Cool Things Afoot At eBird

I have to say that I'm totally digging the BirdsEye app from eBird that let's see what birds are being reported during migration.  eBird is up to all sorts of cool things, but have you taken a look at what they are doing with all that data they are collecting? Here's a link to an animated map of the eastern phoebe migration reports.  Cool.

Loon Cam Is Up

Just a quick reminder that the comb honey being auctioned for charity from our beehives that my beekeeping partner Mr. Neil autographed ends today. I got an email this morning from Larry Backlund that reads, "Just wanted you to know that the#1 Webcam in the World the LoonCam is LIVE!!  This year with SOUND and with NIGHT VISION!"

If you enjoy loons as much as I do, you'll love the loon cam.  Can't wait to watch what shenanigans go down with the night vision cam or what sounds we'll here--half the fun of loons are the sounds that they make!

Bluebirds Checking Our Boxes

Wow, the dawn song near the beehives is very different this morning from last week.  This time last week we had the usual titmice, chickadees, nuthatches with robins, phoebes, house finches and goldfinches singing.  This morning we have that plus solitary sandpiper, sandhill cranes, ruby-crowned kinglets, bluebirds and a peewee.  The bluebirds (above) are really going to town.  Non Birding Bill and I cleaned out the boxes last week and this morning a pair was flying back and forth between the two houses.  The male seems to like them, he just needs to get a female to agree with him.

The male sits on top of the box and alternates flipping wing in the air to get her attention.  She flies over, sits on top, perches on the box, looks inside--she needs to determine is this is the type of dark box that she can incubate in comfortably for the next few weeks.

I hope they choose one.  We get birds nesting in these boxes every year--but rarely bluebirds.  Usually chickadees or house wrens, it will be nice to get the birds the boxes were actually intended.

Typical Monday

I walked into my bedroom today to find a most unexpected sight:

A pigeon on my unmade bed!  The unmade bed was not a surprise--but the bird sure was.  It's spring so the windows are open in our apartment and I had a screen up near our bird feeders and I suspect that's where this dude came from.  I left the window open and tried to scoot it towards the wild blue yonder.  The pigeon had no desire to go.  I even gave it a light toss and the bird responded by doing a U Turn and flew right back in to my bedroom.  I even tried leaving a trail of seed out the window to encourage the bird to leave. It didn't work.

Based on the bird's reaction to me, I began to suspect that this was not a wild pigeon after all.  I had an idea of where this bird came from.  We have some neighbors who had a pigeon and I wondered if it was their bird.  I walked over and asked if their pigeon was missing.  They told me that they raised it and let it go and for some reason it keeps coming back.  I mentioned that I had a pigeon in my bedroom and suspected it was their pigeon.  They did not want it back, they were done with it.  I had a choice at this moment: give them the lecture about about why you can't raise a bird indoors, release it and expect it to know everything it needs to know about how to find food, avoid predators and interact with others of its kind, or find a permanent home for it.

Since this was a rock pigeon (formerly known as rock dove and known in many cities as a flying rat) it is legal to keep them as a pet, they are a non native species to North America, so you do not have to have state or federal permits to have one in your possession).  I could not in good conscience release this bird back outdoors, it would soon be Cooper's hawk food.  Also, it had been out the last few days and it was sad to watch it fly desperately against windows trying to get back inside to what it had grown up to know as safety and comfort.  After it was in my apartment for awhile, it noticed my cockatiel's cage and tried to fly towards it (a bird raised indoors will associate a cage with comfort and food).  I blocked the pigeon and set it on my coffee table--I wasn't sure of this bird's history and did not want to risk exposing my cockatiel to any diseases.  I went to the bathroom to wash my hands after handling the pigeon and...

...it flew in after me and lit once more upon my head.  That's it, this bird was too people friendly--I had to find it a home.  In this photo you can kind of see the bird's stunted tail.  It had been in a cage too small for it and the tail feathers were trashed.  I did the only thing a chick of the modern era could do--I put the word (and photos) out on Twitter and Facebook that I had a pigeon who needed a home.

At first, I received advice that perhaps if I sang to the pigeon a la the movie Enchanted that it might clean my apartment.  Alas, either my singing was way off or this bird had not seen the movie because no matter what I sang to it, my apartment remained in woeful disarray.  Still, it was a pleasant enough bird, not too loud and screechy like my cockatiel, it bobbed its head and liked to perch on my furniture where it could have a good look at its surroundings.  This was by far the friendliest and most interactive pigeon I have ever dealt with.  When I offered it a measuring cup filled with water, it gracefully inserted its beak and sipped it up.  It dozed on our Lazy Boy and when it was jarred awake by car alarm, it cooed quietly in disdain.  I could see why people enjoy pigeons as pets.

I offered it some seed, but most of the seed in my apartment is the type to keep pigeons from taking over my bird feeders.  I offered it some of the muffins we make for our cockatiel and it showed mild interest.  It did enjoy sunflowers out of the shell, so I called Non Birding Bill and asked him to pick up some sunflower hearts on his way home.  He was glad to do it but was quick to remind me that we did not need a pigeon in the apartment and he was right.  I did momentarily fantasize that I could turn this into my own personal education bird on urban birding programs with the National Park Service or train it to stay still for digiscoping workshops, but then thought better of it when it crapped the furniture with wanton abandon.

