Life's a Beach, part 1


Did I mention that there are quite a few snakes out here? Non Birding Bill doesn't care much for birding with me, but in new areas I think he worries about me doing something foolish and needing supervision and will usually tag along on my birding adventures. He really doesn't like snakes which there are quite a few of around here one in particular which is quite poisonous, but feels morally obligated to make sure I don't get too close to any. I think, he thinks I will lean in to get a photo and get bit.

Because Non Birding Bill had the brilliant idea of getting airline tickets that left at 6am I didn't sleep since Thursday night until Saturday night (except a couple of hours on the flights interrupted by babies traumatized by the popping ear experience).

Have already seen birds not typically found in Minnesota including boat-tailed grackles on the deck, mockingbirds on the telephone poles, fish crows in the Walmart parking lot, brown pelicans along the shore (I've never had a brown pelican barf on me before, maybe that will be a goal for this trip), laughing gulls and herring gulls all over the freakin' place, a towhee outside our bedroom window, and what I'm pretty sure were glossy ibis flying over the house last evening.

Birdchick Migration

I am off to the Virginia Beach area for the week. We have located a Panera Bread so I should be able to do some updating but who knows what wacky highjinx I'll get into down south. So, I'm not abandoning the blog but doing some beach birding. Although, I am bummed I didn't book my police escort in time to bird the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.

We might head to the crazy island of Chincoteague where the squirrels are endangered. Don't bother to ask about contributing your local squirrels to the dwindling population on Chincoteague, they're apparently not the same type of squirrel. This is a great place to see godwits and black skimmers among other things.

As if endangered squirrels weren't wired enough, there are also the decency signs. They strike me

as odd because of the third bullet. It's a beach, what else will you wear but revealing clothing?? And depending on how you look in a bathing suit it might very well not be appropriate in a public setting.

Ah well, the binos and the spf 48 are packed and I think I'm ready to go. Hopefully, I'll have some fun towhee or tern photos in a day or two.

Osprey Banding

What do you do if you have a couple of hours to kill before you go into work? Why go watch osprey banding of course!
Today I met up with Mark Martell and Bud Tordoff to watch them band young osprey. This particular nest had three chicks in it. I went osprey banding with Bud and Mark in 2003 and at that time the chicks in the nest were almost too small to band. They had an unusual habit of just laying limp (photo at left) while being banded not the normal regal look a bird of prey has.

One interesting thing that ospreys sometimes do when you get to close to their nest is pick up objects like sticks and drop them, giving a fierce display of how ferocious they are. These birds did quite a bit of swooping and diving towards the professional tree climbers that scaled the pole to get the chicks out of the nest.

The first chick brought down was the smallest of the three and but still looked to be a good size. The young osprey put up a strong front lunging and attempting to bite anyone who came near (photo below), then suddenly out of nowhere the bird died. It happened so fast we could barely believe it. One second we were making jokes and in awe of how fierce the young bird was and then the next instant it was limp and lifeless.

Anyone who is as invested in bird research and study as this group is mortified by something like this. Mark said that over the years he has banded over 700 young birds and this is only the second time a bird has died out of the blue, this was an incredibly rare occurrence. Many questions were asked but no answers could be provided at the time. Seventy-five percent of the birds hatched this spring (and that's all birds not just raptors) will not survive their first year. So many things can go wrong from a glitch in the food supply, aggressive older siblings, disease, injury, etc a bird has to be in top peak condition in order to survive. Even though you know this, when you witness it up close like that you feel terrible and question yourself relentlessly.

What could have happened? Did the bird overheat? Unlikely, because ospreys have been banded in much hotter weather and this bird wasn't out of the nest very long. Was the bird ill? The vent area (where the bird poops) was clean, not showing any green fecal material build up. Since there were three birds in the nest and this one was the smallest was it the victim of siblicide? There were no obvious injuries to indicate it was being pecked at by its older siblings and the bird had a full crop (lump in the neck indicating it had been fed recently). Another possibility is that the bird had a genetic problem with its heart and it had heart failure from the stress of being banded. If that is the case the bird wouldn't have survived in the wild. If an osprey chick can't take the stress of being banded, what the heck would it have done the first time it flew from the nest or dove after a fish?

It was decided that the dead osprey chick would be taken back to The Raptor Center and a necropsy (animal autopsy) be performed to try and determine a cause of death.

The other two chicks were banded with the greatest of care. The oldest bird went through the process with flying colors. The middle sized chick started breathing heavily but Mark gave it water and noted that the breathing pattern was normal for a young bird that age (photo at left). Both made it back to the nest alive and well with their bands and we will just have to wait to see what the Raptor Center discovers with the dead chick.

