Pelican Banding 2005

My glamorous lifestyle:


Birdchick avec young double-crested cormorants while laying on bird poop and barf.

So, thanks to Non Birding Bill I have a new page of updated photos and captions for pelican/cormorant/ring-billed gull banding 2005. NBB feels quite strongly that I put a warning out that some of the photos are on the gross side. These are not just photos of cute baby birds, but a documentation of what a person would find visiting a nesting colony. The first page is fine, but at the bottom of the second page are photos of harsh colony life and what happens to some of the birds on the island. It's a wonder we have any pelicans, cormorants or gulls at all. I have always maintained that every bird has a dark side and boy howdy is proven here.

I was nervous because last year I had a tough time banding. It's one thing to band hawks when one person is holding it and someone else is measuring and placing the band on, here on the island one person is grabbing a struggling-fishy-smelling-mushy-turkey-like bird and getting barfed on in the process, it's not easy to do with just one hand. There were several times last year when I would crimp a band around a pelican's leg and it would close too tight and I would need assistance taking the band off and putting it on correctly. If you leave the band on too tight it will constrict the bird's leg and eventually kill it with the resulting infection, so it's incredibly important to make sure the bands are on properly. This year, I only did it twice and the second time I was able to correct the mistake on my own. This year, I really felt I had my groove on.

Despite all the stink, this banding trip is one of the coolest things I have ever gotten to do. I'm privileged to spend a day with all the researchers and ornithologists and absorb their information and to have a chance to observe bird behavior. It truly is like being on another planet when you visit these islands and at the end of the day when you get home to think back that, "Wow, I handled hundreds of pelicans today and aided in research that some ornithologist may use years down the way to prove a new theory." It just makes you feel like you aren't some aimless speck on the planet.

Pelicans Returned To Chase Lake

I learned about this yesterday during banding, but it's in the Minnepolis Star Tribune that the pelicans have returned to Chase Lake.

My own update will come soon. Last night I ate dinner, watched Vertigo and fell asleep. Now I have to do a bird song program at the MN Landscape Arboretum, but my stomach feels a tad churny--did I get a parasite? On top of that my thighs are so sore! OW! I forgot how much crouching is involved when banding--why do I always think I'll be okay to do programs the day after intense banding? Crazy birdchick! Let's hope I don't do any pelican impressions today.

I'll do a proper udate on the banding tonight, but in the meantime a previously undocumented behavior in pelicans:


STREAKING!!!!

Sneak Preview of Pelican Banding


Naked Pelican Chick

Just got in, have taken two showers and soaked my fingernails in acetone and I can still smell pelican on my fingers. I don't think I'll be eating sushi or chicken for the next few days--ugh. Anyway, must take shower number three and eat something heavily spiced (lots of garlic) to get weird taste out of my mouth (no I didn't eat any pelicans but the whole smell of the rookery seems to have permeated every available pore in my body--inside and out). More photos coming soon and I must say, I think I got some SWEET footage for a video Birdzilla segment. My only concern is that with the wind and my overzealous finger on the zoom button, it may resemble an episode of Laugh In.

WildBird Magazine

My article about the owl irruption for WildBird Magazine is online. Although, if you can, try to buy a copy of the magazine, the photos with my article are to die for especially the one of a great gray in flight by Sparky Stensaas. I also noticed that Pretty Boy Bouton has an article online as well and he's generally a good read.

Well, I'm off to Stink Island to band pelicans. Hopefully, I will not get my camera pooped/barfed on and will have fun photos up Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Hummingbird Rescue

This just in from Samarra Semanczyk on MnBird Net:

I have never seen this before: a hummingbird had its
beak stuck in one of our screen windows. I took a
large envelope and gently brushed it against the
screen, and in a couple of moments the hummingbird was freed.

Urban Bean Birding and Quiz

So, I have been booted out of the apartment tonight because Non Birding Bill is having a play rehearsal for his Fringe Festival Show called THACO (which you would think is hilarious if you have ever played role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons).

So, I'm at the Urban Bean and already in the last ten minutes I have seen a Cooper's hawk flyby and as I'm typing this there goes a white-lined sphinx moth (that means it's that time of year when we get phone calls from people saying they have discovered a new species of hummingbird in their yard when their really seeing one of these guys).

