Getting To 500!

So, I've had a back log of blogging and have been trying to catch up. I have a vague list in my head of topics and birds to talk about and get them in the blog when I can. One of those is getting my 500th bird.

It happened quite by accident. I was out with my buddy Clay doing some digiscoping when out of nowhere and WAY out of range was a huge bird. It was the type of bird that is instantly regonizable, an icon bird. A bird I have dreamed of seeing for some time:

Holy Crap! It was an albatross. I was shocked, I've wanted to see one for so long and there it was up close and we were able to get some fantastic shots. Of the top of my head, I didn't know which species it was, but who cares, I knew that I didn't have ANY albatross on my list. This was it, 500--some type of albatross. I took notes on my Remembird and would confirm the exact ID when I got home. I noted that the bill seemed much smaller than I expected. We spent the next several minutes digiscoping the crap out of the bird.

This morning, as I was getting dressed and going over blog topics in my head, I suddenly realized something. "Dammit!" I shouted.

"What's wrong?" Non Birding Bill asked.

"I thought I got my 500th bird and I just realized it was a dream!"

"So, you still have that bird to look forward to, it's not so bad."

"But I was going to blog about it this morning!"

Insert uncontrollable laughter from my husband here.

I did not see an albatross, nor did I digiscope it, nor did I get my 500th bird. Maybe a martini right before bed isn't the best idea.

The photo in this entry is actually by Dr. Michael Double.

Sometimes I Know Too Much

Non Birding Bill and I stopped at Midtown Global Market today. As we were locking up our bikes, I looked down and saw a honey bee flying between us and then land on some plantings. It's weird, I can pick out a honey bee even in fight from the thousands of other hymenoptera species in the US. But, what was odd was that we were seeing this bee right in the heart of Minneapolis. Thanks to Colony Collapse and varroa mites, foul brood and all the other nasties that afflict the honey bee, there really aren't wild hives any more. Now, if you take into account that the average bee flies two and a half miles away from her hive while foraging (that's average, it's possible for a forager to go as far as five miles) and that it's illegal to keep bees in Minneapolis and St. Paul...is someone keeping a secret hive near the market?

Interesting.

Disapproving Rabbits At The Science Museum

Last night I was working at the Mississippi River Visitor Center at the Science Museum listening to the cool song stylin's of the Brass Messengers (they were there for a wedding reception held at the museum) when I looked up from the counter and saw two people approaching me with Disapproving Rabbits shirts--the old school brown shirts. Two Cinnamon fans came up from Iowa to visit the Twin Cities and had me on the itinerary. Since they arrived about 45 minutes before I closed and Non Birding Bill was coming to pick me up, I called and asked if he would mind bringing Cinnamon with him. They were happy to hang around the VC and the museum to wait for NBB.

Because of the collections, animals aren't allowed in the Science Museum but Cinnamon frolicked on the front lawn and we got a photo. They even stuck around while we got a fast Sunday Cinnamon photo. She really seemed to enjoy the night air and she always enjoys attention--even at the ripe old age of nine (my Cinnabutt is nine, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around her mortality).

Thanks so much for visiting us Iowans!

Thongs For The Endangered Species Act?

I love the stuff over at Birdorable. One of the owners emailed that Piping Plover Prosh and Cute inspired their latest design:

Okay, they don't just have thongs, they have a whole line of product for the piping plover. Hey, maybe we could pick our favorite endangered species thong from Birdorable and mail them in to Dirk Kempthorne, secretary of the Interior, to let him know how much we dislike the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act? It could be birds that have been on and are now off as well as birds currently on it like the bald eagle, the peregrine falcon, or the California condor.

So what you think for a protest. Send An Endangered Species Thong to Dirk. This kind of tactic has worked to save tv shows, why not the Endangered Species Act?

Thoughts?

New Bird Species Discovered

According to Science Daily:

Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution have discovered a new species of bird in Gabon, Africa, that was, until now, unknown to the scientific community.

The newly found olive-backed forest robin (Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus) was named by the scientists for its distinctive olive back and rump. Adult birds measure 4.5 inches in length and average 18 grams in weight. Males exhibit a fiery orange throat and breast, yellow belly, olive back and black feathers on the head. Females are similar, but less vibrant. Both sexes have a distinctive white dot on their face in front of each eye.

The bird was first observed by Smithsonian scientists in 2001 during a field expedition of the National Zoo's Monitoring and Assessment of Biodiversity Program in southwest Gabon. It was initially thought, however, to be an immature individual of an already-recognized species. Brian Schmidt, a research ornithologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and a member of the MAB program's team, returned to Washington, D.C., from Gabon in 2003 with several specimens to enter into the museum's bird collection. When he compared them with other forest robins of the genus Stiphrornis in the collection, Schmidt immediately noticed differences in color and plumage, and realized the newly collected birds might be unique.

