WRC Pelican Update

Got some great news from Tami at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center regarding December's pelican emergency:

Hi Sharon :-)

Thought you may like a pelican update for your blog... Of the 10 pelicans, three will need to be placed due to chronic wing fractures. We're placing them (hopefully) with the Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake City. Five birds will be flying to Florida this Thursday (thanks to Northwest Airlines for discounted cargo rates) where they'll be met by staff members from C.R.O.W. Rehabilitation Center, Sanibel Island. They'll be released at the refuge on Sanibel, joining several other flocks numbering in the hundreds. The remaining two birds we hope will be releasable but they need to maintain their weight before we can send them down to CROW.

Pre Birdchick--not really bird related

A few days ago, I got a comment from a Mark Peters--a real blast from the past (and after perusing his blog, I wonder if the typos in this blog drive him crazy?). When I was a theater major in college I had a senior project of directing a show. I don't know what I was thinking by directing a show, but a script by Elizabeth Egloff caught my attention and I signed up for it. I had just started rekindling my interest in birding after suppressing it for a few years so her play called The Swan seemed a natural. The play is about a woman named Dora who has a swan fly into her window. The swan turns into a man and Dora trains him, names him Bill, teaches him checkers, gives him beer and tells him about her past love. She's currently having an affair with a milkman named Kevin but Bill falls in love with her and she must choose between the milkman and the swan.

Part of me would like to direct it again now that I have some life experience and a better understanding of swans, but there is no time and no budget for that at the moment. The theater down the block from us called the Jungle is producing it next month and I'm interested to see their version.

Mark was cast as the title character and did a fantastic job. There were certainly problems with the production mostly due to my inexperience with directing, but the swan was accurate boy howdy! I remember taking the cast out to look for a mute swan near campus. I just had a flash back of arguing with the costume designer for the show. Mark and I had talked about the swan's transformation into a man and we both agreed he should be naked when the transformation had it. The costume designer would have none of it and thought the nudity would be distracting. I remember we compromised, but not without lots of snippiness.

I had intended to post photos of the production of The Swan, but I can't find any. I did dig up some loo loo photos though!

Here's an early head shot. When I had this hair cut, I was mistaken for Katie Couric at a restaurant in Terre Haute, Indiana. That was back when she was dying her own hair.

One from a year earlier. I think I was trying to be deep. Oh, she's so serious, cast this girl in your play! I just realized I'm wearing the same shirt in both head shots--shocking. Incidentally, I have my natural hair color in these photos, too bad the photos are in black and white.

That's got to be some man's fantasy somewhere. I think this was from The Heidi Chronicles.

This was from a show called Bedroom Farce. I had a British accent for this show. This was my favorite part. I had to do a costume change under the covers onstage. I got everything on except for the panty hose. As soon as I got the shirt and skirt on I had to step out from under the covers and put on the panty hose up to and including pulling them up over my rear--my least favorite part of putting on clothes--there's no possible way to look attractive doing that.

The next two photos I dedicate to Hawk Owl's Nest. We got on the subject of magicians in the comments section of another blog and I mentioned that I was at one time a magician's assistant. He wanted to see the photos, well I found a couple. Here ya' go Patrick:

We just finished something. I think this is from a Jerry Lewis Telethon.

Here we are chaining him up. I'm the one on the right. Locking a man up in chains and restraints. Practice for marriage I suppose.

Here's a photo from a show Non Birding Bill and I were cast in at the Bryant Lake Bowl when we first moved to Minnesota. That's NBB behind the drums. Isn't he just so cute?

Carlos Avery

Birderblog wore me out yesterday!

Side Note: Right after I typed the above sentence, I looked up out the window and noticed a squirrel crawling down a tree. It paused and was hanging upside down on the tree. Then, while holding it's back claws to the tree, stretched its body forward using the front paws to inch a little further down. That looks so cool! I want to do a stretch, hanging upside down on the side of a tree trunk!

Okay, back to the entry. We went to Carlos Avery yesterday to look for the short-eared owls. Alas, a fairly strong wind picked up by the end of the day and the owls seemed to hunker down. However, we did get some great bonuses.

I had a first: I found a saw-whet owl on my own without it having been reported in the area on the listservs before hand. My owl senses were tingling and at first Laura and I searched rows of an old tree nursery looking for saw-whets. It's actually the spot where The Raptor Center released some great gray owls during the infamous owl irruption of 2004 - 2005 (note photo above--that's where we were yesterday).We found lots of "owl sign"--pellets and poop, but no owl. It was nerve racking because we found poop so fresh it was still glistening, but no owl.