Well, the Bean has a new mural in the former smoking area (go Minneapolis for that smoking ban) and they have some birds sitting on wires:


Anyone want to take a stab at what these are? I'm thinking a phoebe, purple martin, starling fluttering up, a kingbird, I have no idea what's on the lowest wire, a nuthatch and a robin.

I have been talked into going to Arizona to the ABA Convention for a few days in July--I am so excited! I won't be able to go the whole time, but long enough to see some cool birds, hook up with some friends and maybe even do a little karaoke. At first I wasn't going to go since I have a few projects I'm working on and I didn't have the money and then Pretty Boy Bouton emailed 9 reasons for me to go (basically 9 birds I have never seen before). I tried to resist with the money as an excuse and boy howdy if he didn't email over and airfare coupon. How could I possibly refuse? Anyway, it'll all be tax deductible.

Okay, that's enough avoiding work, back to my book draft

Avian Uprising?


"Brains...want...eat...brains...aaaaagh....

So Mr. Neil sent me a link to a story about birds attacking humans. At first I thought this was just another story of a whiny little British man who doesn't know how to duck until I came across several stories today about birds attacking humans.

There's a perfectly logical explanation for all fo this, it is not a sign of end times but more a time of birds protecting their young as they are learning to fly. However, if I get horrifically killed within the next month or so by some odd bird attack feel free to mock me for being the nay sayer.

For those of you out there that are feeling like humankind is devasting our bird populations, take heart in that birds are getting back at some of us.

Bird Sparks Grass Fire
More Birds Causing Fires
Christian Science Monitor Says Bird Attacks on the Rise
Urban Gulls on the Attack

My Lovely Cockatiel

Warning! Out of control parenthesis ahead!

So today I saw a red-tailed hawk screaming and I looked overhead to see the poor guy getting the crap mobbed out of him by three red-winged blackbirds and two starlings. To add insult to injury a small squadron of swallows were tailing the tail (har har) clicking angrily. I thought to myself, "Dude, I hear ya."

It's been one of those days, people needing spare parts that are hard to get hold of, my inventory is out of control, my new fridge for mealworms leaked and soaked a new shipment of worms (nothing like coming back from time off to fungusy stanky mealworms) and the mealworms that were most recently shipped are of iffy quality. I swear, I spend half my time correcting shipments.

So I am unwinding by sippin' some scotch that's half my age and listening to songs with my cockatiel Kabuki:


Yes, I'm exposing my dark secret. I am harboring a non-native species in my apartment--a lutino cockatiel. Bill and I keep threatening to graft a peacock feather on his tail so he will be a peacockatiel.

Anyway, digging around on the internet I discovered The Happy Cockatiel site where a guy has written songs inspired by his own birds' songs. Our personal favorite is Newton's Song which reminds me of one of my favorites songs My Lovely Horse from the Father Ted tv series.

I'm concerned birders are losing their sense of humor. I posted a story on one of the listservs I lurk on about an ivory-billed woodpecker viewing platform that was set on fire in Arkansas. I made the remark that it could have been vigilante birders not wanting unethical birders to view the bird (that's been a huge concern in the birding community that some birders are risking birds lives by over viewing them--my personal jury is still out on that one. Part of me thinks some birders have nothing better to do than tell people how they should properly watch birds (I find these are usually people who think listing is a terrible form of birding) and the other part of me has witnessed birders crossing a line). See I warned you--parenthesis amok.

Anyway, it was suggested to not even jest about the image of vigilante birders, which quite honestly makes me laugh harder. The idea that there is a gang of ninja like birders stalking about the woods in their unflattering, big pockets emphasizing large posteriors, swathed in khaki from head to toe with a jaunty wrap of mosquito netting about the face, pants tucked in socks wreaking havoc to keep people from seeing good birds practically makes me pee my pants. Birders have cool James Bondesqe equipment--scopes, binos, gps, packs full of nifty gadgets and snacks but we just never look suave. You would think that birders would be masters of a sexy stealthy walk to sneak up on birds, but alas we look awkward and dork and are surprisingly noisy.