If you live in the eastern portion of the US and have never seen a magpie--Salt Lake City is the place for you. Those birds are all over the place--they're like crows (not just in family but in commonality). We have a remnant population up in northern Minnesota but not the sort of numbers you see out west. Since there are so many magpies around, there's unfortunately an opportunity for education magpies. It's illegal to keep them as pets, but someone always tries and about the time the birds reach sexual maturity, the person doesn't want the imprinted bird any more and they end up in places like Utah's Hogle Zoo.
..who happened to be at the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival with an education magpie--so cool! What a nifty looking bird. I've worked with all sorts of raptors and a turkey vulture, but never a corvid. Sigh, I was totally envious. I would imagine a corvid like a magpie is a challenge in captivity--they are smart, they need enrichment to keep those little brains occupied. As I was taking photos of this bird it began to mimic my camera shutter. Here's a video:
Another group doing live bird presentations called Tracy Aviary was there. When I walked by their display, I did a double take when I saw this bird:
I asked the volunteer what it was for confirmation and she said it was a red-crested turaco. I thought it was a turaco--a bird I've only ever seen in field guides. Apparently this African species does well in captivity and many people keep them. It was such an odd moment for me. I collect international field guides--you never know when you are going to get an unexpected call to go out of the country...it happens a few times a year for me. I've seen this bird in my African guides and have always wondered how cool it would look like in real life. Alas, it was in a cage but still a sweet looking bird. They did use it in a free flight outdoors program so this bird does get around.
Just some cool birds around the fest and I guess I had a little turaco envy as well.
Yesterday I had some time to kill before my flight back to Minneapolis from Utah. I stopped for a wee bit at the Great Salt Lake Nature Center in Farmington to enjoy a final few moments of yellow-headed blackbirds. As I walked down the gravel road, I noticed a mammal hopping across the path. I didn't quite recognize the long shape and assumed it to be some sort of ground squirrel. However, I saw the animal zip across the road again and this time instantly recognized it as a weasel.
The weasel paused for a moment on a rock through some reeds and got a really craptastic photo but was excited because it looked as though the weasel had some prey in its mouth--how awesome is that? It paused long enough for me to get this shot then disappeared into the vegetation.
But a few seconds later, I was surprised to see the weasel come out on the road and it started to hop along in my direction. I'm not sure if "hop" is the right word for weasel travel. It looks more like the critter's body is part of a Slinky curving up and down.
The weasel paused, it was far too close for me to digiscope so I took photos with the camera old school.
And the weasel just kept coming closer! I tried to get my scope into the shot to show how close the mammal was to me. I was perplexed and mildly concerned that it was coming so close--actually heading right for me. I wasn't flailing my arms, I stood still, but it would have heard my camera clicks and that should have been enough to want to give a human a wide berth. Weasels are carnivores and are known to go for prey larger than they are, but as short as I am, I doubt a weasel would consider me prey worthy (a mountain lion would, but surely not a little weasel).
Then the weasel bounded up next to my right side, it wasn't even a foot away from my shoes and paused. It suddenly dawned on me that I had just seen the weasel moments ago running back and forth on this trek with something in its mouth. I know they are formidable predators and that they have an instinct to kill food when it's abundant and store if for later, but still--getting several small mice at once? Perhaps this weasel was not carrying prey, perhaps this was a female transferring her young from one den to another? I've read that weasels will move their den location and transfer the young if it is disturbed.
And then she dashed past me. Based on the length of her tail, I wondered if she was a long-tailed weasel or an ermine. Consulting my Peterson Mammals of North America revealed that in Utah, she would be a long-tailed weasel.
After she made it past me, she booked it to the other side of the road and down into a shrub. After sixty seconds, she reappeared and bounded past me again. She must have had another kit to retrieve from the old den. I tried to set myself up to see if I could get shots of her through my scope on her return.
Check it out, it's hover weasel! Sure enough, she returned with another kit in her mouth and bounded right for me. Note how her long tail sticks straight up has she runs.
With my scope pointed at her this time, rather than just my camera, she stopped much further away to assess the situation. Since weasels are a top predator (for their size), they know that being stared at is not a good sign. If they stare at something, they are generally trying to determine how they can kill it and eat it. Having an 80mm objective lens pointed right at a her probably made her a bit more hesitant to run past me with one of her young in her mouth.
This time, she crossed the street--look at the tiny toes and skinny tail of her offspring--cute!
