Apparently, the Kings of Leon stopped their concert because pigeons were pooping on them during a concert at the Verizon Amphitheater in St Louis. The opening acts still performed despite the birds overhead which leads me to wonder if the pigeons timed their excrement to weigh in as judgement for the band's music style. You can read the full story here. My favorite headline regarding this story is here.
Want A Free Swarovski Shirt?
Right now on Facebook Swarovski Optik is having a "like giveaway." The fans that refer the most Friends in a week to "LIKE" the Swarovski page and submit a comment could win a Swarovski Crystal Binocular figurine. I don't want to win the contest, but I would love it if people said they were referred by Sharon Stiteler or Birdchick because Swarovski has been such a HUGE supporter of my blog and I'd love to get a good showing. I just want to return the love that Swarovski has given me. All new fans that are referred will get a Swarovski Optik T-Shirt. The new Fan must hit "LIKE" on the Swarovksi page and submit a comment stating who referred them and their shirt size. Ex: "John Smith and I Like Swarovski Optik and want an XXL Shirt and Birdchick referred me!"
And why would you want to like Swarovski Optik? Number 1 they have AWESOME product. When I used to work for Eagle Optics and people would ask what the best pair of binoculars were, my first answer was, "If I was a woman of unlimited means, it's the ELs." All the digiscoping and bird photos and most of the video is courtesy of my Swarovski Digiscoping set up.
Number two--they give back a lot to wildlife in a big and global way. A great example is the Sociable Lapwing in Kaszakhstan. Swarovski Optik is the Species Champion for this bird through BirdLife International. Basically, they give money so BirdLife can set up crews in Kazakhstan to work with locals to keep breeding habitat safe. It's local people working with local people to build strong relationships and helps prevent a bird from going extinct.
Again, Swarovski has been a huge supporter of this website--from offering contests and making it possible for me to attend several bird festivals and well, all the digiscoping that goes on here. I want them to know they are loved, so please fan them and remember, if you refer me, you get a t-shirt.
Random Grasshopper Sparrow
A grasshopper sparrow toes the line with authorities be pooping on the geodetic sign...what is a geodetic survey anyway?
Sandhill Crane Hunt In Minnesota
Well, I guess I better keep my lower back covered in orange this fall: The Minnesota DNR announced that after 94 years they are reopening a hunting season on sandhill cranes this fall.
I know some birders are outraged by this, but I have to admit, I'm not so outraged. I'm a little curious that it seemed to happen with no discussion, the DNR just suddenly announced it without any public input. The only hint I saw was a pole on the Outdoor News website a few months ago asking if Minnesota should have a season on cranes. Originally, the pole was in favor of the hunt until the site was mentioned on a few birding listservs and birders swayed the pole to a firm "No." There's currently another pole asking if people approve of the season. Birders have yet to find it, so the overwhelming answer on the hunting website is, "Yes!"
I'm not a hunter, although this summer I have been trying my hand at fishing and I understand the interest in hunting. Heck, quite a few of the techniques I use for getting photos of birds are similar to hunting techniques of getting closer to wildlife, I understand the human nature's thrill of the chase (I have a ghillie suit for cryin' out loud). But I see this being a good thing in the long run. When a bird or any other animal is suddenly made a game species, all sorts of money goes to habitat restoration and insuring we have a sustainable population (to hunt). Many other bird species including native warblers, sparrows, shorebirds and all sorts of wildlife would benefit from sandhill crane habitat protection, so in the long run, this could be good news for habitat.
Sandhill cranes are already a game species in a handful of other states. I have had conversations with 2 different crane hunters. Both had the same comments about cranes: 1. They are hard to hunt, very cagey and wary of decoys. 2. It is some of the best bird meat you will ever eat in your life--better than grouse, better than turkey and even better than pheasant.
Who knows, maybe a Cranes Unlimited organization will sprout up? Will there be a Crane Stamp leading to more conservation dollars? Hunting groups are well organized and get the money they need for their species, I would argue they are more organized than most birding groups.
We have a healthy population of cranes in Minnesota. Our population that breeds in the state is part of a 450,000 bird population that exceeded the conservation goal of 349,000. That's a lot of cranes. Birders may not agree with it, but they can at least take heart that there will be dollars seriously set aside for crane habitat.
And really, do birders have as organized a voice as hunters? Had there been a time for public comment on a crane season, would they have had a strong enough voice to stop it?
