Osprey On South Padre Island

On Friday morning, I met up with Clay Taylor and WildBird on the Fly. Clay had a little time in the morning for some digiscoping before working the Swarovski booth at the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest. I was anxious to really give my new Fuji FinePix E900 a good workout (thank you again National Camera Exchange for finding one for me). Clay suggested a trip out to South Padre Island. We saw many cool species, but one of the coolest observations we made was of the above osprey.

It flew right over the 3 of us, only about 15 feet above our heads! We could tell it had something in its talons and at first assumed a fish since the bird landed and appeared to be picking at it. However, when we got it in our scopes, the osprey just had a stick. We wondered what that was all about. Did the bird mistakenly grab a stick out of the water thinking it was a fish and started to eat it, only to find it kind of nasty to rip apart?
The osprey kept staring down at the stick, trying to work something out in its tiny little brain. Was it confused about the lack of fish on the stick? No. It suddenly dawned on us what was going on. Maybe this will help:

It hopped on a nearby by branch and began to bite it. Is this osprey going for some massive fiber in its diet? No. We think it's starting a nest. Notice how the added stick fits among the sawed of branches. I wonder how far it will get with this endeavor? I always wonder what a bird sees that makes it think, "Yes, this rocks, I can totally turn this spot into a safe nest!" I know with osprey, they like to to have a good lookout from all sides of the nest, but what factors do they look for that would make them think that a few hundred pounds of sticks would fit there just nicely.

It was fun to watch the osprey's nictitating membrane (extra eyelid that birds have that they can see through) come over its eye as it chewed on the stick, to protect the eyes from debris flying back in.

The osprey kept hopping back and forth between the crotch holding the start of the nest and the nearby perching branch. Take a look at those massive talons on the bottom of those toes--osprey don't play around, they are all business when it comes to fishing. I just love those crazy, big feet.

Here's a video of it trying to work out what the next step should be (although, the video looks better if you go to the YouTube page itself and click on on "watch in high quality.":

Great-tailed Grackle

Great-tailed grackles are in huge abundance in Texas. Many wake me up outside my hotel room. The evening roosts are spectacular, but the sounds the birds make is down right freaky. I tried to get a video to record the sound. Below is a great-tailed grackle puffing up and giving several clicks and whistles--it almost sounds like camera clicking or weird gears going off. In the background you can hear other great-tailed grackles calling back:

Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park

My goodness, I'm tired and just about birded out (as well as incredibly itchy and somewhat stinky). The Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival should almost be called the Birder Reunion Bird Festival since so many of us show up here and connect. I started my Texas birding adventure with a field trip to Bensten-Rio Grande Valley State Park. This was the first place I birded the first time I came to this festival years ago. I love it because it gives you a good sample of the valley specialties. What makes this area to bird so fun is that for a Midwest Girl, you can find yourself in a tropical and exotic area on the cheap. Look at the water and the palm trees in the above photo--how could you not love that?

And the birds are crazy looking to add to the exotic appeal of this area, like the green jays. I never get tired of green jays. Seeing something like that makes you feel like you're on another planet, especially when your husband calls and tells you that it's snowing at home.

And it's not just the birds. Instead of squirrels under the feeder, Bentsen as javelinas! These guys were under every feeding station we visited and weren't that scared of humans, they must have a sense that we won't hunt them and I would guess they know humans are the ones who replenish the bird feeders.

Feeding javelinas is ill advised, as they can easily mistake a finger for a peanut butter sandwich and no one wants to go home with few fingers.

One of the coolest birds in the park was a roosting eastern screech owl. The bird is perched on the edge of a cavity in the tree trunk. Check out how well the bird's feathers blend in with the bark--incredible. This was a particularly exciting eastern screech owl, park staff told our group that it was a mccallii, and it's quite possible that the American Ornithologists' Union will make it a separate species from eastern screech owl. So, I kind of banked a life bird for another day.

Another specialty of the area is the buff-bellied hummingbird also known on Cornell's Birds of North America as the "least-studied hummingbird that occurs regularly in the United States." It's a Mexican species that breeds along the gulf coast and makes it across the border into the US.