She continued on her journey and I continued down the trail. Who knows how many more young she had to transfer. Weasels can have 4 - 8 kits so if she had a large nest, she had her work cut out for her and didn't need me to distract her from the task at hand (or paw in her case). This was a new mammal for me. I've seen ermine, least weasel and mink, but this is my first long-tailed weasel.
If I could have a love affair with scenery, I think Utah would be a top contender. This is my third trip to this state and every time I arrive I always think, "I do not have enough time to explore everything I want to explore."
The sky is a constant swirl of colors with snow capped mountains surrounding you. When I tweaked my knee last Saturday, I was wondering how I would fare but so far so good. I put in a wheel chair request with Delta and the wheeled me to my gate, they gave me a better seat to let my leg stay extended, wheeled me to baggage claim, grabbed my bags and wheeled me to my rental car. I called the hotel ahead of time (which interestingly does not have any of the expected literature in the room, but a couple of books by L. Ron Hubbard and a Scientology brochure) and they gave me a room on the ground floor, near a door and helped me with my heavier luggage (and some of those Swarovski cases are not light). My knee is getting better every day, although, I still can't quite bend it the way I used to yet, but at least the swelling has reduced considerably.
I had some time in the afternoon and I couldn't get in to the Salt Lake Bird Fest show area to set up my booth, so I went to do some birding. What better place to revisit than Antelope Island? I can easily drive around to take photos (I had force myself to not go hiking all over the trails, but better safe than sorry).
Antelope island lives up to it's name. This was not digiscoped but taken out the passenger window of my rental car. The antelope weren't so much playing as trying to craze and loped away as if to say, "Yeah, Midwesterner, I'm special to you, but I do this every day, move along."
There were quite a few black-bellied plovers on the road out towards the island--it's so fun to see them in breeding plumage. We get them in Minnesota but not when they look all snazzy like this. When I've seen them, it's been cold, windy and they are gray with black "armpits." But in breeding plumage, they are down right dapper. Saturday morning I'm going to do a digiscoping workshop and we are going to have such a great time! Birds here are so accommodating.
One thing I did forget was the noseeums. I left my bug spray back at the hotel and every time I opened my window or stepped out, they swarmed. The clouds were so nasty, they went into every opening--ears, nose, mouth--ick. My scalp was on fire with bites until I had the sense to put my hood of my hoodie up and then drive away from the swarms. Still got some great shots. Below is a western meadowlark singing. You can hear me walk away from the camera taking the video (trying to avoid a swarm of noseeums), you'll hear one buzz the microphone and then you'll see the western meadowlark rub his face as if to scratch an itch:
Okay, how can someone look at this photo and still say that birding is geeky? Seriously, going up a mountain with your digiscoping equipment is geeky? That's my buddy Clay Taylor from Swarovski. He and Bruce Webb took me out in Utah to help me get to my goal of 500 birds.
Here's a lifer Clark's nutcracker. I needed so many basic western birds, it was easy for me to get twenty lifers on a trip--not too many places I can do that anymore. Alas, I only made it to 497, but I'm sure I will hit 500 before the end of the year. I'm going to Rhode Island at the end of July and the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival in November and there are a few species I can still get in both places. Once I reach 500, I may have to give Ben over at 600 Birds a run for his money...he wants to reach 600 by the January 2010. I'm booked for the Space Coast Festival and San Diego Festival next year already...there are several pelagic species that I need...hm...
There are some challenges to me being a lister. For one thing, I can be kind of picky about how I like to experience bird species. One of the target birds was a black-rosy finch. And the way to find it was to scan the mountainside in the above photo for the flocks. If you're lucky, you might get to see a flock of blackish birds against the snow. But I'd rather have this kind of look at a black rosy-finch. And I don't know how much of an effort I wanted to put up for glimpse of tiny blackish birds.
Bruce, Clay, and I scanned the mountainside for well over an hour. I didn't see rosy-finches but I did get a look at a lifer mammal--mountain goat! Whoot. The longer we were there, and the less we saw the rosy-finches, I decided it wasn't worth it and we moved on. I think I lack the singular tenacity that many listers have and that will prevent me from really getting my list up to where it could be.
Another thing that can slow me down is digiscoping. Take this beautiful black-billed magpie. We have a small pocket of black-billed magpies that live in Minnesota. I've seen them several times and enjoy them. However, this one was perched so perfectly and in such good light that Clay, Bruce and I decided that we couldn't pass it by without trying to photograph it.
