Click It. Click It Good.
You know how sometimes you just don't want to go outside and fill the bird feeder? Maybe the snow is deep, it's pouring down rain, or you have fifty other things to do and just can't get to it? Well, ClickOn Bird Feeders has the answer for you, my friend:
"Many homeowners with bird feeders - including seniors and the infirm - often stop re-filling their feeders altogether during the cold winter months, and their busy schedules often preclude them from regularly re-filling their feeders during the rest of the year," according to Nathan Arthurs, the founder of ClickON Bird Feeders.
"Winter is the funnest time of year to feed the birds, because their natural resources are depleted, yet, if you look around your neighborhood in January, you'll see that almost all of the feeders are empty," Arthurs said.
Birdchick Note: I would argue that spring and fall is the fun time to feed birds, especially spring because they are in the breeding plumage and let's not forget summer, when you get to watch the adults teach the young how to feed. And another thing, studies show that birds only use a feeding station (at most) as 20% of their overall diet. To say that natural resources for birds is depleted in winter is a bit of a stretch. But I digress. Watch the magical feeder in action below:
That's right folks, for only $495 you too can have the magic of ClickOn in your backyard! And if you still aren't swayed, check out the "easy to install" system.
Thoughts?
For me personally, I'd rather have it the opposite. Suck all the seed out of there when the squirrel gets on there. Deal with that, furball.
I Think The Bees Are On To Us
Just a short update on the old bees. Yesterday, Mr. Neil, Lorraine and I checked on the beehives.
The Olga hive is really expanding with comb honey and I'm very hopeful for what she will do for us next summer. She's got three deep brood boxes (the large ones on the bottom) full of brood and honey for winter, and the top three smaller boxes are the honey supers for us. Two are the Ross Rounds and one is the cut comb honey kit which had some melting issues earlier in the summer and is now full of burr comb. Ah well, in the end it's all edible.
One of the Ross Rounds super is almost completely ready to harvest, almost all the frames are capped. We should be able to take it out next week. Up until this point, we've been putting an extra empty frame in our third brood box. We've just been harvesting it there from time to time. The frame is empty, but the bees are perfectly capable of drawing out comb without foundation.
However, I think the Olga bees are on to us. When I opened the box, I could see comb from the frame attached to the wall. I tried to pull the frame out, but it felt stuck. We took out the frame next to it out for a closer look inside.
Sure enough, the girls had drawn out their own foundation from the wall to the frame, making it impossible for us to harvest. It was as if they were saying, "Ha ha, take that, thieving humans." So, no honey harvest this time, but next week (insert maniacal giggle) we shall plunder the honey supers and no amount of propolis will stop us.
On our way to check the Kitty hive's progress we found a grasshopper waiting for us on the outside. You would think that they could sense all the activity in the hive and would want to stay away. You can hear much more activity before you open the box--the most I've heard in weeks. The brood has definitely hatched.
The girls still have not quite drawn out all the frames in the third brood box, but they are over halfway there and with more workers hatching every day, I feel that they will be ready by the end of August. Above is some of the freshly drawn out comb, see the little glob of bright yellow? Some worker has just deposited some pollen stores.
We found more freshly laid eggs, which means Queen Kitty II was here sometime in the last three days. As we were checking this hive, I suddenly realized that next month I will need to begin preparations to overwinter the bees. They will have to be sealed up in October and I won't be able to check on them every seven to ten days. What on earth am I going to do with myself between October and April?
Needs Me Some Quotes
Hey blog readers, I just got asked to do a very last minute article on trends for water features in the backyard for Birding Business. If you use water to attract birds to your yard can you tell me:
What did you put in? (i.e. just a bath, fountain/pump, a whole pond, heated bath)
How long ago did you put it in?
What was the biggest change you noticed after you put it in?
You can leave your answers in the comments section (although, I will need a first and last name for the quote) or you can email me through sharon at birdchick dot com.
Thanks, peeps!