Another part of birding in south Texas that is unique is watching helicopters for the border patrol pass by. This helicopter was really low and kept going down to one particular patch, leading us to wonder if some people illegally crossing the border had been found.

All part of the fun.

Okay, fatigue has hit me, more later.

Random Acts Of Birding

While doing some digiscoping around Cape May, I found a cooperative flock of yellow-rumped warblers. These are such a challenge to photograph and finding a big flock of butter butts is always a good practice. I remember when I first started digiscoping, I thought warblers would be impossible. But after lots of practice, it is possible to get a warbler shot. Maybe one day this will all pay off and I'll be posting a blackburnian warbler?

It was a fairly busy day when I was taking these photos, it was beautiful fall weather and lots of people were out--even non birders. Some people were really polite, they'd pause to let me get the shot before continuing on the trail past me. People are generally curious when they see you with a large scope and want to know what you're looking at. Some are surprised that it's a bird and not some mammal. Some are surprised that it's a brown bird. Many are happy to tell you about other birds they've seen that they think you would rather photograph--the most common being the bald eagle.

I like to set weird goals for myself. Something like trying to get a shot of the red eye on a coot. But often people passing by, I think feel sorry for me for going after something like a coot and want to tell me about the bald eagle they just saw. When I was taking photos of the butter butts above, a couple passing on the trail kept encouraging me to head towards the beach to get a photo of the bald eagle flying around the beach. I thanked them and went back to the warblers, but they insisted, "That eagle isn't going to be there all day, you should go now!" I thanked them and stayed put, but the man pressed me to go for the eagle. I finally said, "I appreciate that, but I live in Minnesota, we have the largest breeding population of bald eagles in the lower 48. I've seen 'em."

I feel bad, eagles shouldn't be taken for granted and I love seeing them and I don't want to minimize someone's eagle sighting--but darn it, I'm after more difficult fish (er-birds). When I'm digiscoping at Carpenter Nature Center, I periodically run into a guy who regularly walks the trails and is always trying to get me to go take eagle photos. The best part is that he also is ready to interpret bald eagles for me: how long it takes for them to get the white head and tail, their mating habits, prey items, pretty much an abbreviated program of what I would give at The Raptor Center. I often think that he should sign up to be a volunteer there--he's full of info and ready to share it with the world.

I am just of guilty of doing these impromptu bird interpretive sessions. While digiscoping some ducks at The Meadows in Cape May, I heard a group of ladies walking by who were trying to identify all the ducks I was photographing. They didn't have a field guide with them and they were trying to remember what they'd seen so far, so they could identify it later. I was happy to say, "Hey, those are pintails, if you want, you can look at them through my scope."

And I was happy to point out other birds I speculated the had not noticed, "If you're interested, there's a male hooded merganser loafing on a mound, check him out through my scope." They seemed very excited and that just kind of goaded me on, what other waterfowl could I point out to them? Why, how about my favorite duck:

the gadwall! And it's about the time that I start pointing out the all gray duck that I realized I was getting that polite look of "Okay, you've been really nice, but please let us go on our way."

So, why this undeniable need to interpret? Is it to try and recruit more birders? Is because we are all so excited by what we see (no matter what our birding level) that we must share it? Is this some sort of lek behavior, "Gee whiz, look at how much I know!"

Anyone else out there ready to interpret birds at a moment's notice?

Digiscoping The Meadows During Cape May's Autumn Weekend

I think my favorite place at Cape May is The Meadows, an area managed by The Nature Conservancy on the southwest tip of the Cape May peninsula. It has dunes, fresh and saltwater marshes, meadows, ponds, and a mile of beachfront. The lighting can be beautiful and during migration, you can get some great bird shots. There are plenty of ponds and marshes on either side of the trail so that you can get birds in both morning light and evening light if you take the time. Check out this swamp sparrow that was lurking in some of the bushes with some white-throats, the same area were I got the Carolina wren. In the morning or the evening, this place is just the best. Part of my fill in duties at the Cape May Autumn Weekend was to do Clay's digiscoping workshop. It was supposed to be both indoors and outdoors and the forecast was 100% chance of rain, lots of wind and probably some thunder and lightening. Most spotting scopes can take that...but not most cameras. Fortunately, it barely rained and the worse we had to digiscope in was some strong wind.