When I do see a new bird, like this red crossbill, I want to digiscope the crap out of it too, perhaps spending too much time with the species and "wasting" valuable minutes getting photos missing the chance to see other new species.
Here's a female crossbill--they were so much fun to watch fly in and take apart all the pine cones on the trees. There were so many and they were so close, it almost sounded like a strange bowl of Rice Krispies as they would snap apart the cones to get at the nuts on the inside.
This photo is blurry, but check out that scary looking bill!
You can really see that strange bill that so perfectly designed to get between the teeth on the cones and access the nut meat. And I couldn't just get photos, I had to digivideo the crossbills too:
We found my lifer crossbills when we arrived at the mountainside for the rosy-finches. Clay pointed out the crossbill and we spent quite a bit of time digiscoping and digivideoing them. Perhaps, the rosy-finches were all over that mountain side while we were focused on the much closer trees loaded with crossbills and moved on by the time we went to look for them. No matter, another bird for another day, I always say.
I've always thought that any day with time spent on a boat automatically felt like an adventure, but I think I'm going to have to amend that to include mountains too. Utah is an awesome state and I hope I get to back. The lowlands are beautiful and the mountains spectacular.
Plus, it's fun to be out and about in snow but not bundled up. I had on some pants and a short sleeved shirt and my Keens with no socks and was perfectly comfortable. I think this might finally be my last Utah entry...Have I blogged it out of my system?
Although, I forgot to mention the zip line that was outside of the Cliff Lodge where Amy and I were staying. I really wanted to do it, but I do have a fear of heights. But being the pack animal I am, I knew if I stuck with Amy, she would get my scaredy cat butt up there and on the ride. It was so much fun and I totally felt like a goshawk zipping in for prey--I even held out my feet as if trying to capture unsuspecting prey...
I think my favorite organized field trip that I took at the 2008 American Birding Association Convention was the Upper Deseret Ranch Field Trip, in part because there was a double Bill for field trip leaders: Bill Fenimore and Bill Schmoker. They are two of my favorite Birding Bills and was excited to watch them as field trip leaders. Fenimore leads trips regularly to Deseret Ranch, so if you are in or near Layton, UT, I highly recommend contacting him for his daily guiding rates. He's pleasant company and he knows the area and birds like the back of his hand--also, it's privately owned by the Mormons and you're really not getting in without him. However, it is SO WORTH IT--absolutely gorgeous.
Here is a life bird that I got on the trip--a MacGillivray's warbler. I decided to see how the other half lives on this trip--I became a lister for this convention. I've always just made little checks in my field guides for new birds and about a week before the con, I decided to count them. I learned that I was 25 species away from 500 birds on my North American bird list--who knew? I also did some research and found that there were close to 40 potential species I could get in Utah. I decided to go for it.
Check out this pack of birders, focused and ready on a cool bird. One of the cool things about going to an ABA event when you are close to a birding goal is that EVERYONE comes out of the woodwork to help you. Even though I was there helping at the Swarovski Booth, some of the Leica guys came over to go my bird potential list and give tips on where to go--heck they even invited me on the flammulated owl posse. The man who organized every field trip for the convention came by to offer pointers on my list, field trip leaders made it there personal goal to get me to my 500--it was wonderful camaraderie and really reminded me of why I love the birding community. Listing is not bad and I wish more listers and casual birders would get along. They are two different types of birding but each fun in their own way.
There were some familiar birds around, like cedar waxwings. I wasn't paying much attention as everyone was watching them and Fenimore came over to me and said, "Sharon, these birds are so close and a great shot, can you get a photo?" I think that because I was so focused on getting as many species as possible this trip that my digiscoping suffered a bit for it. Thanks for the reminder, Bill.
It cracked me up that super colorful birds like this western tanager always managed to be just out of reach for a great photo...
...but the brown birds like this nesting cordilleran flycatcher were up close and almost seemingly eager to pose.
But where many of the birds lacked color, the Deseret Ranch landscape more than made up the palette. I sat in the back of the bus with Father Tom (well known Texas birder and one of the organizers of the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival that I'll be going to this fall). FT and I had both been on the owl posse the night before and were both operating on three hours of sleep but each kept pointing out the magnificent views and colors of the landscape.
For lunch, we stopped by a mountain stream to relax. The stream was made up of freshly melted snow and ice in the surrounding mountains. It was 90 some odd degrees out, so after lunch, I stepped in the water.