The Benefits Of A Dead Tree
"Did someone say there's a dead tree? Yum! Count me in!"We've had some powerful storms in our neck of the woods for the last month. Non Birding Bill and I have been fortunate in not having any storm damage (heck of a light show, though), but Mr. Neil has lost some trees, one being a very large oak near the bird feeding stations--NOT the oak that supplied us with a tasty harvest of Sulphur Shelf--it's still standing tall (although the fungus has dried out).
This oak has been kind of the staging area for all the feeder birds. Up until a large bolt of lightening struck the giant tree a couple of weeks ago, all the birds would hang in there and make sure the coast was clear before coming down to the feeders. Woodpeckers would check for bugs, nuthatches would cache suet and nuts, mourning doves would flirt, and immature birds would beg from parents high in the branches as the adults fed, trying to show the young how to use the feeders. I always thought to myself that if something happened to that tree, it might affect the bird activity. Initially, it was thought that the tree had just lost a large branch, but an arborist came and pointed to where and how hard the tree was struck and needed to be cut down since it was so close to the house. When the yard crew cut the tree, you could see the charred core for the powerful bolt of lightening.
After the tree was cut down, I asked Mr. Neil what he was going to do with it. The tree fell into the woods (away from the house) and he was considering the idea of leaving it there to rot. I strongly favored the idea, though we lost a tree for the birds to hang out in before they go to the feeders, it would become a great brushy area and an awesome food source. Even though the tree has only been down a few weeks, the birds are already digging it.
Here is a black-capped chickadee going for tiny insects working around the dead leaves. This birds kept bouncing from clump to clump of dead leaves. As I was watching this chickadee, I could hear soft pecking from several different sources around me. As the oak had come down, a few other trees came down with it, so there are several dead trees surrounding the oak--an Old Country Buffet of all natural food for the birds (hm...can you have "all natural" and "Old Country Buffet" in the same sentence?).
One of the birds pecking was this tufted titmouse. The bird was really hammering away at this jagged edge of a broken branch. First it started at the top, and then the side. Anytime another titmouse flew it, this bird would chase it off. Something must have been good in there...
Eventually, the bird really started pecking away at the bottom and really excavating. The behavior was so fascinating, I thought I would digivideo what it was doing. Be alert, this clip is only six seconds long:
As soon as I had pressed record on my little digital camera, the titmouse got its reward--did you see the size of that grub?? I couldn't believe my luck of getting a quick video of the bird getting the food. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I can't wait to see what happens over the winter.
Another benefit to the missing large oak is that now the late afternoon sun casts a gorgeous glow on the feeding station--perfect for digiscoping. I found this female ruby-throated hummingbird preening in one of the small trees next to the nectar feeder. Earlier, when I had been filling all the empty seed feeders, she buzzed by head twice (I wasn't wearing red, so it wasn't like she thought I was food). The third time she buzzed, I turned around and followed her with my eyes. She flew twenty feet away to the hummingbird feeder, hovered for a moment and flew up into the tree. Hm, what is it Lassie? Is Timmy in the well again? Or is the nectar nasty in the hummingbird feeder. I took the feeder in, cleaned it out, put in fresh nectar and not five seconds after I hung it back up, she flew down and started feeding on the nectar. This bird has me trained--three buzzes and I fill the feeder. After she fed, she went to the tree to preen. Here's a video of her ablutions. Note how she periodically flicks out that tiny tongue:
And for those interested, a bee update will be coming up later today.
Cape May Autumn Weekend & Blogging Confernece
Are you going to Cape May Autumn Weekend? If you're already on the fence as to whether or not you should sign up for the action packed East Coast migration spectacular, don't forget this is your chance to meet some of your favorite bird bloggers! So far, here are the bloggers I know will be there:
10,000 Birds
Beginning To Bird
Birdchick
Born Again Bird Watcher
Hasty Brook
Hawk Owl's Nest
Mary's View
Somewhere in NJ
Susan Gets Native
WildBird on the Fly
Leica Birding Blog
If you would like to get the discounted blogging rate, the requirements and info can be found here. Some of the above bloggers are going for the conference and some will be there to work booths. It's a great time, with great birders, great birds, great face painting, great pancakes, and beautiful scenery. Hope to see you there.