I had the pleasure of doing the workshop along with Cape May Bird Observatory volunteer Betty Lemley who does digiscoping workshops locally. She is a hoot and if you are going to be at CMBO and do any of their events, sign up for one of hers. A big part of digiscoping is just getting out there and working with your camera. I met one woman who was understandably frustrated with her digiscoping set up. She said that she could never get her photos to come out clear and sharp. She's seen photos on websites that are digiscoped images and were tack sharp, but hers did not turn out that way. I asked how many photos she took and she said not many and that she stopped because they weren't turning out like what she'd seen from others. I assured her for every photo that looks as good as the sparrow above, there are about 200 that look like this:

...or even worse. It takes a lot of photos to get one that looks in focus, even if you have great light, a great scope, and the best digiscoping camera on the market. Here's another example:

I can't tell you the number of duck shots that I have that are like this. It's tough to get them completely in the frame when they're swimming and feeding, plus figure out light settings and focusing. But with some patience and taking lots of shots, you can get a wigeon shot that looks like this:

I was having so much fun working my digiscoping mojo on the wigeon. I just love this duck: some rust, some green and then that big ole honkin' white stripe down the forehead. If you ever hear someone refer to a duck as a "bald pate" they are talking about the wigeon.

Sometimes you get birds that are back lit, like the above Savannah sparrow (there were a ton of these guys scurrying around all the surrounding vegetation, running along the trails, and hiding just as you were about to get the scope on them. You generally want the sun behind you when you're taking photos, but you can get what I call arty shots. Okay, sure this bird is never going to grace the cover of a birding magazine, but since I'm the person in charge of my own blog and I say it's arty, it's all good. Incidentally, I did work my way around this bird so the sun was behind me. It teed up on a stalk, in perfect light. Just as I was getting it in focus I heard the familiar "per CHUP per CHUP per CHUP" of a peregrine falcon. Just as I was thinking, "Crap, that sparrow is gonna bail," it ducked down in the grass before I could snap the photo. Peregrines, I love you guys, but not when you spook my photo subject!

When we took our group out for the field trip portion of our workshop, the rain had stopped but the wind picked up. We decided to go for it and though a few drops fell here and there, we stayed mostly dry. We went to the beach at the meadows and participants got to practice taking gull shots while being pelted by beach sand. Taking shots when it's cloudy is a challenge too, not always the easiest light to work with. In this shot, you can see some of the sand blowing around the great black-backed gulls.

We did work our way around and got the chance to get some waterfowl in the evening sun. I love the gadwalls. It's a gray duck but has the funniest quack. I've actually got it as a ring tone on cell phone, but it just lovely soft grays and black...even with a bill full of aquatic vegetation.

There was also a male hooded merganser hanging out with the waterfowl, a pleasant surprise.

A fun selection of birds and I hope people had a good time and have time to really work with their cameras. One big digiscoping mistake is that people order all their stuff right before they leave for a trip of a lifetime. You really need several days to get used to using the scope, know how to adjust the head on the tripod, what your camera is capable of. The more you play and become one with your setup the more usable photos you'll have.

Common Cape May Birds

I digiscoped so many images this weekend, I'm having trouble organizing them into blog entries. I found a most cooperative northern mockingbird at Higbee Beach. I know for some of you southern readers that a mocking bird is not the most exciting bird on the planet, but for a Minnesota girl, getting a chance to see that yellow eye gleam in the sun. The hawk migration is still going strong in Cape May and Cooper's hawks like this juvenile above were all over the place. A DC Birding Blog (who is banding hawks at Cape May this year) mentioned that they are seeing more Cooper's hawks passing through than sharp-shinned hawks. We usually see the opposite at Frank's banding station in Duluth. A quick scan over at Birds of North America Online says that the ability of Cooper's hawks to adapt to humans has been great, their population has increased very well, however it's uncertain if their increase in population could have a negative effect on other raptor (or even prey for that matter). There is some evidence that Cooper’s Hawks regularly take American Kestrels, and that they may be playing a role in the current declines in this species in the eastern part of their range.

I was trying to take a photo of a couple of black vultures and I even got a blur of a Coop's passing behind it.

