Some Days I Heart the Onion

Okay, I shouldn't be laughing at this but I need a laugh and the graphic just cracks me up. Someone at The Onion, must be a birder. Here's an excerpt:

Sparrow Aviation Administration Blames Collision On Failure To Detect Pane Of Glass

Mysterious Phenomenon Kills Millions Each Year

July 25, 2006 | Issue 42•30

PIERRE, SD—Sparrow Aviation Administration officials are calling the Monday collision of an westbound sparrow with the window of a Mitchell, SD home a clear case of "controlled flight into glass," after the bird failed to detect a transparent windowpane directly in his flight path.

SAA officials describe the crash at a press conference.

Howard R. Trojanowski, a Pierre-bound, 2-year-old field sparrow who had been licensed to fly since two weeks after he was hatched and had logged over 60,000 flying hours, departed from a ledge near Sioux Falls Regional Airport at 11:04 a.m. CST. Trojanowski never reached his intended tree branch, instead striking a tempered-glass picture window 2.5 miles northwest of Mitchell 74 minutes after takeoff at an estimated speed of 39 mph.

There were no survivors.

You have to read the rest of the article, there are more graphics to go along with it. I practically peed my pants from laughing...even though windows killing birds is no laughing matter.

Test

Can I upload photos?

Okay, I can upload photos now, but can I publish this post? I'm feelin' lucky, let's give it a whirl.

Blogger

Still issues with blogger and uploading photos, and I have some great ones too--Drat!

Well, I was ready to head to the gull on Friday but I forgot that my friend the librarian is having a cookout Friday night and I must go. I think I'll have to try for the slaty on Sunday. NBB and I only have one vehicle between us--thanks Twin Cities for great public transportation. But, he needs it for hauling props to rehearsals this weekend. Saturday night there's a Fringe Preview and he and his cast will be there. I can't believe his show opens a week from today. I can't wait to see it, I've only read it.

Hey, if you're an Australian guy reading this who has a first name Maarten, I would love link to your blog with your photos when blogger let's me post them, but you didn't include it in your emails and my searches for it have come up fruitless. I've tried emailing but have not gotten a response.

A Distraction

I went out with my friend Amber Burnette on Sunday to Dakota County on Sunday to go birding. She's a much better photographer than I am so I opted to go with her photos for this entry.

I never get tired of dickcissels. I had so much fun with Amber on Sunday, I drove the car and she took photos. We used the car as our mobile photo blind and I worked to maneuver the vehicle so she could get photos of the birds.

I love how she got the white stripe on this eastern kingbird. Oh, look at that right wing, somebody's moulting.

I'm debating about something. We have a slaty-backed gull in adult plumage up in Grand Marais, MN. This is huge, this bird is way out of its range and what the heck is it doing in Minnesota this time a year? I'm trying to justify going five hours to go see it. I'll go five hours for hawk watching easy...but a gull...even if it is a first state record...

I just don't know. I shouldn't go out of town, Non Birding Bill is getting into the final rehearsal period for his Fringe show (the show is not as racy as the title suggests--but is a very funny show), but I could easily fit in a trip Friday/Saturday.

Is a rare gull worth a 10 hour round trip drive?

No Photos

I'd like to do a blog entry--I have so much stuff jammed in my blog potential file, I'm just bursting. Alas, no entries at the moment because blogger is not allowing me to upload photos. I checked the blogger status area and they were fixing something yesterday, but apparently a few lingering issues are still ongoing. I checked the discussion board and all day people have not been able to upload photos.

Updates are coming...including an approval scandal.

Bunny Approval? Ch.

I admit it, I'm one of the eaters of Annie's Shells and Cheese but I've never really looked at the box until recently. Check out the label:

What's all this about "rabbit approval"? I grew highly suspicious of Annie's labels wearing a bunny of a approval. I even suspected that Annie had in fact never lived with a rabbit. Anyone who has ever lived with a rabbit knows the pain of never meeting a bunny's standards. You will note, that the Bernie on the box is smiling and approving. You will also note that the Bernie on the box is a cartoon. If you look at the real photos of Bernie, you can see that he does in fact disapprove. For further examination, take a look at one of the oh-so-tasty Annie's Bunny Grahams:

That looks like a sweet graham cracker of a disapproving bunny if I ever saw one. This leads me to believe that the folks at Annie's are in denial about their rabbit, it's not approving of anything. But perhaps that's why their food tastes so good--a vain attempt to win Bernie's approval. What does Cinnamon have to say?