We did find a friend who was willing to take the pigeon--Melissa Kaercher has had turtle doves in the past and was actually looking at getting a bird.  She graciously came to our apartment and picked up the pigeon and offered it a new life with her--far better than the life I could offer in a one bedroom apartment with only Cinnamon's travel crate for shelter.   Thanks, Melissa, for taking it in...and for not minding my messy apartment when you picked it up.

Caribou Coffee Maybe Going All Shade-grown All The Time?

I've mentioned shade-grown coffee in here before.  It's beneficial for many birds you see in your backyard in North America in the summer birds by giving them wintering habitat--like the above Baltimore oriole.  There are some challenges with shade-grown coffee: some taste nasty, it tends to be higher priced, it's not always easy and convenient to find at your local store or coffee shop and sometimes the bag can read "shade-grown" and the coffee plantation only has one tree.

There are some brands like Birds and Beans which has some very tasty versions of shade-grown coffee--I'm a big fan of the Chestnut-sided Warbler Blend--it's worth every penny.  It is also certified shade-grown by Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and Rainforest Alliance--both very trusted seals to know that the coffee was indeed grown in the shade, in a sustainable way and the workers were treated fairly.  Even so, I have to order that by mail and none of my local coffee shops or grocery stores carry that brand.  If I'm out, I can't just bike down the street and pick some up.

Well, over the next year, my options are going to improve.  In my neck of the woods we have Caribou Coffee shops and yesterday they announced that they want to be the first major U.S. coffeehouse committing to 100% Rainforest Alliance certification for all of its coffees -- a goal the company has set to achieve by the end of 2011!

If you are in one of the 21 states that has a Caribou Coffee, make sure you stop in with your binoculars and let them know that you support their changes and how their changes benefit birds.  I've visited shade-grown plantations in Guatemala and I've seen some our breeding species there:  painted buntings, Baltimore orioles, Wilson's warblers, and indigo buntings just to name a few.

Duck Smorgasbord!

Last week I had to go to a meeting in Lake City, MN about the waterfowl surveys we did last fall, sort of going over the info collected and assessing what we might do different in the future.  I headed down with Mark Martell and we took the scenic route to see what migrants might be lurking on the flooded river...we were not disappointed there was an awesome collection of ducks to be seen on the river.  How many species can you pick out above?

I love the Ravenna Trail drive towards Treasure Island Casino and just off of Co Rd 68 was a GREAT flock of ducks thanks to the recent flooding.  The Vermillion River was over its banks and demonstrating what a floodplain forest is all about.  We pulled over and scanned the ducks.  Since we had to get to our meeting and couldn't dally for long, I made a mental note to revisit the spot to enj0y the ducks during my vacation--I even dragged Non Birding Bill with me since he does enjoy a bird that is colorful, big, obvious and fairly easy to see.

Just sitting in the car on the side of the road was a great way to watch males competing for the attentions of females and to note comparisons of different species.  The two male bufflehead on the left hit the light just right and you could see the green and purple sheen of their head feathers.  The female bufflehead is in the center and the other two ducks were a pair of lesser scaup.  I sat in my car along the road figuring that the ducks wouldn't mind it.  I have a window mount for my Swarvoski scope so it can function as a blind.  Most birds don't seem to mind cars...just the things that come out of them.

Other people pulled over to watch the ducks.  Some foolishly parked on the far side and walked across the road to get a better view--flushing the ducks in the process.  Doh!  They guys didn't have any binoculars and soon left.  But, I was on vacation with oodles of time and figured that the ducks would eventually drift my way again.

There were other birds to watch for like the above sandhill crane foraging in the flooded farm field. Horned larks and robins were mixed in too.  As I was scanning some of the vegetation further out, I was surprised to find snoozing pectoral sandpipers and blue-winged teal--too far for photos, but pleased I was able to figure them out.

After about fifteen minutes, a very obliging bald eagle flew in chasing some of the gulls and ducks (in case you can't tell, that biggest dark bird in the above photo is the eagle).  The eagle drove all the ducks back towards my car much in the same way the three mean earlier flushed them away.

It was interesting to note the birds that grouped together like the above American wigeon (the bird with the white patch on his head and aka the bald pate) hanging with the northern shoveler (the bird with the enormous bill in the front).  This group clustered nearest the vegetation, dabbling.

There were also quite a few canvasbacks ( the redheaded duck on the right with the whole swoop thing going on) hanging out with some redheads (the redheaded ducks are the ones with the yellow eyes and light colored bills).  I love all the red headed ducks--perhaps that's the reason my hair is red right now.  I love watching these male ducks mixed in with the spring colors in the surrounding landscape.

There were quite a few lesser scaup mixed in and it was a great opportunity to observe the many different head shapes.  I have a tough time when someone tells me that they see a greater scaup mixed in with lesser scaup because they look so similar.  The best way to work on a species is to watch the common one long enough and eventually you will notice with the non common one shows up (in my case, greater scaup is less common).  Above is one female lesser scaup being followed by three lesser scaup males--note how different the head shape can look between three males of the same species.

Here are the same three males.  Ugh.  I think I will only count greater scaup when they are in areas when they are the most likely species.  For non birders who are not privy to the whole greater/lesser scaup thing here are some photos to show how similar they are.  It's crazy to me how one duck species can have so many different shapes.

All in all it was a great spot to watch ducks.  There were several ring-necks and gadwall mixed in too (gadwall not pictured).  Are you seeing any waterfowl where you are?