From Frankfurt With Love

I love this shot of the full moon visible from our flight to Europe.

My journey to Kazakhstan started with a trip to Frankfurt.  My flights worked out to go from the Twin Cities, to Detroit, to Frankfurt and then on to Kazakhstan.  Originally, I was supposed to do this all in one day, but for whatever reason, it saved $1000 for me to arrive a day ahead, spend the night in Frankfurt and fly to Kazakhstan the following day--which I'm  really glad happened that way.  It gave me a chance to catch up with the time change...and finally do a bit of European birding.  This was my first time across the Atlantic.

I was able to walk around the hotel and all the birds were new like the above chaffinch.  I also looked forward to experiencing some of the iconic birds of Europe like the nightingale which I did not see, but only heard.  This was fine with me, the song of the nightingale is written about so often, I'm not sure I would have counted it if I did not hear it (even if I saw it).  Here's a sample of the nightingale song.

Some birds were just down right confusing to my little American brain.  Above is a blackbird--as a matter of fact, this is the very blackbird referenced in the Beatles song, Blackbird Singing In The Dead Of Night...which this bird did do...right outside my hotel room window.  However, if you look at the shape of this bird, it resembles an American robin, not something like a red-winged blackbird.  Check out the bill on this bird.

Robins that I see are in the genus Turdus, their scientific name is Turdus migratorius.  Well, the blackbird above has the scientific name Turdus merula--they are in the same genus as North American robins.  European blackbirds are not the same as North American blackbirds, they are like our robins.

It gets more confusing!

Here is what a European robin looks like. It's not shaped like a Turdus at all (did I actually type that last sentence, yes I did).  The European robin's scientific name is Erithacus rubecula, it's not in the same genus as North American robins, about all they have in common are featers, an orange breast and a love of insects for breakfast.

Anyway, here is another exciting (at least to me) Turdus that I got to see--a fieldfare.  My only regret is that when I was finally able to get my hands on my digiscoping equipment, it was softly raining and the light was terrible. But I had a great time watching something shaped like the robin I'm used to, but colored in a different way.

This is a green finch.  After hearing the nightingale, seeing the blackbird, and then seeing this bird I thought, "All I need now is a linnet and I have a song from Sweeney Todd."  I didn't get one around the Frankfurt hotel, but did later in Kazakhstan.  Score!

Here were some European goldfinches.  This was interesting, because I periodically see these sold in pet stores in North America.  It strikes me as odd that it's illegal to own North American birds as pets, but European birds are ok.  Actually, according to this website, you can get some of the birds in this post (like the chaffinch and green finch) and some of the birds I saw in Kazakhstan as pets.  Whoa, I just did some digging on their price list and found that one of their South American species for sale is a "yellow hood blackbird" which looks remarkably like a yellow-headed blackbird...that's not legal.  And as much as I love those birds, I would not want them singing in my home on a regular basis.

Another fun bird to see what a white wagtails.  I ended up seeing several different versions of this bird throughout my travels and each one is very striking. I'm sure it's a common bird, but it's a striking one to see.

That is a sampling of the birds that jump started my Kazakhstan journey.  After an afternoon of birds, I met up with some of our other travelling companions, had a meal and got a good night's sleep before board a plane for parts unknown.

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!

Finca El Pilar Birding In Guatemala

Don't forget, there's still time to vote for your favorite guest blog entry! So, what the heck was I doing in Central America? I was part of the Fifth International Birdwatching Encounter in Guatemala. It was group that included bird guides and bloggers from Japan, Denmark, the US, and even Ecuador. One of the participants was Rick Wright of WINGS Birding Tours and I felt like I got some kind of great deal because he's a walking field guide. What a treat to have his bird knowledge along. He really is a birder's birder, we were talking popular culture and he didn't know what a Cosmo Quiz was. You want to be out in the field with a guy who has his head filled with the finer nuances of empidonax flycatchers as opposed to "What Kind Of Sexy Are You?"

Where do I begin with my Guatemala adventure? I think with volcanoes. This was the first time I had ever been to a place so chock full of volcanoes. Let's face it, this was the first time I'd been out of the country (at least to the point where a passport was required). The whole time, I kept looking around and asking myself, "How the heck did I get here?"

