Woodpecker vs Snake

I know, I know, I'm supposed to be on a blogging vacation and I knew as soon as I took my kind, wonderful husband up on that idea that I would instantly lose my writer's block and find a ton of topics.  I vowed to save them for the following week...that is until I saw this video on Twitter of what appears to be a crimson-crested woodpecker (about the size of a pileated woodpecker her in the US) in a battle with some sort of large snake.  The video description reads that this is an olive whipsnake, but I do not know my reptile.  The video is supposed to be from Peru and whether the id is accurate or not, this is some amazing footage and must be seen: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrGbh-6cAZA[/youtube]

Also going around on twitter is an incredible photo of a red-tailed hawk in the middle of a cloud of bats.  I have no idea who took the photo, but it's fabulous.

Strange Few Days


I think this photo caught with my WingScapes Cam kind of sums of the hodgepodge of the last few days. Check out the red-bellied woodpecker, black-capped chickadee, and female purple finch posing on the feeder (never mind that there are 6 other feeders). Note that the chickadee is sporting a band--that means that my buddies Mark and Roger have been around and it was time for their bi-annual banding at Mr. Neil's. And we got in a ton of birds--so many that I barely had time to take a photo, we got over 50 birds in the nets. We pretty much would put up the nets and in fifteen minutes later they would have to be furled so we could process what we had.


One of the interesting birds what this white-breasted nuthatch who was missing two claws on one foot. Many birds would be able to survive this just fine--but nuthatches use those toes constantly to go down trees. She was a hatch year bird (hatched this summer) so it will be interesting to see if she sticks around and survives awhile--will she ever be a recapture?


Speaking of recaptures, we had a really exciting one! We had a female goldfinch come into the nets with a band. Roger read off the number and Mark asked, "Can you read that again?"

Roger obliged and Mark said, "Huh, not our band number."

We had this happen once before and let me tell you--getting a foreign recapture once is like winning a million bucks in the lottery. Getting that twice, is--well it's just a big fat HOLY COW! Now, the last time this happened, it was a female goldfinch who had been banded four years earlier in Illinois (over 450 miles away). Now, here is where this recapture gets really freaky--we trapped this second bird in the same net as the other recapture and we caught her in the fall too. If this bird ends up being from Illinois too--what kind of crazy reverse goldfinch movement is going on? I have turned in the goldfinch's band number to the Bird Banding Lab...now I have to wait to hear from the original bander.


We had a special guest around the banding. If you are hip to the Internet Geek Music scene, you might recognize the bearded fellow releasing a nuthatch above--it's Jonathan Coulton. If you are new to him might I suggest his listening primer and check out the top four songs. Skullcrusher Mountain is a favorite of mine (although I do find myself humming Tom Cruise Crazy quite a bit).

Also around were Paul and Storm of the comedic musical duo...Paul and Storm. If you listen to Bob and Tom, you might be familiar with some of their songs and their alternate band name of the BarryTones (they use the power of barbershop to do things like a rap medley). Check out the songs Count to Ten, Your Town, or The Captain's Wife's Lament.

They recorded a podcast in Mr. Neil's sauna and Non Birding Bill and I got to participate. It's about a half hour long and there are a few four letter words flung around so not the safest for work. Also, some in the podcast are more tipsy than other. The boys tell some funny drunk stories and towards the end, you get a peak into the dynamic of my marriage to NBB. And, Mom, if you are reading this...skip to minute 18:00.


Harris Hawk Goes For Cockatoo

Now here is a dramatic video! As a bird handler, you have a tremendous responsibility of keeping the bird safe while you are working with the public.  If all goes well, it's a great educational tool.  If all does not go well...it can be a disaster for the birds and for the audience. Here is a video from a live bird show at the Los Angeles Zoo which incorporates both birds of prey and, well prey. This is a nighmare situation where the bird handler's quick thinking saved the life of a cockatoo: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikDpYwDKQ_A[/youtube]

I watched that with both fascination and horror. On the one hand, to see how quickly the Harris hawk dives in is cool, but as a bird handler, that is an intense situation. I wish I could see a copy of the video without the dramatic special editing. But, here is what I see and here is why that handler is a pro and was able to save the cockatoo.

She works with that cockatoo enough, that she knows when the bird is nervous and that something else has its attention. Typically, when I work with birds of prey, when they look up, there's a raptor--sometimes just a pepper speck to my eyes. That trainer, noticed that the cockatoo looked up and exhibited fear, she was smart enough to look up and realize that their other program bird, a Harris hawk wasn't far overhead.