Laura was excited to try out a new digiscoping setup so we made our way to the headquarters to take photos of some bird feeders at a house on the WMA. We weren't sure if this was part of the WMA or a private residence. As we were looking, a friendly woman came out and greeted us--I recognized her right away: Jan Welsh, who lives there with her family. (Jan didn't recognize me right away, but I had my hair in pig tails--result of a failed olive oil experiment. I should have known better. My hair retains water worse than I do once a month. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that my hair would do the same with olive oil).

Jan had some great feeders and a bird house trail that she uses for school groups and cub scouts for educational programs. I was admiring her bittersweet that she had on one of her fences. I love watching birds sitting in bittersweet--the colors are so complimentary.

Jan has an amazing coop with a few ducks and dozens of chickens. While Jan was showing me her chickens and Laura was digiscoping I suddenly heard angry chickadees and nuthatches. I rudely interrupted our conversation and said, "Sorry, Jan, angry chickadees. Gotta go!"

Jan understood.

Behind the coop is a small pond surrounded by pines and oak. I followed the loud angry calls--the red-breasted nuthatch almost sounded like a tiny "neck massager". I made my way to the pine and all the small birds were high up in a conifer (above). Their calls were so agitated and insistent sounding, I almost thought they were communicating to me, "It's right here, stupid!! See?!"

I finally found a small owl shape and the owl turned around and sure enough, a saw-whet! My elation was tempered with disappointment. I had to go get Laura and Jan but this bird was so high and so tucked, it would be difficult at best to A. re find it and B. take a photo.

I got Laura and by the time we got back to the tree the mobbing flock was gone--there goes the "X marks the spot". I knew the tree it was in and after a few minutes I was able to find the silhouette but it was in no position for me to describe to Laura in an easy way. She let me use her scope to find it and after several minutes we got the bird in view in an almost vertical scope.

It was getting dark and there were so many branches and pine needles in front of it, it was next to impossible to digiscope. Laura's photo is a little better.

Jan mentioned that she suspects saw-whets might be using one of her wood duck boxes to nest in and also has been hearing great-horned and barred owls regularly in the last couple of weeks.

We continued to search the refuge, and though we got nooged on the short-ears we did see lots of rough-legged hawks and a bonus of a dark morph rough-leg--I love dark morph raptors. We also found a shrike, male harriers, bald eagles and lots and lots of voles.

It was a fun day and also fit in with my resolution to spend more time with friends.

Hard-core Bunny Naughtiness

Some time ago Cinnamon had started working on a hole on the toddler gate to the rabbit room. This is where we keep Cinnamon at night or when we are not home to make sure she stays out of the kitchen and doesn't chew on chords. It's a large closet with two doors, that we ventilate. She has plenty of room to hop around and there's even a second Cottontail Cottage for her to hide out in.

But that is never enough.

We placed a wooden board in front of the hole along with a storage tin to block her efforts. The other day I heard a shuffling sound and some scratching as if she were trying to dig her way out of the room. I realized she was scratching on the wooden board, something she does when she wants out or attention. I was busy working on a deadline and didn't have time to keep a close eye on her, so I left her in the rabbit room until I was finished. The shuffling became more insistent and I peered around the couch to find this scene:

Yes, she had pushed away the board and the tin just enough to squeeze through. As I grabbed my camera to catch this craftiness (I shouldn't be proud, but I just can't help it) she defiantly bit a power chord as if to say, "Nanny nanny boo boo, look what I can do."

As soon as I took three photos she was off hopping around the apartment exploring it as if for the first time. Guess it's time to invest in a new toddler gate.

Butthead.

No Tongues!


This photo by Sergei Grits, Associated Press showed up on the Star Tribune's Photo of the Day. It's of Belarusian Leonid Kulakov feeding house sparrows with seeds from his tongue in Minsk, Belarus, Friday.

All I can say is: NO no no no NO no no! NO! Wrong! No! Get some hot water, get some iodine! Why not just lick a pigeon for crying out loud. It's doing stupid crap like this that leads to bird flu.

I love birds, freakishly so, but that's crossing a line. Ew.

Green-tailed Towhee Banding Mystery

Bird-wise we got totally nooged at Carpenter today. The traps were birdless, although there was some excitement over a Townsend's Solitaire that was found on the trail. We went to go look for it, but did not find it. Although, I was rewarded with a view of a gorgeous gully (above) that I've never noticed at Carpenter. I tend to hang at the banding station and today made a mental note to take a walk on the trails more often.