Our first day of birding was at Finca El Pilar, a private shade grown coffee farm being converted into a nature reserve. We went above the coffee farm to get some of the local specialties and incredible views of the surrounding volcanoes. We birded a few days here so I'll have lots to tell you.

Some of the volcanoes that we encountered during our visit, like Fuego are active and you can see little puffs of smoke coming off the top all day long. I digiscoped some of Fuego's smoke above. How can you not feel like you're not on an adventure if you're surrounded by active volcanoes?

I was expecting a complete and total sensory overload when it came to the birds, but was incredibly surprised by the number of familiar faces down there, like this eastern bluebird. It had a bit of a different accent than the eastern bluebirds I hear up in Minnesota and one of the guides mentioned that it was a more local variety, down to having a duller look than the bluebirds I'm used to. Still, the first few days, their calls really tripped me up.

When I wasn't seeing species I could see at home, I was at least seeing species similar to what I can see at home. There were all kinds of crazy looking thrushes, check out this pair of rufous-collared robins (be prepared for rufous to show up a lot in species names, whoever named the birds in Central America really liked that in their names). It's a highland thrush and looks similar to robins we see in the US.

Another somewhat familiar bird was the black-headed siskin, here's a pair above. While the siskin irruption still rages in the US, I was still able to see some siskins at El Pilar.

Check out this rufous-collared sparrow (there's that rufous again). It's a great looking bird, reminiscent of a white-throated sparrow. These birds were seen all over. Speaking sparrows we did see some introduced species like house sparrows and rock pigeons, but this was the first birding trip that I ever been on where I did not encounter one single starling. No starlings here...can you imagine? Ten days and not seeing a starling--crazy!

While we were doing all this birding, I at one point could have sworn I heard several bees buzzing. I looked and could not see any hives nearby. I started to wonder if elevation sickness was closing in or if my tinnitus had switched from its usual high pitched ring to buzzing. Then I noticed a small water basin and took a peak...

There they were, a small swarm of honeybees gathering water for the hive. You sometimes can get honeybees coming to birdbaths or ponds when it's try, water is necessary for comb construction. I asked the owner of El Pilar and he said that he did not keep bees, but perhaps they were his neighbor's bees. Or they very well could have been from a wild hive. It was fun to hear that familiar buzzing.

We found a camper while above the coffee farm and I got a giggle at the Ron Paul sticker on the back. I didn't know anyone in Guatemala would be pro Ron Paul?

And now it is time for me to head into the Park Service. More on Finca El Pilar and Guatemala later.

And don't forget to vote for your favorite guest blog entry!

Still Time To Vote

Don't forget to vote for your favorite guest blog entry that was up while I was away!

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.

Swarkovski Optik Guest Blogging Contest Voting

All right, it's time to vote for your favorite entry in the Swarovski Optik Guest Blogging Challenge. As a reminder, each posted entry gets a Swarovski Binocular Cleaning Kit and the Grand Prize winner gets Swarovski Crystal Pocket Binoculars!

Each person can vote for one (1) entry! If you want to reread the entries, you can do so by following these links:

Guest Blogging Day 1: Amy Haran : What kind of bird are you?

Guest Blogging Day 2: Lynnanne Fager: Results of a Backyard Bird Bordello

Guest Blogging Day 3: Allison Shock: Vertical napping bark

Guest Blogging Day 4: Art Drauglis: Hawk vs. Turtle

Guest Blogging Day 5: Jeff Fischer: Owls

Guest Blogging Day 6: Holly: Nooged by an Owl

Guest Blogging Day 7: Stacey Wittig: Ravens and Crows

Guest Blogging Day 8: Jeffrey Gordon: Brown-headed Nuthatches

Guest Blogging Day 9: Eric Brierley: Cardinal damages digits

Guest Blogging Day 10: David McRee: Wild bird rescue

Thanks to all our entrants. We'll be accepting votes until 6 p.m. CST on Tuesday, March 3rd. And once again, thanks to everyone who contributed an entry!

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!