Why I Love Birds So Much

So, sitting outside a coffee shop tonight I read an email that completely ticked me off an hurt my feelings. I was sitting here with my sad little latte feeling like a lonely asparagus, when suddenly I heard the high pitched "klee klee klee klee" call of a kestrel. I looked above the houses across the street and there's the kestrel diving up and down on a Cooper's hawk. Whether the kestrel had the upper hand and its diving was forcing the Coop's out of its territory or the Coop's was hot on the tail of something is was ready to kill and was completely oblivious to the kestrel, I will never know. Soon, the Coop's was so low it was behind trees and houses but the diving kestrel marked the hawk's whereabouts as did the startled pigeons and grackles that popped straight up in the air to avoid being in the direct path of the accipiter. The whole scenario made me smile and made me realize what a whiner I was being.

And also made me grateful for not being an unsuspecting pigeon.

For those interested...

For those interested, the one legged grackle is still going strong. I didn't see any chicks with it today so I don't know if they are off fending for themselves or if they gotten eaten.

Weekend Birds

Even birds sometimes don't look graceful while eating! It almost looks like it's thinking, "I'm so embarassed, I could just die! Ug."

Yesterday I finished draft two of the Urban Birdfeeding book. I used Mr. Neil's gazebo as a quiet place with no distraction to get it finished. However, the birds tried their darndest to keep me from finishing it. There was some kind fight going on between two male and one female rose-breasted grosbeak. Someone gave a few angry chips, another sang a few notes that I'm pretty sure was laced with some bird profanity and it went down hill. At one point the female caught me watching them and then everyone took off in opposite directions.

On my way out to the gazebo, I passed the barn and heard some strange squeaking sounds which at first I thought was from some young wood chucks but turned out to be two young raccoons that had discovered an open plastic bin of bird seed. They were so focused on the food with their butts in the air that they didn't notice me. When the finally did, they tried to look all tough and after I snapped a photo I left them alone. I then made another discovery of a very lazy tree frog sleeping on a stained glass butterfly plant stake.

I ended up partying with LorraineaMalena for the rest of the evening, heading to bed about 12:30am, got up around 5:45am for some fun chat with Ian and Margery on a Balanced Breakfast, and driving back to the Twin Cities. Ian an Margery are so nice, I really appreciate that they help get birds on a regular radio show. It brings birds to an audience that wouldn't normally hear it.

After I finish this entry I have to get ready for work and be there by 10:30am. I'm feeling really good right now, but I have a feeling that around 3:30pm today, my behind is going to be dragging to matter how much water or coffee I drink.

The Generosity of the Sci Fi Community

I have to say I had a TON of fun at Convergence (a science fiction and fantasy convention). Amber and I did our Raptor Center presentation with Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon. What was really fun for Amber and me is that we do so many "regular" raptor programs we can do them in our sleep. This was like doing free form jazz. Mercedes and Larry shared their experience as professional wildlife rehabbers and Amber and I shared our experiences with birds so it made for a fun program for us to experience and hopefully the audience enjoyed it too.

For those wondering, yes there were costumes and here is one of the tamer photos of the evening. Here we are in the Xena Warrior Princess party room hanging out with a lad dressed as the devil. See the lovely lady in the black corset on the right--would you believe she's a librarian in real life?

What really overwhelmed me was the generosity of this community. When we do off site programs Amber and I plug membership to The Raptor Center and making donations and mailing in printer cartridges, etc and this was one of the highest end totals we've ever had. Usually when I do bird groups and we'll get a few extra dollars but, boy howdy, people at the sci fi convention were putting in twenty dollar bills into our donation box and at least two people signed up for memberships on the spot. It was one of the most generous crowds we'd ever been in. I think part of it to was because of Larry and Mercedes who both gave such a wonderful speech on how important it is to support wildlife rehab organizations in your community.

Another fun thing: Amber and I always do brief bios before we start our program and I usually include that I'm the Official Bird Lady of www.neilgaiman.com and for the first time not only did people know what I was talking about, but I even go applause.

On a side note, Larry and I kept sharing little stories during the panel (he's kind of a trouble maker) and he is now on my cool person list. He knows about the good bird smell.

I am off to finish draft two of the Urban Birdfeeding Book.

Lost Whooping Crane

This showed up in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

CORNWALL, Vt. -— A rare whooping crane is spending the summer in Vermont after mysteriously veering 800 miles off course on its migration toward the Midwest.

One of only about 400 such birds in the world, the 4 1/2-foot-tall female been in a river floodplain in the Lake Champlain valley since at least June 9, spending most of its time on farmer Randy Quesnel's land.

"It is kind of neat, although I would be a lot more interested if it was a deer out there,'' Quesnel said.

Whooping cranes have been a federally endangered species since 1967 and are subject of an intense restoration project among U.S., Canadian and state wildlife agencies.

The Vermont bird is part of that project and is fitted with a tracking device.

The bird was expected to spend the summer at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin, about 180 miles southeast of Minneapolis, where it spent the first few months of its life.

Joe Duff, co-founder of Operation Migration, an Ontario-based nonprofit that it is part of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership program, cannot explain why the bird landed in Vermont this summer.

"We're not sure what she's doing there, but she seems to be selecting proper habitat for whoopers,'' Duff said. "We want to leave her there as long as possible and see if she can figure out her way back.''

You can see a photo of the whooping crane at Mike McDowell's Digiscoping Blog.