Fortunately, we have a very sweet banding mystery to chew on. We've had a rare bird show up in Mountain Lake in Cottonwood County--a green-tailed towhee (a western species not typically found in Minnesota). The photo above was taken by Dave Cahlander and if you look at the leg, you can see that the towhee is banded. Dave is one heck of a photog, and he even tried to photograph the band! No one in Minnesota is claiming to have banded the towhee, so where did it come from? Dave said, "It looks like the numbers are 8051 ?8299, where I can't read the ? number."

He submitted the digits and photos to the BBL and here is a response from Danny Bystrak,
Wildlife Biologist at BBL:

"... It is one of the more fascinating reports I've ever seen here, but so far, I have not made any progress in finding the bander. The problem is that, assuming the 8051 is correct (which it seems to be) and the ?8299 is correct (which it also seems to be), all the possible numbers for the ? are accounted for except two. One of the two was issued to a bander in S.D. who has never banded a Green-tailed Towhee, and the other was issued to a bander in Canada. If it was banded in Canada, the banding record is as far out of range as the sighting!

I will check with the Canadian Banding Office to see who it was issued to, but it is starting to look like maybe the above numbers may not be correct. "

More pictures would be great, if there's any chance we could get that missing number in the picture. "

Where did this bird come from? Anyone out there reading this in Canada banded a green-tailed towhee? I love a good banding mystery!

**There's been an update to the towhee and we now know where it was banded. Check the blog entry for January 10, 2007.

The Laziest Turnstones?

Or the Smartest?

From the Times Online:

A pair of turnstones, birds that fly thousands of miles across oceans, are taking the ferry to save themselves a three-mile commute.

They catch the 8.30am boat from Falmouth to St Mawes, where they are served a breakfast of breadcrumbs by the skipper. They land after 20 minutes then spend the day feeding, before catching the 4.15pm back across the River Fal.

The birds, known as Fred and Freda, have been hitching rides on the Cornish ferry every winter for the past six years. So fond are they of the skipper, John Brown, that if he is captaining another boat they will often fly off to find him.

You can read the rest of the story here.

Pile O' Eagles

I debated about putting up this post. I was worried that folks who are of the glass half empty persuasion might find it depressing. But when I worry about a post I go back to my standard test--would I find this interesting? Yes, I would! So here it goes.

Some days you just have odd moments in your life. Tuesday at The Raptor Center, while grabbing some food down in the clinic I passed a pile of filled plastic bags. A couple were clear and I could see that inside each bag was a bald eagle. I never expected to ever walk by a pile of bald eagles.

When a bird dies at TRC, they are frozen and then periodic shipments are made to the feather bank. This is where Native Americans can apply to get feathers for religious ceremonies. As one of the vets began packing up the boxes for the rock hard frozen birds to be shipped, I couldn't resist picking one up and looking it over. Even though only 12 pounds it was still heavy.

I asked the vet if he had heard about the 18 pound golden eagle that was banded in Wyoming. He said he wasn't too surprised. Last spring TRC released a 16 pound bald eagle. As a matter of fact, I took her photo during the release last May.

That's when I noticed its bill. Can you make out the the puncture marks on the upper mandible? Those punctures came from the bill of another bald eagle. This bird lost a fight with another bald eagle which has become an increasing occurrence in Minnesota. We now have a healthy and stable population and rumor has it bald eagles will be taken off of the Endangered Species List this year.

On the one hand it's sad to look at a dead adult bald eagle, but on the other hand it's encouraging that not every bird comes to the clinic because it was shot but because of something that would happen naturally--two birds fighting to the death over territory, food or even a mate.

Okay, now for a cleansing photo:

A live, healthy, disapproving eagle.

Duck Stamp Holder

The Georgia Ornithological Society is selling the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp (aka Duck Stamp) and holder for $15.

If you recall, I got schooled by Paul Baicich that these tags fit easily on binoculars and make very little noise and don't get in the way of your bird viewing pleasure. For those who still aren't convinced, they do also make great zipper tags.

This is one of the cheapest, most effective purchases you can make to buy up habitat for all kinds of birds. And with the decline in duck hunters, birders really need to step up to the plate on this one. Over 98% of the money for the stamp actually goes to purchase habitat and less than 2% goes to administrative costs, this is very worthwhile.