Good Birders Don't Wear White
Then why does the American Birding Association sell white shirts with their logo on it?
Lisa White from Houghton Mifflin has brought together many of our favorite bird writers and compiled their essays in Good Birders Don't Wear White, a book on the subject of what makes a good birder. There's some fun with some practical and good advice mixed in for good measure. I as I was going through and checking off how many friends have essays in the book, it got me inspired to try and find a link for everyone in the book. Here is a list of all the birders who have essays. Starred names are bloggers:
John Acorn
Peter Alden
Paul J. Baicich
Jessie H. Barry
David M. Bird
Jeffery Bouton*
Robert A. Braunfield
Kevin J. Cook
Alicia Craig
Julie Craves
Richard Crossley
Jon L. Dunn
Pete Dunne
Lang Elliot
Victor Emanuel
Laura Erickson*
Ted Floyd
Tim Gallagher
Jeffery A. Gordon*
Chuck Hagner*
Amy K. Hooper*
Steve Howell
Dave Jasper
Kevin Karlson
Kenn Kaufman
Paul Kerlinger
John Kricher
Donald Kroodsma
Paul LehmanArthur Morris
Mike O'Connor
Wayne R. Peterson
Bill Schmoker*
Scott Shalaway
Stephen Shunk
David Sibley
John Sill
Peter Stangel
Don and Lillian Stokes*
Noah Stryker
Clay Sutton
Bill Thompson III*
Connie Toops
Judith A. Toups
Richard K. Walton
Scott Weidensaul
Mel White
Sheri Williamson*
Louise Zemaitis
Julie Zickefoose*
Well, I found all but four. If anyone can let me know of a link for those four please pass it along. Again, a great collection of birders and writers.
Whooping Crane Obit
From the Washington Post:
A whooping crane found dead in a farmer's field was a "senior citizen" with a colorful past that helped with studies of the rare birds, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman says.
The whooper, found Wednesday in a field west of the city, near Almont, appeared to have a broken neck, spokesman Ken Torkelson said. Biologists believe the bird had been dead for at least a day before it was found but they do not believe it was killed by humans, Torkelson said.
The carcass is being sent to the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. for analysis.
"What caused the broken neck, we're not sure, and we may never know," Torkelson said Thursday.
A power line was about a mile away, but authorities do not know if that played a role, Torkelson said.
"It would be a first, but it's not impossible for that bird to have had a heart attack in the air and suffered a broken neck on impact with the ground," he said. "It could also have been a predator but there are no signs of that. If we had to guess, it appears to have come in a collision with something."
An identification band showed the bird hatched in 1983. Biologists say most whooping cranes do not live much longer than 20 years.
"It was still a very productive male, having brought six chicks to Aransas out of the last 10 years," Tom Stehn, the whooping crane coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, said in a statement.
The dead bird and its mate were equipped with radio collars in the early 1980s and were known as the "radio pair," Stehn said. Along with producing offspring, the pair provided valuable information for researchers, he said.
"He was not the granddaddy of the flock, but he was definitely one of the senior citizens," Torkelson said of the dead whooper. "He apparently he was still mated up this year and still could have produced offspring, so it's certainly a loss to the whooping crane flock."
Stehn also said the whooper found near Almont was involved in the "fastest whooper migration across the United States ever recorded."
The bird and its parents were in a flock of six whooping cranes that landed near Pierre, S.D., on Nov. 8, 1983, and were found on the Texas coast just three days later, he said.
"They were pushed by strong tailwinds and a low pressure system on their way south and must have flown pretty much nonstop," Stehn said.
Urban Eagles Still Going Strong
Ah, man, I was just sitting down to whip up this entry and I got a UPS delivery of some books. I already have a stack of cool books that I've come across in the last four weeks that I need to share on the blog and now another book arrived that looks oh so promising: The Songs of Insects--by Lang Elliot and Wil Hershberger. I'm not familiar with Hershberger, but I loves me some Lang Elliot, this looks like it's in the same format of Music of the Birds. Whoot!