As soon as the hawk dove, she blocks the cockatoo by covering it with her body--I can't imagine the amount of pain and to have it done in front of a crowd. If you get a glimpse at her face, you can tell that it hurt. Besides, the grasping talons of the Harris hawk, I wonder of the cockatoo bit her to either get balance or out of fear? Owie, owie, owie! I'm not sure which would be worse, I can't imagine both at the same time.

I found the full video on Animal Planet's website and they interview Lauren, than handler in the video.  Interesting, despite the sensationalized editing.  Again, her quick thinking and knowledge of her birds' behavior kept that live show from becoming an unfortunate bloody lesson on animal behavior.

Roadrunner vs Cowbird At Spring Mountain Ranch State Park

spring mountain ranch I need to get back to Spring Mountain Ranch State Park in Nevada.  I blogged earlier that I given the advice by the Red Rock Audubon Society to visit here, since there would be different species than we would see in and around Las Vegas. We saw some great birds and I got a life bird, but I also saw one of the coolest birding interactions I have ever seen.

boys

It started when we reached the actual ranch part of the park. That's Clay and Non Birding Bill setting up their cameras.  Clay spotted a predator in the grass:

lurker

Can you see it?  Believe it or not, there is a greater roadrunner lurking in that grass.  Clay gets them in his backyard in Corpus Christi. Roadrunners are incredible predators that will eat snakes, reptiles and even birds. In Clay's yard, the roadrunner stalks house sparrows.  He recognized this bird as being on the hunt right away.  Most of my experiences with roadrunners has been watching them scurry along a road, so to watch it in full on skulk mode for the hunt was incredible.

roadrunner head

The roadrunner would crouch down in the tall grass and slink along with just the top of its head visible. Almost like a feathered shark fin breaking the top of an ocean. Periodically, it was stop for an insect and gulp it down while using the grass for cover. What was this bird stalking for a meal?

cowbirds

A flock of unsuspecting cowbirds. They were following the cow and the horses in the field. The area was recently grazed and the grass was short for the cowbirds to feed, but nearby the taller grass hid a predator actively stalking them.  Clay, Bill and I all staked out a position to get photos of whatever was about to happen.

lone cowbird

One lone cowbird made the fatal error of straying away from the safety of the flock. I tried to line this shot up so that the cowbird was in front of the roadrunner, but the roadrunner had crouched so low, you couldn't see it.  Suddenly, the cowbirds took flight, some went right over the roadrunner.  The predator leaped into the air, grabbed a cowbird with it's beak, whacked it a few times against the ground, and took off running.  NBB actually got footage of that, which you will see when we get the videos edited together.

roadrunner with cowbird

I got a shot of the roadrunner crossing the road in front of us with the dead cowbird in its mouth. I previewed this photo on Twitter with the question, "Guess what's in the roadrunner's mouth?" A few were insistent that it was a house sparrow, but this is a young cowbird--note the size in relation to the roadrunner, the white throat patch, the thick dark bill, and the vertical streaks on the breast (young cowbirds have vertical streaks). House sparrows and brown-headed cowbirds are unpopular birds.  House sparrows are an introduced species that can wreak havoc on nesting bluebirds, chickadees and nuthatches. Brown-headed cowbirds are natives, but their nesting habit of laying their eggs in other birds nests has caused problems for species like Kirtland's warblers. Many people don't mind a roadrunner eating those particular species. But like any successful predator, roadrunners are generalists.  They don't go for just he unpopular birds, many in the western US are chagrined to find roadrunners stalking their hummingbirds feeders.

amy hooper

As we worked our way around the trails, we made it to Lake Harriet, which was an oasis of color.  Above is WildBird on the Fly scanning the water for ducks.  It was quiet apart from some young coots incessantly clucking. I think this would be packed on a weekend, but on a week day this was a spot where you could imagine being the only person for miles.

bill filming

It was weird having NBB along on this trip (my birding and non birding world was colliding, my compartments were getting mixed up).  I sat at this spot and leaned against NBB for a moment.  I'm so used to seeing a beautiful vista and wishing he were next to me or wondering what he'd be doing while I'm and about, it was a treat to have him there to see this with me.  My filmmaker husband did surprisingly well on this trip.  I must admit that I was nervous with how we would handle being around my birding friends for 5 days and out doing some hardcore watching and filming in the heat.  But I think since he was focused on getting footage, he was able to do it.  I'm so proud, he got some great footage--especially that roadrunner.  Editing is going to take longer than I thought, but this video series is going to be so cool, it's about how you can watch birds anywhere and we're using a small HD camera while Clay experimented with a cheaper hand held video camera with the new Swarovksi UCA adaptor and I took video with my Cannon A570's point and shoot video feature and my scope.  On the fly birding videos for the internet, I love making these.

young coot

This little lake was chock full of young coots.  They don't quite look like the black adults, but when this young bird stepped out of the water, those lobed toes gave it away as a total American coot.  Again, I wish we could have explored further, there's an old cemetery in the park and it would have been fun to visit that too.  This park was a great suggestion from Red Rock Audubon.

wild burros

We saw signs around the park that wild burros were possible and as we were packing up to leave NBB said, "Look, burros."

