Birdchick Blog
At times like this getting up at 4:45am that I question why I do what I do. Is it really worth it? After some coffee--yes it is.
Off to drive our group to Nebraska for thousand cranes and to see the man who designed my crane tattoo. I should have wireless in the hotel so we should have some updates at night.
Props out to Gwen from Bird Brained Stories for getting a nod from the Minneapolis Star Tribune Web Search for cool nature blogs. She got a mention up there with Hilton Pond which is one of the best naturalist sites out there. Whoot! Go, Gwen!
As I'm typing this, I am hearing a full thirty second commercial for wild bird food on the radio. That is a first in the Twin Cities. I've heard local garden companies and bird stores advertise their seed but never a wild bird seed company advertising their product. And the bird calls in the background were somewhat accurate. It's for Scotts Wild Bird Food--available at Walmart. This adds an interesting dynamic to wild bird specialty stores, this company is doing its best to give the appearance that they know what they are talking about, something that wild bird stores have to this point cornered the market on.
Well, I found the swallowtail chrysalis! It was on the side of the shriveled parsley. Right under my nose the whole time. From now on I will watch parsley plants more closely in the apartment...I wonder how many swallowtail eggs and caterpillars Cinnamon has unknowingly eaten?
My flying squirrels are wearing out their welcome. Up until last night I have always loved that they fly right to our bedroom window and purchase seed just for them. I've mentioned before that they have this high pitched bark that I can hear and Non Birding Bill cannot. I always felt a tad superior about this--I'm more in tune to the natural world. Last night, that ability completely bit me on the butt. At about two in the morning the squirrels started barking at each other. I went to the bedroom window and opened it, hoping that would scare them off--no! They just chirped more! ARGH--more irritating than a leaky faucet and snoring husband combined. Curse my ability to hear high pitched noises!! Perhaps we will be cutting back on the night time treats...
From the BBC:
The city council is mounting a campaign to rid the city of the birds, which it says are being fattened up by the public feeding them leftovers.
Ten robotic birds of prey are being brought into the city centre to scare off the pigeons and visitors are being warned not to give them food.
The council wants to encourage the birds into parks and open spaces.
The mechanical birds - called "Robops" - are to sit on the roofs of buildings, and can be moved around.
They look like a Peregrine Falcon, which is a natural predator of pigeons, and even squawk and flap their wings to scare off the birds.
Councillor Berni Turner, Liverpool city council's executive member for the environment, said: "Feral pigeons are a real nuisance in the city centre, they fly up at people and they leave droppings everywhere which not only makes the city look really unattractive but can make surfaces slippery and dangerous.
"We need to get the message across that anyone who feeds the birds intentionally, or occasionally with leftovers such as sausage rolls or burgers, are responsible for our streets being so crowded with these birds."
The pigeons get bigger because their natural diet is seeds and insects, rather than high-fat junk food.
Councillor Turner said it is making them "overweight and gives them a scruffy, unhealthy appearance".
She added: "We want to be able to showcase our city centre in our birthday year and of course in 2008, so it's essential we tackle this issue now and educate members of the public that if there's no food, there'll be no pigeons."
The city council uses the equivalent of 88 man hours a day cleaning droppings from streets and buildings, at a cost of £160,000 a year.
I tried to find a video of the robo falcon in action at the Robop's website but there doesn't appear to be one. There is a dvd you can order, but nothing on the website yet. I love how the site bills it as "the world's first intelligent bird repelling system."
I tried You Tube for a video and didn't find this exact product but did find another robo falcon that does look like loads of fun for someone who would is interested in falconry but just can't get a bird at the moment:
A guy named Craig is starting a blog dedicated to his nesting red-shouldered hawks. A different take on a nest cam.