Birding the Minnesota & South Dakota Border

Don't worry, this post isn't all shorebirds.

On a Friday I was watching these little semi-palmated plovers squabbling on a beach and then the very next day, I'm watching them on a mud flat in western Minnesota...

And getting prickly pear cactus paddles stuck on my leg--owie. Yes, we do have a couple of cactus species growing in Minnesota, you can see them at Big Stone NWR. I went with Stan Tekiela and a group from Staring Lake Outdoor Center in Eden Prairie. These are fun, low key trips where we see some great birds...

...and local color like the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota (if you're wondering if this is the famed ball from Weird Al Yankovic song, it is).

We also stopped at the headwaters of the Minnesota River. Which was chock full of American white pelicans.

They were fishing right at the dam--I think I have a video of it, I'll see if I can dig it out of the external drive and load it later today. These were some urban birds. They did not care about us coming too close at all.

Usually white pelicans around the state are a bit cautious of humans, but these dudes just didn't care.

The fishing must be that good...and hopefully not too polluted right at the headwaters, unlike some of the other parts.

I got a kick out of seeing a band on one of the pelicans, perhaps this is a bird that I banded? If I didn't do it, I'm sure it's part of that same colony, it's very close to the Minnesota Headwaters.

We were hoping to find some shorebirds while we were out here, since Amber and I went on the shorebird workshop and had a great time last year. The weather had not been as cooperative this year. There was a big storm a few days before we arrived and all the prime mud flats were now ponds--not the best stopover for migrating shorebirds. We did find some like the least sandpiper above. The storm damage was incredible. The locals said there were 80 mile an hour winds and it showed in shredded corn fields, barns missing chunks of roof, and LOTS of trees down.

We went to Salt Lake right on the Minnesota/South Dakota border and found more shorebirds there like the Wilson's phalaropes (and lone pectoral sandpiper) in the above photo. It had the best and most accessible variety of shorebirds on the trip including short-billed dowitcher and stilt sandpipers.

This group wasn't all about shorebirds either, and we found black terns and a single Forster's tern (above).

The big stars of the show for the group was the massive amount of swallows around Salt Lake. I tried to get a video of this, but it's so windy and shaky that I think people would get motion sickness if I put it up on YouTube. But see this little section of swallows, it went on for as far as you could see the fence line. There were literally hundreds of swallows of various species. We found bank, barn, tree, cliff, and northern rough-winged swallow all hanging out and staging on the fence.

There was also a family group of savannah sparrows on the fence too. They appeared to have one fledgling with them--go native sparrows! Squeeze in one more brood before you migrate south!

We were seeing quite a few flickers as well and there was a family group with some fledgling flickers too. Young flickers begging always throw me. Yesterday, I was biking a different trail and I heard some begging at first I thought it was a raptor begging, until I saw the young flickers. I have to say, if you are in the Twin Cities and like to bird and bike--the Cedar Lake Trail is GREAT right now. I can't believe the diversity of species right on the edge of downtown. I found a fledging red-shouldered hawk, an adult Cooper's hawk, a pileated woodpecker, red-eyed vireo, indigo bunting and I got dove at by a male bluebird guarding his nest box--it wasn't my fault, someone put the bluebird box right next to the bike trail. It was also encouraging to see another species going for the gold with a late nesting.

Now, I just need to find a way to attach my spotting scope to my bike handle bars so I can digiscope--then I'll be unstoppable!

Skywatch Friday

It's another Skywatch Friday and I'm going to contribute some North Dakota storm clouds. I love the prairie--I love birding on the prairie, when the sun is out and it's spring, nothing quite beats bird song on the prairie. However, when it's rainy and windy, nothing can be quite as brutal as birding on the prairie. There are no trees to slow the wind and the rain, but the expanse is vast and you can get a clear view of the storm about to hit you. I love the look of clouds right before a rain. I love the view of a minimum maintenance road disappearing into an approaching storm, the unknowable is ahead.

I think this is one of my favorite views in North Dakota--painted beehives under storm clouds on a prairie.

A Tiny Bit Of Bee Blogging

I was talking with Mr. Neil the other day about bee blogging. Periodically, I get emails from people asking "Hey, it's been awhile since you blogged bees, can we get another post please?" Or something to that effect. But since I've started working on the bee book in earnest, I've lost the desire to blog the bees. He could relate. The book is not a reprinting of the blog, some of the same stories will be there, but with more and different details and you just can't write a book the same way you write a blog--hyperlinking just does not translate.