Young Red-tail Has Rough Start
I saw this story from KARE 11 of a young red-tailed hawk that crashed into someone's windshield in north Minneapolis on the I-94 Dowling Avenue off-ramp. The person driving, managed to flag down Minneapolis Police Officer Brian Thole who drove it straight away to The Raptor Center. This in and of itself is a nice, heart-warming story. Then I see that as TRC was examining the hawk, they found an old pellet from a gun lodged into it. This is an immature red-tailed hawk--most likely hatched this past April and already it's been hit by a car and shot. Who the heck in the north metro is shooting hawks? Ugh.
TRC is optimistic about this red-tail's recovery thanks to the officer's fast response.
American Birding Association...A Failing Hive?
I'm willing to guess that many of the people who follow along with this blog are not really aware of the American Birding Association. It's supposed to be the binding organization of birders across North America, but in the last decade, it seems more like a once great bird club that is slowly fading away. Here's how the ABA describes itself: The ABA is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that provides leadership to birders by increasing their knowledge, skills, and enjoyment of birding. We are the only organization in North America that specifically caters to recreational birders. We also contribute to bird and bird habitat conservation through our varied programs.
I like some of the staff at ABA and 20% of the profits from my online shop goes to their programs for young people--I think they programs for kids are great and had I been aware of them when I was a kid, I would have wanted to go.
Last week,I received a note that the ABA was looking to hire another President. When I read it, I thought, "Again?" The ABA had just dumped one president because the organization was bleeding members and failing and hired a new guy who was supposed to be the great white hope of the organization. As soon as the ABA job opening came out, rumors about why the latest president was fired had words like "mismanagement" and "embezzlement" surrounding them.
T0 me, the ABA seems like a failing hive. The queen failed and the hive started loosing workers, they tried to create a new workforce, but only produced drones who do nothing to help build up the hive. A requeening was attempted and failed...should another queen be introduced?
Some, like Kenn Kaufman have loyalty to the ABA because he was there in the halcyon days of the 1970s when it was exciting, coming together and growing--birders finally had a chance to connect on a country wide basis. I do not have this loyalty. I wasn't even aware of it until the mid 1990s. I enjoyed some of the publications and I enjoyed the festivals when I could afford to go (or go on someone's behalf like Swarovski). But I had no way of knowing about it as a kid growing up in Indiana.
But now many question if it's too late for the organization--should it die? Or should we try to requeen this hive and save it.
There's lots of discussion about why the ABA is failing.
Can't compete with the Internet: ABA brought birders together before there was the Internet. Now that there are blogs, forums, state list sites, Facebook, Twitter, etc--people are more interested in their local patch, rather than a big organization that talks about gulls on the west coast than grosbeaks in the backyard. It was slow to embrace the Internet and has really grown in the last year, thanks to a few forward thinking staff.
Birders Don't Get Along: There are different types of birders and they can't get along well enough to even partner up for conservation efforts (Duck Stamp, anyone). Hardcore birders want the ABA to be id and listing and I would wager that though a vocal group, they are the smallest percentage of birders in the US. Casual birders are intimidated and sometimes bored by the finer points of ID but they are a much larger group and would greatly increase membership and cash flow. Currently, the ABA can't seem to find a way to please both.
Offerings Priced Out Of The Market: The trips and workshops offered by the ABA are too cost prohibitive for the average person and suffer from competition from all the other bird festivals out there. I think the bird festival business model needs to be overhauled, many bird festivals are faltering not only because of the economy but because many festival organizers don't quite know how to price things and market them in a sustainable way.
The Board of Directors: Some say the whole board should resign because their actions of the last two years led to its fast failure. I don't know too many of the board members--which is weird, I get around, I travel all over the country and meet a lot of birders, but not many on the ABA board. I think it might be interesting to add some fresher and younger blood on the board. Perhaps someone Mike Bergin from 10,000 Birds who was one of the first bird bloggers, has been ahead on the bird blogging curve and using the website as means of raising money for conservation and keeping the bird community informed rather than someone who is a Hollywood actress who happens to be a birder. I'd also be in favor of getting someone who was a higher up at Ducks Unlimited on the board to help build an organization that cannot only bring birders together but turn it into a voice to be listened to at Congress and raise money for habitat.
Ever since I've been aware of the ABA, people have been asking, "Can this organizaiton be saved?"
Is it better to get a new president or let this hive die and start a whole new organization?