There they were!  Wild burrows...well feral burros...oh heck, we all shouted, "Wild Asses!"

Just what we came to Vegas for!

wild ass

These are feral burros, they were brought over as a beast of burden by the Spanish because they do well in arid climates.  The ones that roam the west are the result of escapees or released animals from well over a century ago.  They behaved pretty much the way a captive burro would behave and I'm not sure why I got so excited over seeing feral ones.  What is it about seeing an unfettered ass that makes me so happy?

So, this is a very cool park and if you have some time in Vegas, check it out.  You could easily spend a full day here, but we did it in half a day.  It was easy to get in and get out with a rental car.  If you don't have a rental car, if you contact Red Rock Audubon Society, you could probably find a guide to take you there for a reasonable fee.

I'm going to end this with some video of the cowbirds.  Note how they keep their tails cocked up while they feed.  I wonder if they are releasing heat from their vent area as a means to keep cool?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiX_fIBU0js[/youtube]

Have You Seen The Ohio Pink Katydid?

Check out Jim McCormack's blog, they were out on a birding trip when they found a pink morph katydid!  Cheryl Harner has photos of it where she found this dynamite insect. I have always wanted to see one of those, ever since I first got my copy of Lang Elliot and Wil Hershberger's Songs of Insects and saw a photo of one in there.  The insect is apparently going to be on display this weekend at the Midwest Native Plant Conference. If I were anywhere near this, I would make a special trip to look at this amazing creature. Not much is known about pink katydids apart from knowing that they exist and it's darn cool when you see one.  I found this article from the Chicago Gardener on the subject:

Katydids are green (usually) to hide among the leaves from predators such as birds. But scientists say that there is a certain amount of normal variation in katydid colors, and pink is one of the possibilities. Speculation is that this variation might allow katydids to extend their range -- from living in trees, say, to moving out into a prairie where there are pink flowers in late summer.

It's an example of the genetic variation that drives natural selection and the continuing evolution of every species. And without that, we would not have the fabulous array of forms, shapes and colors we love in our gardens.

If you want to have some fun, just type in "pink katydid" on Google's image search and you'll find all kinds of crazy photos.  I even found a link to a yellow katydid.

File This Under Cats & Dogs Living Together

We're talking mass hysteria here. A photographer by the name of Steve Creek got some interesting photos of a female red-winged blackbird and a scissor-tailed flycatcher.  The female red-winged blackbird is incubating the brood, tolerating the flycatcher, feeding the chicks...but then the flycatcher goes to feed the chicks!

Now, I'm a lover and not a hater, but I have my doubts if this pairing can work long term or if it's a true pairing.  What could be going on?

1.  Did these bird truly engage in a love so taboo I dare not speak it's name?  Doubtful.

2. Is there really a male red-winged blackbird nearby but is so busy wooing the ladies in the neighboring territory he doesn't pay attention to how broken his pair bond seems to be? Doubtful, you would think that if he saw that flycatcher near the nest he would dive bomb the crap out of it.

3.  Has this female mated with a male red-wing and then he got nailed by a Cooper's hawk and she's left to raise the brood on her own and the flycatcher has also lost a mate but the urge to feed young is so strong that its happy to feed red-winged blackbird brood (this is speculation why some birds respond strongly to pishing certain times of year).  Who knows?

Regardless, it's a cool observation.

Heroic Mistle Thrush & Humiliated Goshawk

The Telegraph has a great photo and story of a pair of mistle thrushes.  They built their nest on a drain pipe, right where the water goes down.  When it rained, the position of the nest, prevented the water going down, and the gutter would flood.  So, one parent took over feeding duties, while the other blocked the water, preventing it from reaching the nest! Check out the photo and story here.

The Telegraph also has another story about a live goshawk nest cam (how did I miss my favorite raptor having a nest cam) and the fearsome female ended up having a rather embarrassing moment caught on the web cam.  A strong wind came in and the terror of the forest went ass over teakettle out of the nest.  Don't worry, being an accipiter--she can corner really well and made it back to the nest safe...albeit a little less frightening.  The live cam is still going (with sound) if you would like to continue watching the nesting goshawks.