I went to check on the eagle nest near my home after a meeting at Minnesota Audubon. As I was driving through the neighborhood, one of the birds was flying low in the air, trying to catch a thermal. Every person outside was looking up with a look of awe on their faces. The trees haven't leafed out yet, so you can still see the nest. When I set up the scope, a couple of the residents walked by and had a look. They are very proud and excited about the nest.
The eagle in the nest looked like she was eating and then she hunkered down inside. Boy, the buds are starting to burst, in another week or two, this nest will be well hidden. Incidentally, while watching the nest in the scope, a pair of house sparrows were lurking at about 4 o'clock in the nest. They kept going in and out. I wonder, are they nesting in the eagle nest or are they looking for food scraps?
Has anyone ever observed other bird species nesting in an active eagle nest (or any raptor nest)?
Spring Watch USA
We need to get Jeff Corwin in a harness...I mean a binocular harness.
Looks like there is an interesting show on Animal Planet this weekend called Spring Watch USA, a four-week, as it happens, multi-media event. Filmed just prior to broadcast, this miniseries is a celebration of the arrival and beauty of spring across the nation. Hosted by Jeff Corwin (above) and Vanessa Garnick, viewers learn about the amazing mammals, birds and insects that herald the arrival of spring.
From their headquarters on Kiawah Island, located off the coast of South Carolina near Charleston, Jeff and Vanessa give viewers a backstage pass to spring from the animals’ point of view. With cameras positioned in nests, caves and other habitats, Jeff and Vanessa track such inhabitants of Kiawah Island as bobcats, red-tailed hawks, alligators, bluebirds and screech owls.
Corwin and Garnick are joined by Animal Planet correspondents Philippe Cousteau and David Mizejewski who also take cameras along as they report on animal activities from the rest of the country. Cousteau covers sea otters, sea lions and gray whales in California, from Sausalito to Monterey to the Channel Islands. Meanwhile, Mizejewski checks in on the great horned owl and the beaver in Georgia, flying squirrels in Northern Virginia and black bears in Upstate New York.
You can go to the Animal Planet website and at the Spring Watch USA tracker to check out an interactive map, play with the online bird and butterfly field guide, and even post your own signs of spring.
This could be cool, especially since spring has been a tad out of reach the last few weeks. Plus I'm in favor of anything Jeff Corwin. I have to say, I did get a chuckle out of this photo of the hosts of the event:
Okay, these are all people who love to get down and dirty in the wild--would they really ever wear white? It almost looks like an album cover for the Carpenters.
I And The Bird
I keep forgetting to submit posts to I and the Bird and I have to send a big thank you to this week's host, Jochen. He sent me some good reminders. I and the Bird is up and running at Bell Tower Birding Blog, so check out. I and the Bird is a blog carnival. Bird bloggers from all over submit an entry of their choice to the host who compiles them all into a theme. This is a great way to get a sampling all the different bird bloggers out there.
To learn more about I and the Bird or to find out about being a host (it's a great way to generate some traffic to your blog) check out 10,000 Birds.
Large Helping of Canada Geese with a Side of Killdeer
The Canada geese are all over the metro area. Whoo wee. I watched some geese stop traffic twice in two different areas today. Some local parks do a good job of discouraging public feeding and redoing the lake landscape to put a vegetation barrier between people with large sacks of bread and the geese. The above goose was on one of the board walks at Wood Lake Nature Center. It was a minor stand off: would it move first or would I? I forged ahead:
It flew away.
I had a meeting yesterday at the Minnesota Zoo. Afterwards I walked around, not really interested in the tigers and wolves and caribou but more for the wild birds that may be about. The most abundant bird found:
The Canada goose. They were everywhere, nesting along the trails...
Hanging out on top of the zoo's roof...
Stealing food from the caribou pen. This goose quickly moved away when one of the caribou began to approach. As I was watching through the scope, I heard some killdeer vocalizations, but not the usual "kill a deer." It was the killdeer tone, but giving a kind of peep.
Here's the whole caribou field. I could hear the killdeer, but could I find it?