Splendor In The Grass
I put this photo on Twitter last week, but I have to put in the blog for my mom (she doesn't do that wacky Twitter with all the Tweets and the ReTweets and the @Replies). It's been crazy at the feeders this year. There's usually an indigo bunting hanging out in spring, but once the insects hit, they disappear. Now there are so many nesting around Mr. Neil's feeding station at we have at least 2 different pairs coming to the feeders. They are rather cagey birds. If they detect any movement at the window, they take off. They are coming in to the Nyjer and sunflower chips and will land on the feeders or forage in the grass below.
We Just Can't Leave Those Hives Alone
Compared to the first year of beekeeping, we've mellowed out in some ways. There are still discussions and disagreements but we don't often take extraordinary measures to save a hive...for the most part.
Last time, we noticed that one of our new hives was failing--no sign of a functional queen, no new eggs, no larvae, comb barely drawn out, lots of empty space and lots of drones. I was ready to say, "Oh well, we have 7 others, let's move on."
But Mr. Neil, ever the optimist when it comes to our hives wanted to try and help it. The red hive showed signs of swarming and when we looked we could see some queen cells. Mr. Neil suggested putting a frame with a queen cell from the red hive into the failing new hive. I was not a fan of this plan--no more requeening, it never seems to work for us. He reasoned that it was going to fail anyway and not all of the queen cells in the red hive would survive, so what would be the harm. I doubted it would work but saw that there was no way to talk him out his plan.
It did occur to me as we were looking at frames that quite a few queen cells got inadvertently squished as we took them out--queen cells stick out further than the other cells for workers and drones. I also noticed that there wasn't too much in the way of larvae in the hive. I hoped that we hadn't messed up the red hive, she's little and set in her ways but she works hard.
Checking on the failing hive a week later, the new queen did not hatch and we have egg laying workers. Mr. Neil brought up the idea of buying a queen but I strongly against that idea. Requeening does not work for us. Plus, I really don't like the idea of bringing a new queen only to set her up for failure. As we looked in the red hive, we didn't see much in the way of new queen activity after a swarm. Neil brought up that perhaps we may have killed all of the other potential new queens that would have replaced the one who left in the swarm.
He may order a new queen for the red hive, it's early enough and worth saving. But again, I say: Requeening does not work for us. Doh. We still have six other hives.
Meanwhile, we removed the bell jar from the green hive, the bees weren't really doing much other than loitering in there. But off with the bell and on to the honey supers. They have filled almost two with honey and were showing signs of swarming. I looked at Mr. Neil and he said, "You know, I think it's okay if the swarm."
I do too.
Mr. Neil Demonstrates Proper Smoker Tecniques
One of the irritations I have with beekeeping and have mentioned more than once is that the equipment rarely comes with instructions and if it does, you need a magic elf from the fiery marshes of Bee Vale to decipher it. We used to jam pack our smoker with every type of natural fiber, light it with a brulee torch and hope for the best. But Mr. Neil found an article in Bee Culture on lighting a smoker and we thought we'd make a demo video...on the off chance some poor person is like us and thinks they need a new smoker. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKyd4_LvXB0[/youtube]
And for those new to the blog, you use a smoker around your beehives to misdirect their attention. They smell wood smoke and worry there might be a forest fire. They focus on eating honey (not the giant things rearranging their home) in case there is an actual forest fire and they need to abandon the hive with only enough food they can carry in their tiny bodies. Some beekeepers say they would rather work a hive with a smoker and no bee suit rather than the other way around.
You can also use the smell of the smoker to mask the bee pheromone released with a sting. The pheromone communicates to nearby bee, "Hey, something bad is here, sting it!" The smoke will mask that and prevent further stings.
Shorebird Workshop
Quick note: I'll be on Showcase Minnesota this morning between 10am - 11am answering your birding questions! I got an email from my buddy Doug Buri in Milbank, SD that he's had a few cancellations and has space available on his shorebird identification workshop. This is one of the best birding workshops I have ever attended. Doug literally gets you within five feet of least sandpipers and his easy going and fun techniques will have you sorting your way through the common peeps seen in the midwest.
It's fairly inexpensive to stay in Milbank which is just over the Minnesota border and Doug will take you to some gorgeous remote mudflats. This is a great place to get photos of shorebirds because Doug wants you to get the birds in the best light for id which also means they are in great light for photos. I digiscoped the crap out of the area! The workshop is in early August and details can be found here.