I did get a shot of the full black vulture. This was was another common to Cape May but exciting to a Minnesota girl type species. All we get in MN are turkey vultures, so the smaller guys with the all dark head were a treat.

Here is a pair. The one higher up is an adult, the lower, shaggier looking one with a black bill is a juvenile. They had a beautiful blue sky behind them and were on a blue water tower. Looking at the photos, the two blues look kinda weird.

I wonder what we're missing in Minnesota so that we do not get black vultures? We have turkey vultures for part of the year. I'm sure we'd have places for black vultures to nest. It's interesting to note that turkey vultures find their food using their sense of smell, but not black vultures That ability is not nearly as highly developed in black vultures, so they follow turkey vultures to find carrion.

Doing some reading on BNA found an interesting theory: according to some studies, the large communal roosts that black vultures form at night might serve as a means for communicating food locations. They had several studies to back it up. Birds that were marked returned to same carcasses on successive days, could they be leading birds at the roost to food? When the black vultures leave the roost in the morning, smaller groups fly off at different intervals...are the groups following a specified forager vulture (kind of like a forager honey bee)? In one study, black vultures deprived of information about local distribution of carcasses and were released in evening at communal roosts and joined the ends of groups departing from roosts to feeding sites the next morning and tagged vultures that were not privy to a carcass and released to a roost, still arrived at food sites in early morning as members of groups that have come directly from roosts.

Fascinating stuff!

Monday Morning Carolina Wren

I dedicate the following video to Hasty Brook and hope that she got a Carolina wren before she left Cape May to return to Minnesota.

A posse of bird bloggers gathered again for the Cape May Autumn Weekend and since I ended up working the festival, I was able to see them. They had gathered informally and I didn't think I'd get to meet up with them, but when I ended up coming, they invited me along to a dinner for some hearty laughter. Some, I've met before like Hasty Brook, Somewhere in NJ, Susan Gets Native, and Beginning To Bird, but this time I got to meet KatDoc and DC Bird Blog (he's actually banding birds at Cape May this fall--sweet) face to face. Jay Davis from birdJam came along too.

We must have gotten quite rowdy at the table, I noticed that the bar kept turning up the ambient music to louder and louder levels. However, we were able to keep the talking and laughter to new ear splitting level.

A big bonus to this trip is that I hit my 500th bird--I didn't get to digiscope it but I got. And after I saw it, I saw them everywhere. I needed a black scoter, so after the first day of working the Optics Corner at the festival, Jim Danzenbaker, Jeff Bouton, Jeff Gordon, and Bill Stewart (that really cool guy who organizes the bird a thon to buy up migratory habitat to save the red knot). We watched for lines of scoters and after a few lines of surf scoters flying by--a flock that had both surf and black flew by and I could see the difference. Whew! That hump has been passed. Now to work on getting 600. Although, I suppose I should work on padding the 500 on the off chance the AOU is planning to lump some species together.

Oh, and while we were at the beach gettin' my life, a marriage proposal was finishing up. A man made a sand castle for his sweetie, asking her to marry him. There was a small sand treasure chest next to the sand castle that she apparently had to dig the ring out of the chest. It was very cute. We didn't hear what was actually said between the two, but considering they left hand in hand with smiles on the faces and a bottle of champagne, I thinking her answer was yes. Cute.

Gulls On The Rampage At Bringantine

Pintails, I love pintail ducks! So, I'm in New Jersey at the moment for Cape May's Autumn Weekend - THE Bird Show. I'm filling in at the Swarovski booth for my buddy Clay (who is forced to go to Austria). I still have to pinch myself sometimes. Teenage Sharon from years ago dreamed of things like getting a call from a cool optics company asking if I would mind coming to Cape May to do some birding and help out at a booth. When I got into Jersey, Jim from Kowa asked if I wanted to meet for some birding at Brigantine. How could I say no? It was a good idea too, it always takes me a day to kind of get my bearings for birds in a different state. For example, one of the first birds I saw was a small heron looking bird that was all white. Crap, we don't have those in MN, small...white...not a snow egret--it was an immature little blue heron--no fair being white! Anyway, just a good idea to get used to the birds.

While Jim and I were driving around, we saw a herring gull catching something huge--a crab. It was interesting to watch the gull take the large struggling crab out of the water, put in the grass, and hack at it, all while the crab tried to pinch it in self defence.