I did have a minor bit of panic in the MimiKo hive recently. When we opened the roof, we found webbing in the corner. I worried that it may be wax moths. Wax moths lay eggs in gaps in your hive and when the larvae hatches, they crawl into your comb and eat the wax, making webs all over the place. Incidentally, if you have been purchasing the wax worms this summer for birds during the mealworm shortage--that's the same thing. Those buggers can really mess up a hive. However, if you have a strong, healthy colony, they can stop the moth larvae before they get too bad. I looked closely at the webbing and then suddenly realized that the small dots I thought was frass left from the larvae--were moving...with eight legs. These were baby spiders. Something else I don't care to have in the hive. I grabbed my handy dandy hive tool and evicted the spiders. I hated to do it, I respect what spiders do in the food chain, but I'd rather they didn't do it in the beehives.

Getting To 499

Hey, on Monday at 3pm, I'll be on Twin Cities Live talking about attracting birds to your yard and the City Birds/Country Birds book signing on August 23, 2008 at Cardinal Corner:

August 23, 2008: Cardinal Corner in West St. Paul Store (651-455-6556) 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Cardinal Corner in Newport (651-459-3880) 1 p.m. - 3 p.m.

Don't forget, Cinnamon fans, the Queen of Disapproval will also come and hang out at the signing too.

Okay, so I think I'm going to finally finish up my Swarovski Blogging Event posts...oh wait, no, I just realized there's one more thing I can talk about after this, but I have to wait a few days longer before I actually talk about what we got to play with. But back to Cape Cod birding--I gotta a couple more lifers bringing my list to 499. So close to 500, yet so far away.

One was a roseate tern--this very light colored tern with a mostly black bill. That was pretty exciting. Terns are amazing creatures. If I ever transition from point and shoot camera digiscoping to SLR digiscoping, I want to try and capture terns fishing. Terns are such dainty and elegant birds in flight and when they dive into the ocean, it's like watching a delicate piece of origami smacking onto the surface of the water. Loves 'em.

Nice scope posture there, Corey! Corey and I each had a few lifers to catch up on. We both needed roseate tern and we also needed arctic tern. The group watched for them, but at the same time we loved getting photos of all the birds on the beach--dead or alive. I was standing with Corey and Ben from 600 Birds. They had spotted something dead further down the beach. It first glance, we got the impression that it was a dead black-backed gull...but when you looked through the scope, the bill looked all wrong. I wondered if it was a dead gannet. All three of use lit up with excitement and hurried off towards the carcass. As we closed in, Clay called from off in the distance, "Aaaaaaaaartic tern!"

Corey and I stopped, Ben who already had an arctic tern said, "Uh-oh."

Corey and I wavered, we were so close to the gannet, could we get photos of the gannet and make it back in time for the tern, or would the tern take off.

Ben, sensing our indecision said, "Gotta make a choice, dead bird? Life bird? Dead bird? Life Bird? Dead Bird? Life Bird?"

Corey and I finally made a rational decision that between the two birds, the dead gannet was guaranteed to stay in one spot, while the tern was not.

So, here is an arctic tern (masked in some major heat shimmer and non breeding plumage). This is an intense little bird if you think about it. This species breeds around the Arctic Ocean--as far north as Greenland and then winters on pack ice in Antarctica. This bird is about the length of a blue jay and flies pole to pole--that's over 24,000 miles round trip. Then when you look at things like banding records and find that in ten oldest birds found on record--the arctic tern comes in at number seven--a bird documented to have lived for 34 years! Imagine living 34 years and making that trip every single year--that's insane. This may be a small somewhat blurry photo, but the amazing potential in this bird deserves a little attention and was well worth abandoning a dead gannet. It was a good thing too. Not long after Corey and I joined the group, a family coming down the beach frightened the flock of terns and the arctic tern disappeared from view.

And then we hightailed it back to the dead gannet. Based on plumage, it looks like a first year bid. You just can't get close to gannets--they're amazing to watch in flight, but this dead bird was a treat to really look at some of its features up close.

The feet were incredible. They were webbed like a duck but had large white claws on the tips--they nest on ledges of cliffs, in the direction of prevailing winds, perhaps that's why they need the claws for gripping?

Who knows how this bird died: disease, poor hunting, poisoning, eating plastic--tough to say but I appreciated the chance to admire that long, tough bill.

The Dangers of Surfing the Net Late At Night

ElizaBird sent me a link to something a little unnerving on Etsy:

The description reads, "This man is on a spiritual quest, looking for that little baby bird deep within himself. 6 inches wide, 6 inches tall. If inches are not your thing, imagine the man head is about the size of a ken doll head. Ken is universal right?"

Signed and ready to ship.

And if you are as wigged out by that as much as I am, then nip over to Cute Overload for the bunny eating out of the glass bowl--and do note that you can now get a Cute Overload 365 Day Calendar for 2009--SWEET!