Common Cranes In Israel

As information is coming in about my itinerary to the Hula Valley in Israel, I'm getting more and more excited.  One of my hosts for the trip is Tim Appleton and he sent over some photos of what we could see...looks like Cranemaggedon to me.  Actually the Common Cranes in the above photo remind of the Sandhill Cranes in Kearney, Nebraska.  The last time I went to Nebraska, our group actually saw a lone Common Crane mixed in with a bunch of Sandhills...wouldn't it be funny to see a wayward Sandhill Crane mixed in with thousands of Common Cranes?

Apparently the Hula Valley is host to millions of migrating birds of several species including the Black Storks above.  Should make for some fantastic photos and interesting stories.

Birdchick Podcast #77: Calling All Birders To Wikipedia...

Red Rock Audubon wants you to help remove mining claim pipes in Nevada--this really does help birds! 10000 Birds brings up the pipe dream of having a non hunting duck stamp.

Starbucks is discontinuing it's shade-grown coffee line.  If you don't have a place that sells shade-grown coffee near you, I like to order the Chestnut-sided Warbler blend from Birds and Beans.

The American Birding Association wants YOU to contribute to Wikipedia.

Laughing gull tries to steal food from a great egret.

I haven't read the story but the headline involves the words "hawk" and "escalator" and it can only be a Cooper's hawk.

Burly Bird is unleashing some cool new stickers.  Check them out and if you want one...you know what to do.

Emergency Camera Repair

Someone asked to see my MacGyver-like camera battery door repair.  This is what I came up with when the camera door broke in North Dakota:

I used a couple of hair rubber bands and a wad of paper to keep the battery in place.  The hair rubber bands stretch out too quickly so I've switched to regular rubber bands.  I kind of like it, it makes my camera look like it's about to fail and not worth stealing.

Site Hacked, part 2.

Hello all, NBB here. We're still dealing with the issue of our site being hacked. The nature of the problem is that when a search engine accesses the pages, it serves up spam along with the actual text of the page. The site may be down briefly later today as I reinstall the blogging software. Please bear with us. Bill

Flicker Shenanigans With A Kestrel

I was out and about doing bird surveys yesterday and I got to watch an interesting interaction between a small falcon and a large woodpecker.

Here's an American kestrel, minding her own business, hovering and looking for mice with leaky bladders or whatever to eat.

There were lots of northern flickers moving through during my survey. Most tried to avoid predators.  Multiple visits to Hawk Ridge during the hawk migration has taught me that at the end of the day, flickers have a body built for food that many hawks like to eat.  I guess this flicker was feeling his Wheaties and went in to hassle the hovering kestrel, vengeance for fallen and eaten brethren?

After getting properly buzzed, the kestrel did an about face and went for the flicker.  Both are about the same size and I think if the kestrel had been a Cooper's hawk that the flicker wouldn't have engaged in any mobbing shenanigans.

Again, these aren't the best shots in the world, I digiscoped them at 400 meters.  But had fun watching the behavior.  The birds chased each other for at least five minutes (could have been longer, but I had to move on to my next survey point), sometimes the flicker was chasing the kestrel and at other times, she was chasing the woodpecker.  Periodically, both would perch on the same wire--sizing the other up?