Birdchick Blog
From the now defunct Birding Family CircusThere's the coming BirdSnap app or website to aid in bird ID.
Are you aware of the birding term "stringing" and have you been guilty of it? This also leads us to Birder Shaming.
Is birding too popular (eye roll).
Here's a link to an Audubon article that ticked me off because at first glance I thought it made digiscoping look like a joke. But it brings up a bigger questions of what is a photo and what is art. Examples of photos that have been manipulated green heron contest winner or blue heron and bald eagle photo. Here's an article in Audubon about what qualifies as natural as they had to disqualify a great photo because it was technically manipulated.
Yep. Another oil spill. Follow National Audubon on Facebook for the most up to date info. Here's a petition.
Owl rides a train from Scotland to the UK.
Eagle flirting gets out of control.
Ravens to be culled in favor of spotted owls.
Stinky cuckoo is not the worse parasite ever.
Crow solves an 8-step puzzle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVaITA7eBZE
What's news in Minnesota? Eagle gossip. Also, this photo taken by Joseph Scrimshaw at a truck stop disturbed me:
I don't know if you guys know this...but some dude named David Allen Sibley released a revised bird book and was in the Wall Street Journal.
Ugh. More snowy owl madness. Here's a crazy shot of one in Louisiana and Project SnowStorm has to delay their maps because some guy decided to be a jerk because he legally could in Pennsylvania.
Hey, want to track those migrants? Here's a cool real time map of wind, you can see what conditions are like all over the world to find out if birds are on the move and where they might congregate. Don't forget BirdCast or BadBirdz migration radar.
A really cool fundraiser called Champions of the Flyway.
This winter has been hard on some of the ducks that spend it on the Great Lakes.
Check out Lang Elliot's woodcock page. And if you are on Facebook, follow Lang Elliot--he's a cool dude.
It's World Sparrow Day soon! Please everyone, let's just be reasonable about snowy owls? Maybe? Latest Project Snowstorm update.
Swarovski Optik contest for SLC binoculars. Have a good campfire story?
Endangered kakapo accidentally crushes her egg but wildlife rehabbers fix it with tape and glue.
Photographer Jim Neiger pleads guilty to harassing endangered snail kites.
Pelican with a GoPro on its beak.
Places I've been recently: Klamath Falls Winter Wings Bird Festival and Alamo Inn Bed and Breakfast.
We talked about a print that I purchase from a "tea bag lady" here is here site Orphan Girl Fine Art. Here's the print I got.
Mya Rose Craig is an 11 year old lister...she's already hit 3000 and has optics sponsorship. Now that is what I call an upper echelon birder. Because, you know, birders don't have enough to argue about, here's a totally unexpected development. It's legal in Wisconsin to trip snowy owls for falconry...and some guy did. Boom! I wrote up my thoughts about it over at 10000 Birds.
There's a cool contest over at Birds & Blooms for a free trip to the Biggest Week in Birding.
Audubon President David Yarnold on the Colbert Report to talk about culling barred owls in favor of endangered spotted owls.
Interesting behavior documented by Corey Finger of what appears to be a lesbian pairing of Nanday parakeets.
In some excellent news, the wind turbine project on Lake Erie has been halted. There are good places for wind farms but a major migratory corridor like that one isn't one of them.
Dudes, it's an albatross live web cam in Hawaii--perfect escape from this long hard, Winterfell like winter.
ABA announces this year's award winners and my friend Laura Erickson is one of them!
Hey, did you see that we are doing another contest on the blog in the form of a web series? Check out this trailer--you might win a Swarovski Spotting Scope this spring!!
Really cool birds in flight video. Artist Dentist Hlynsky creates visual trails that illustrate the path of each moving bird in a flock. Really cool stuff! [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/32363204[/vimeo]
White doves that were released by children standing alongside Pope Francis as a peace gesture have been attacked by hood crows and yellow-legged gulls. National Geographic has a good explanation of it...yes, the crows and gulls were trying to eat the doves.
Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach has a bill that makes it a felony for any federal agency to intervene on behalf of the greater or lesser prairie chickens.
Cool new app from Cornell Lab of Ornithology identifies common bird for newbies...AND IT'S FREE!
When you have time please read some of the cool research going down with Project Snowstorm!
An old Onion article on the David Sibley Guide.
And not an onion story...city tries to regulate what type of bird feeders you have.
Holy crap, birding has gone mainstream: it's in the Boston Globe (on Neil Hayward breaking the North American big year record), Wall Street Journal (birders using taped calls) and USA Today (how birding is attracting "young fans" lol in their 30s and 40s). Is 2014 the year of the BIRDER?
Project Snow Storm: the study of a snowy owl irruption in real time. Contribute either sighting or money (I did). Also here is an interesting of a snowy owl getting caught in a truck's grill (the owl is ok).
The controversy surrounding the "rediscovery" of the night parrot in Australia. Also a list of bird discovered in 2013.
Turkey chasing delivery guy--why I love living in Minnesota.
Here is the horrific bird house NBB and I were talking about:
*shiver* and Ew!
Here are the links we talked about:
Compilation of the best snowy owl pics so far this winter.
Some crazy guy in Iowa (who thinks owls have paws) started a blog on feeding them.
We talked about scare crows, snowy owls, what you should really be concerned about with wind turbines going up on Lake Erie and oh cool this contest from Celebrate Urban birds...you have until January 15, 2014 to enter.