Banded Sandpipers
Remember the banded semi-palmated sandpiper we found over the weekend along Duck Banding Road on Big Stone NWR? Well, Doug Buri found out where and when it was banded from Nate Thomas, the doctoral candidate working on tracking them:
The first bird was banded about 2 miles south of Salt Lake on the Minnesota/South Dakota border on July 21-23 2004. That means that the bird is at least 3 years old! Since we couldn't read the individual band number, we don't know if it was tagged as an adult or an immature bird but it has been surviving and migrating since 2004! WOW!
I didn't mention that on our final field trip, we found a second banded semi-palmated sandpiper with different colored tags. I can tell you from my other banding experiences that finding recovered birds is unusual, but finding two banded birds in a weekend--that's unbelievably rare. Again, we couldn't read the individual band number, but based on the color marks on its legs, Nate said the bird was banded in either 2003 or 2005, making the bird either 4 or 2 years old.
These birds breed in the Arctic and migrate down to South America for the winter. Think of the thousands of miles they cover year after year--I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one. What is this saying about migratory route fidelity? So, if you are lucky enough to see any shorebirds in your neck of the woods, even if you can't identify them, think about the migratory journey they could be on.
Pishing A Golden Eagle
What happens if you pish at a golden eagle:
This is Andi, one of the education birds at The Raptor Center. She's an adult golden eagle and we know she is female because of her large size (in the raptor world, females are larger than males) and each spring she lays an egg (it's unfertilized, it's just that her hormones are ready to make an egg). She was found injured during a snow storm. Her injuries were consistent with a collision with power lines. When she was brought in, she had porcupine quills all over her face. Though none were in her eye, as she recovered, her left eye clouded up with scar tissue and is now blind in that eye (we speculate that a quill did get in there and she got it out before she was captured). That combined with a permanent wing injury makes her unreleasable and she will spend the rest of her life at TRC.
Shorebird Immersion Course
I told Doug Buri that if he ever offers his shorebird identification workshop again, he should call it a Shorebird Immersion Course. Number one, you're surrounded by shorebirds, up close and personal (like the short-billed dowitcher and pectoral sandpiper above). Number two, you are out in the mud flats and could sink.
Here's my buddy Amber out taking photos of the many shorebirds that we saw. You can see that the ground surrounding her was a tad wet. Doug's motto was that the way to id shorebirds is to get up close, out on the mud flat. The birds would initially fly away and then come back and feed near you--a human shape is not a known predator so they don't worry about us too much. During one of the morning trips, we were walking on the mud flats. As we went along, I felt my feet sink a little with each step. As long as we kept moving, it wasn't a problem. But then the group stopped to watch some birds and I noticed the world getting taller. I looked down and discovered my Keens were engulfed in mud. We stayed and I tried to quietly free myself--it wasn't happening. Doug said, "Well, at this point we can either go forward or go backwards, whatever the group wants to do."
"Maybe we should go back, I'm starting to sink." I said in a calm voice.
Doug laughed and said something to the effect of "How can you tell, you're always low to the ground." Our group was in a line and I was in back, so no one could really see the situation. I tried again to free my shoes and said, "I kind of am sinking." Again, in a calm tone.
One of the group turned around and saw my shoes and said, "Oh!"
"Yeah, seriously," I said. "I'm sinking and can't get out."
It took two people, but we freed my shoes and I continued on, although a little muddy. Fortunately, there were lots of puddles nearby and I was able to rinse of my shoes.
Doug made us work for those birds, whether it be standing on unsteady mud...
Working on id in a coming storm...
Descending loose rocks near a dam...
Or trudging through eight foot high cattails.
But it was worth it! These little least sandpipers were within about five feet of our group. They were too close to digiscope so I just aimed my camera the old school way--point and shoot.
However, I did get some up close shots of the leasts.