"I don't approve of smiling bunnies and I never authorized my name to be on a box of "bunny grahams"--I can't believe you named me after a flavor."

I on the other hand, heartily approve of Annie's food and eat it any chance I get.

Oh Dear

Here is hands down the most ridiculous graphic I have seen put together for a "news" site about bird flu.

That is the most malevolent chicken I have ever seen. I like Non Birding Bill's suggestion that it won't be long before there's video of Canada geese lurking behind city buildings waiting to walk up behind people and sneeze on them.

One of Those Mornings

Yeah, this is starting off to a strange Monday. I woke up at 6am to Darci from A Balanced Breakfast calling because Ian and Margery wanted to talk about the red-necked stint that is wowing birders in Connecticut...with a little help from Darci and quick brush of my teeth I made it through that segment. I even managed to bring up the possible state record of a slaty-backed gull that we're dealing with here in Minnesota.

Then about a half hour later, Non Birding Bill and I are getting ready for our day and Ian and Margery start lamenting on air that they never do anything wild. Margery announces, "We need Sharon Stiteler the birdchick, she's the wildest person we know. She can help us." And then Ian tells Darci on air, "Darci, get the birdchick, let's find out what's the wildest thing she's done."

NBB and I looked at each other and he said, "No, no, no. Stop what you're thinking right now."

My cell phone rang, it was Darci.

NBB said, "Make something up but don't do tell them anything." He knows me all too well that before a sturdy cup of coffee, confronted with an audience and a challenge to tell the wildest thing I've done could spell trouble.

Did you ever think you would see the day when a popular morning radio show has a birder on air because she is the wildest person they know? The birding times they are a changing.

All this before 7am and a good cup of coffee. Now off to KARE 11.

Business As Usual At The Bird Store

I have a Showcase Minnesota appearance on Monday and I want to talk more about birdbaths so I stopped in at my old stomping grounds in Wayzata to borrow some props. Melissa who used to work with me and now has my job said that she would allow it, but only if I helped locate some monarch caterpillars for their monarch ranch, she just can't find them. I will say that is one thing I totally miss about my old job is the big monarch ranch that we would have going in late summer and early fall. Once I get my groove going, I get obsessed with finding them. I was happy to oblige.

While there I checked out what new stuff she brought in. One thing was this interesting idea for feeding oilers and or peanuts out of the shell:
At first I thought this was some type of bluebird feeder since it appears to be made out of left over Peterson bluebird house parts. The opening has mesh over it instead of being open so birds feed out of the hole where they would normally enter the box. Since you have to kind of teach bluebirds to use birdfeeders if they are not used to it, I thought this would be for bluebirds. The idea with this is that you can feed oilers and peanuts to chickadees and nuthatches and keep blackbirds away. I can see how this could work to keep grackles away because they aren't cavity nesters, but starlings do nest in cavities--won't they still be able to feed out of this?

She also has some new books in, including Laura Erickson's 101 Ways to Help Birds and Pete Dunne's Art of Pishing.

It was nice to see that some things never change--like dead birds in the store's freezer. Customers drop off dead birds to be identified or the employees will take them to the Bell Museum or The Raptor Center as study skins or use for imping (repairing broken feathers). Here was the current dead bird:

Boy, these sure are a lot smaller than I thought they were. It fits in my hand and I have tiny hands. They seem much bigger in the wild.

Look how long the nostrils are on the bill--must have a very sensitive bill and perhaps a highly developed sense of smell.

Note how long the bill is in relation to my index finger.

Yee ah, comin' at ya'! Hot cha cha cha chaaaaaaaaa.

Note the interesting toes as well as the striking black and white on the vent area.

Another thing that amazed me was just how narrow and skinny this bird is. Perfect for the type of habitat it toodles around in. This particular bird was found in Minnesota.

Art Cars--not bird related

My neighborhood is very arty. Every summer we have an art car parade. I completely forgot about this year's until walking down the street I saw some of them parked here and there.

This is the cork car. I've always had a special fondness for this truck covered in corks. The year we moved to Minnesota, we saw a special on tv about art cars and the artists who make them. The cork car artists was one of the featured people. We were excited when we discovered the artist lived in our neck of the woods.

This one had the license plate HIPOGRF. You can't see it in this photo, but there is a My Little Pony attached to the dash board.

Modest, but still arty.

Reminds me of some vehicles in southern Indiana that apparently are unintentionally arty.

Just plain weird. It's hard to see in this photo, but there are big plastic lizards attached to the hood and somehting that looks like swamp thing on the roof.