Blogging Day 5: Jeff Fischer

Welcome back for Day 5 of the Swarovski Optik Guest Blogging Contest. Sharon's checked in from Guatemala and wants you to know how thrilled she is with both the quality of the entries and all your comments. Today's guest Blogger is Jeff Fischer of Ecobirder.

Every year as winter engulfs North America many birders make like the birds and fly south for the winter. Many of them head to the big birding destinations down south, like Ding Darling, Brownsville or the Bosque del Apache, but for those birders that choose to don mukluks instead of flip flops and spread on lip balm instead of sun screen and brave the sub zero temps of Minnesota the reward can be great. While Minnesota may not have the variety of birds that can be found in the south, during the winter time, it does have some thing that many birders are looking to add to their life list, and that is winter owls.
The first owls to arrive each year seem to be the snowy owl. These ground nesters spend their summer up on the tundra of the arctic circle where they work to keep the lemming population in control. When winter comes young snowies, like the one pictured above, that do not yet have their own territory often venture south in search of food.

Since they are used to open spaces of the tundra they are typically drawn to farm fields, frozen lakes and airports. The international airport in Bloomington, MN has been a winter home for snowies for the past several years. This year there has been an irruption of snowies in Minnesota, Wisconsin and other northern states. Typically irruptions are due to a crash in the food supply but the thought this year is that it was such a good year for snowy reproduction that there were more snowies then the habitat up north could support during the winter. So more have headed south.

Soon after the snowies begin to pass through there are typically reports of northern hawk owls in the northern portions of Minnesota. These birds spend their summer up in Canada, Alaska and Siberia hunting mice and voles. Although they are a member of the owl family northern hawk owls are built very similarly to hawks with short wings and long tails.
Since they are diurnal, they hunt during the day, they are one of the easiest northern owls to find. there are currently reports of around 6 northern hawk owls in the Sax Zim Bog and Aitkins County area in Northern Minnesota.

One of the prized owls that many birders look for is the great gray owl. Even though their are a few nesting pair in northern Minnesota as well as those that migrate down looking for food these owls are much more difficult to find. They are adapt at camouflaging their two and a half foot form, which is the largest of the North American Owls.
Northern Minnesota became one of the highlight of the bird world in the winter of 2004 and 2005 when over 5000 great gray owls irrupted into northern Minnesota. While it was a great opportunity to see wild great grey owls it was also very sad. They came south in great numbers to find food when the vole population in Canada crashed. Many starved to death or where hit by cars as they hunted night and day to find food.

Probably the most difficult owl to find is the small secretive boreal owl. I have not yet seen one in the wild, this is Boreas our education boreal from The Raptor Center, even though each year typically a few are spotted in Northern Minnesota.

There are also our resident owls, like great horned, barred and eastern screech owl. Winter is a great time to find and photograph these owls because they usually begin nesting early in the year. Once they are on the nest they are much easier to find. It also allows you to observe some of their behavior.

I usually get my best shots by looking around for dad. He usually is not to far from mom and the nest keeping a watchful eye out. If you look hard you are bound to find him. For more bird pics check out the Ecobirder blog.

Thanks, Jeff! We'll be back tomorrow!