This is a semi-palmated plover (above) not to be confused with the semi-palmated sandpiper (below):
And if you're wondering what the heck "palmated" is all about, it's a throw back to when bird id was done with a shot gun. If you hold a dead semi-palmated sandpiper (or plover) in you hand, about six inches from your face, you will see some slight webbing between their toes. Not all shorebirds have this and as a regular birder, it's not something you're going to notice out in the field. The semi-palmated plover is one of the cutest shorebirds out there--kind of like the kid brother of a killdeer.
"I wish he'd quit copying me. Sigh."
I have to say, Doug had some unconventional methods for teaching us id. Here he was doing a slide show on the finer points of sandpiper identification at a local restaurant. The walls were kind of a peachy color and to help keep the colors true, he borrowed a cook's apron to use as a screen.
In our final class he made us identify old decoys. Actually it worked, we used the hints that he gave us and we were able to figure out what species the artist was trying to carve.
Some questions came up in the comments section about the bugs. I have to say that for all but one of the field trips, we didn't have any mosquito problems. My biggest concern was sunburn and heat exhaustion. When I took most of these photos (like the above dowitcher), it was in the upper 90's and high humidity. I was covered from head to toe with my third application of sun block--I could feel my pores staging a large acne protest on my face, and I could feel sweat dripping down my back and my legs. Stinky mud oozed through my Keens enveloping my toes. It was late afternoon and we were watching some of the birds bathe, I risked the spongy mud to dip my feet in the water, hoping for some cool relief only to be greeted with warm bathwater temperatures. But it was awesome and I had a GREAT time. I was in the middle of nowhere, unable to hear any mechanical sounds (no planes, no cars) and just the sounds of calling shorebirds.
But all his torturous techniques worked, I can now identify my own photos with confidence, instead of sending them on to friends to help id:
This is a pectoral sandpiper.
This is a short-billed dowitcher.
Here's another of the oh so cute least sandpiper.
Here we have the diabolical lesser yellowlegs, not to be confused with the even trickier...
greater yellowlegs. Okay, I know some of you out there are saying, "Yo, Shaz, that bird looks EXACTLY like the photo above it! How can it be different?" Well, this bird was 30% larger than the bird in the other photo and if you look close, it's bill is "two toned" it's lighter at the base than the tip. The lesser yellowlegs has an all dark bill. Really, it does. Honest.
All in all, this workshop was a great time, I learned a lot and I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to learn their shorebirds. Part of my block is that there aren't any places where I live that I could watch shorebirds up close several times. I didn't necessarily see several species, but I needed the repetition of the common species in different light to really get them down. Doug has a relaxed teaching style that makes learning fun and helps you feel encouraged. I almost feel like I could take on gulls sometime in the next five years.
An Exciting Day
I'm too wiped out to do a proper entry, but I will leave you with some exciting bits from the day. First up, can you identify the bird in the above photo? Hint: It's not a shorebird. When you're ready to guess, the adult plumaged bird can be seen here. No prize, just glory in the comments section.
Second, I met someone totally cool (in my book) on the trip. Long time readers of this blog may recall that I am a big fan of the crop art at the Minnesota State Fair. One of my all time favorite pieces was a portrait of Jackie Chan in 2005. Turns out that one of the women taking the shorebird workshop not only does crop art, but her husband did the Jackie Chan portrait (I totally geeked out). I told her that her cool points had just sky rocketed in my book. Between that and the fact that there is a Strong Bad sticker on her car, leads me to believe that we could be friends outside of birding--if my overwhelming (but sincere) excitement over crop art didn't frighten her. I'm not sure she wants me to completely out her or her husband as crop artists, but I will say that if you visit Cropart.com they have some work up in the gallery section.
Take note of the above photo. Notice anything out of the ordinary? Note the bird coming in for a landing. Do you see tags on the legs?
We found a tagged semi-palmated sandpiper! Normally, I would say that finding a tagged bird is excitement enough--we'll report it, find out where it was banded, how old it is, etc. But I'm even more excited that when it flew in, I was able to tell the trip leader that we had a tagged semi-palmated sandpiper...I identified a semi-palmated sandpiper on my own (sniff, sniff) I've had a total breakthrough!