After some scanning I found her. And just as I was focusing, she hunkered down in one spot--she's incubating already! I wonder if the caribou are too much of an issue? What the chances are that the eggs could get stepped on? I'm always fascinated by birds nesting in the zoo. I remember a few years ago watching some flickers that were nesting in the tiger area and I thought, "No raccoon is gonna bother that nest! Will the young survive fledging?"
But back to the geese.
I found this bird trying to dose off. With nesting going on, geese are a little on the defensive and honking wildly at each other if someone looks at them the wrong way. Every time an altercation would start, this goose would open its eyes and then slowly get sleepier...
...and sleepier...
...and then finally go all the way to sleep.
Bill of the Birds Survey
Hey, Bill of the Birds has a survey up on how many field guides you own, if you would care to participate. I'm surprised by the number of participants so far who own too many field guides to count--I thought I was the only one.
A Challenging Warbler
I thought I had blogged about this last year, but I can't find it in my archives. In June of 2006, David and Sandy Dunkin were banding birds and got a warbler in the nets. They had never seen anything like this bird ever before. Theories were tossed about, but more importantly, two tail feathers were plucked and sent to Cornell for DNA testing. You can read the mystery and results at All About Birds.
Spring At Wood Lake
Nothing says spring like the Common Garter Snakes emerging! These guys were all over at Wood Lake Nature Center today. If I had more time, I would have gone to the Old Cedar Avenue Bridge and Bass Ponds where there's a post that has hundreds of snakes emerging in spring. I've come across it twice in the last eight years and it's just hypnotic to watch all of them slithering out in the grass.
Wood Lake is nice but it's right next to a highway and there's always some new construction going on. You can see some great birds, but if you're in the mood for bird song it's not so pleasant, the highway noise and construction drown them out. The phoebe was pretty darned loud though, singing right outside the Nature Center. I was able to digivideo him and to my surprise, you can actually hear the "fee bee" call. I'm not sure if I will upload it or not. I've been doing more and more digivideoing, but I'm not sure what I'll do with that stuff.
The other very vocal singer of the day was the song sparrow. Today I watched song sparrow sex--a first for me for this species. Early on in the day I could hear some low chipping and stopped to watch two song sparrows bouncing on the ground giving the soft chips. One fluffed up, and hopped towards the other, fluttering its wings and then they both retreated into some reads and the chipping got a little more intense and about five seconds later they were out in the open. After that there was a bit more mating out in the open. After the third time, the female started to hop away with the male in pursuit, they eventually started flying around in tight circles around me. Their chirping grew more intense and then four other song sparrows popped up in the trees around me to watch. The pair flew for a few minutes and then disappeared into some reeds. As I continued to walk around Wood Lake, I heard the soft chipping in several other spots. It apparently is a hot time to be a song sparrow.
As wonderful as it was to see and hear brown birds singing, I was really hoping for some color. Grass is barely green and we have no flowers. All other vegetation is dry and subdued, so I had to settle for blackbird colors. I love this contrast of black, red, and yellow with the dried cattails. It's interesting, the males will sing within two feet over, but get twenty feet away and aim a scope on them, they suddenly get very cagey.
Now see, didn't I tell ya' earlier--these grackles are pretty and kind of arty. Aren't they? C'mon, you know they're pretty. There were some grackles doing the "bill up" display out in the reeds. According to BNA this is "given by a male in response to approach of another male, and typically results in one bird’s departure. Bill-Up Display occasionally given to members of opposite sex, especially early in breeding season when individuals are unmated. Paired birds never perform Bill-Up Display to one another." It looks like some strange alien thing though when you have several in a bunch of reeds doing it.
I did have one very obliging bird sing its rusty song in front of me. I must admit, as much of a pain they can be at the feeder (nothing that a little safflower can't solve), they really are pretty birds. I love all those shiny black feathers mixed with bronze and blue, capped with freaky yellow eyes.
As if this bird couldn't get any freakier looking, it puffed up, gave it's song and brought down its nictitating membrane. Demon grackle! It's saying, "I want to steal your soul...or at least your black-oil sunflower mwh ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa!"