The herring gull's eye and dark lining just kind of gave this crab killer a maniacal look, much like my beloved accipiters--love those hawks with bright red eyes. Jim pointed out that it was a great day to not be a crab when we found...

...this adult black-backed gull. It was working its way around a mysterious blob in the water...

It was a dead duck. As best we could make out from when the gull would pull the head above water as it tried to rip out a bite, it looked like a female ruddy duck in winter plumage.

We wondered if the duck was already dead or if the gull had killed it. Was she already ill or injured and the gull went after it until she was dead or what. Tough to say, but when nearby mallards realized what the gull was eating, they gave it a wide berth and then flew away when the water's current brought the feasting gull closer.

Peregrines were out in full force at Brigantine. There were oodles of shorebirds and the peregrines would make stealthy attacks from low above the vegetation. This young peregrine was even chased a bit by and adult, you could hear them screaming at each other from quite a distance. The peregrines were a welcome distraction, poor Jim was trying to point out how to tell a western sandpiper from a white-rumped sandpiper. "Notice how the western is lighter in color over all," he asked excitedly.

"Do you want me to answer honesty or tell you what you want to hear? Cause I'm not seeing a lighter color."

We laughed at my shorebird ineptitude. I was able to tell them from the semi-palmated sandpipers, which I felt was a minor breakthrough.

Audubon Ohio Assembly 2008

FYI, things my get a little more PG-13 than usual later on in this entry, for parents reading with your kids, you might want to read alone first. Yeah, that's right, Jim, I'm goin' there!

Man, I ate a lot of pie this weekend. I think this was the most pie offerin' bird event I've been too. We had pie with lunch, pie for afternoon break, pie with dinner. Pie, pie, pie! And good pie too, not that pumpkin pie which the best piece you've ever had isn't much different than the worst piece of pumpkin pie you've ever had.

I came to Bellville, Oh for the Audubon State Assembly and gave a presentation on Blogging, The New Nature Journal. I had some geek out moments on this trip: Jim McCormac, Kenn & Kim Kaufman sat in on my workshop (people I very much admire). I also got to meet Greg Miller (if you read The Big Year, he was the guy that put it on credit card). A totally nice guy with a great sense of humor, wish I had more time to go birding with him.

On frosty Sunday morning, I went out birding with Jim to look for sparrows at Funk WMA. The trip was wonderful--a frost blazing in the sun, fall leaf colors, a good variety of birds, and Amish buggies clip-clopping in the background...periodically interrupted by trumpeting sandhill cranes.

Song sparrows (like the bird above) as were swamp sparrows. The target birds of the morning were Nelson's sharp-tailed sparrow or LeConte's sparrow. We did not get the LeConte's but with some good effort of both Jim and fellow trip leader Ethan Kistler our group got a pretty darned good look at a Nelson's. It sat long enough that everyone got a good look in the scope. I didn't get a chance to digiscope it, but another bird for another day.

We had a small flock of white-crowned sparrows around us to. Jim said that this was the handsomest sparrow. I argued that is was the Harris's sparrow and other sparrows like the Nelson's were included and the white-throated and well we all agreed this was in fact a great looking bird, but no consensus was reached as to what is the handsomest sparrow.

Funk was a glorious place for birding and the variety of birds was just right and we even had a little mini hawk migration with some Cooper's hawks and red-tails moving through.

We even found something a little curious while going down the path. I wasn't sure what this was exactly...I know what I think it looks like, but really have no idea what this is. I tried to digiscope it to see if that would give me an answer.

Not a serious answer. I really have no clue. Non Birding Bill thinks it has something to do with being a gas marker.

This was a bumper on one of the vehicles in the parking lot at Funk WMA--which reminds me, some Ohio birders told me this morning that I sound like Sarah Palin when I talk. I was asked to say "donut" and "Ohio" and "Oh no." Hmmmm. I'm sure it's my Minnesota accent and the fact that she sounds Minnesotan (at least in cadence). I always thought that my Minnesota accent was an improvement over my original Hoosier accent, but now I'm not so sure.

More coming soon, I have to read up on some downy woodpecker behavior first.