It was toe numbing cold, but felt so, so good.
Here's a golden eagle chick. Golden eagles in Utah were about as common as bald eagles in Minnesota. It was fun to scan the cliffs for patches of white--indicating lots of poop and raptor nests. We also found a prairie falcon aerie too. You really felt like you were on some sort of adventure riding around in these mountains.
One of the funniest moments I witnessed during the ABA Convention was at Sundance Resort. Our field trip had the option of wandering the property or taking a 45 minute chair lift ride to get a lay of the land. I opted to do the chair lift--despite my fear of heights but I had WildBird on the Fly with me and Gail (the woman who is in charge of repairs at Swarovski) with me to keep me focused on the natural beauty.
The view from the chairs was spectacular and many were aiming their cameras to get the mountain landscape and even try to get shots of birds flitting around the tops of trees, including western tanagers.
I was watching the birders in front of me snap photos and watching the people on the opposite chairs. Some on the other chairs were leisurely reading, others were coming up with mountain bikes to ride down the side of the mountain, and others were on their way up for a hike. I noticed a young attractive couple coming towards us on the opposite chairs. They were completely decked out in skin tight spandex bicycling wear. The birders in front of me were aiming their cameras towards the mountain vistas. The young woman of the biker pair struck a pose worthy of a sage grouse. She puffed out her chest, stretched out her arms and stuck one of her shapely legs high in the air, the chair moving her right into the birder's field of view of the camera. The birder put down his camera, and young attractive bike girl relaxed her pose and said with a disappointed giggle, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you wanted a picture of me!" while her male companion shook his head.
I helped out at the Swarovski Optik booth at the American Birding Association Convention. I was out with a couple of the guys from the booth--Clay and Bruce. As we were going down a mountain road, Clay put on the brakes and said, "That looked like an interesting woodpecker!"
We found a place to pull over and walked in. I was hoping for a Williamson's sapsucker, but we weren't seeing anything but robins. Bruce picked up a stick and started pounding a nearby tree, doing his best sapsucker territorial drumming. We heard some soft drumming and eventually found:
...a three-toed woodpecker. Not a lifer, but always a cool woodpecker and fun to see it outside of Minnesota. Clay then said, "Hey, Bruce, check it out." and pointed to Bruce's feet.
From Clay's excitement, we thought there was a snake. We looked down and couldn't really see anything, Clay kept pointing and then Bruce finally saw it. It's in the above photo with Bruce. Can you see it? Don't worry if you can't, I was there and can barely see what Clay was point to. Here is a hint:
There in the center of that circle is a tiny young robin! We had been there for several minutes, watching the trees, talking, banging sticks against trees and yet this young robin stayed stock still, using it's fledgling coloration to camouflage with the surrounding vegetation. I wanted to digiscope it, but the young robin was too close to focus in my scope, so I had to back up a few feet:
"You can't see me!" Fresh from the nest and already this bird knows what to do, instinct told it to just sit and hide, and the big lumbering creatures would move past, hopefully without stepping on it. It was strange that we did not hear the adult robins give their warning and freak out call. We could hear that they were busy feeding another fledgling nearby. Since we'd seen the woodpecker, we decided to move along and let the young robin be and commence to learning how to care for itself under the tutelage of its parents.
On our way out of the woods, I found a second fledgling. Like its wise sibling, this young robin also stayed stone still as I walked past. Moments like these always make me wonder how many birds (especially owls) have I walked past when focused on something else. How many birds have been just a foot away and I just didn't see it?
I ended up having a day off today that I didn't realize I had--bonus day! I thought I would catch up on all my ABA blogging...then realized that after some sorting...I have it narrowed down to 92 photos. So, while I'm sorting, here is a video of cliff swallows swarming over mud to add to their nests:
If you live in the eastern portion of the US and have never seen a magpie--Salt Lake City is the place for you. Those birds are all over the place--they're like crows (not just in family but in commonality). We have a remnant population up in northern Minnesota but not the sort of numbers you see out west. Since there are so many magpies around, there's unfortunately an opportunity for education magpies. It's illegal to keep them as pets, but someone always tries and about the time the birds reach sexual maturity, the person doesn't want the imprinted bird any more and they end up in places like Utah's Hogle Zoo.
Yesterday I had some time to kill before my flight back to Minneapolis from Utah. I stopped for a wee bit at the 