Peregrine battles are popping up all over. We had the one at the Riverside Cam and word at The Raptor Center today is that one heck of a battle happened yesterday in downtown Minneapolis. The females were going at it and were found fighting in the nest box at the Multifoods Tower. One female is banded and the other is unbanded. The banded female is Mendota who has a notorious history. In 1999 she ended up killing the resident female at the Colonnade in Minneapolis. The battle last over two and a half hours but she was the one who ended up taking over the nest. At this point it's not known who won the battle and we may not know right away. During the 1999 battle, the older female won the initial fight and chased Mendota off. She flew to the nest bloody and missing and eye. The next day she was found dead and Mendota took back control of the nest. Peregrine expert and ornithologist Bud Tordoff always said that Mendota may have lost that particular battle, but she won the war.
Mark Alt posted to the Minnesota listservs this link to another peregrine battle caught on camera in Pittsburgh. I think we'll be seeing more of these as space for nests runs out on buildings.
"I disapproved myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy way!"
I'm starting this entry with the tufted titmouse photo above. Non Birding Bill really liked it (that's sayin' something). I set some mixed nuts in a tray of one of Mr. Neil's feeders and EVERYBODY flew in right away. The titmouse is contemplating the large Brazil nut. Look at the size of that food morsel! Alas, it is way to heavy for this mere titmouse to carry away in flight.
Today we decided to assemble our bee hives. The bees won't ship until late next month but that gives us plenty of time to prepare for their arrival. This gives me time to order anything that I discover is missing after assembly.
We were told that we are supposed to name our hives (with women's names) so NBB put together Olga...
While I put together Miss Kitty. Some readers my recall that I was thinking of using screws, but thanks to Old Drone's assurances we went with nailing the hives together and he was right, it was easy. The wood was soft and many of the nails were small so I didn't have much chance to smash my fingers.
We had to put everything together: the boxes, the floor, the top, the individual frames where the bees will build the comb for larvae and honey--ten frames for each box! It was tiring. The wax in each frame is there to encourage the bees to build their comb in an easy to access form so I can check the hive and partake of the honey.
Between frames I did sneak away to watch the birds...
The juncos sure were frisky. Lots of chirping and chasing while feeding. You could see pin feathers on some of them, I'm sure molting in fresh feathers for the breeding season was bringing on a surge of hormones in them. I enjoy their mechanical twitters in early, early spring.
Another bird flies in to contemplate the Brazil nut. This black-capped chickadee gave it some serious thought, but instead went for half a pecan. A hairy woodpecker ended up flying away with the large prize nut.
We did finish both of our hives, and after assembly I realized that our starter kit only came with two brood boxes for each hive. The class that I took recommended that for over wintering bees in northern states that I should have a third brood box for each hive, so looks like I'll be doing a little ordering this week.
I have to admit, I was really not looking forward to assembling these, fearing it would be really complicated. I think this stems from having to assemble aluminum purple martin houses at the bird store. I hated those things! Don't get me wrong, I think aluminum martin houses can work well to attract martins, but assembling them is about as fun as stubbing all ten toes. You have to follow the directions EXACTLY and if you get something wrong at step five, you won't notice until step 487 when the roof won't line up with the box--and you have to take it apart and start over. Whereas with a bee hive, if you make a mistake or split the wood--the bees will just fill it with propolis.
Ah, martin house assembly is coming back to me now...ahhhh....I would always try to tell customers that it was important for them to assemble their own martin house so they could truly understand it and I also would lie and say how much fun it is to put together on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
Putting the hive together was much more simple and quite pleasant and I'm looking forward to assembling the third brood boxes.
Incidentally, if you're thinking of getting a purple martin house, get the plastic gourds, they are usually cheaper, are easy to snap together (if not already assembled at purchase), are more resistant to predators and save bird store employees (and you) hours of assembly grief.
So, we loved Life of Birds so much that we rented Life of Mammals from Netflix. Life of Birds was so accurate. As we are watching a segment on pikas, David Attenborough just mentioned that eagles are a predator. As soon as he said the word "eagle" a red-tailed hawk cry was dubbed over.
Big sigh of disappointment.
Some catching up: DK and the Fluffies won the owl caption contest with "Yes, damn it, we are having rodent for dinner again tonight and until you can flap your a** out of this damn nest and get your own damn food, I'm not having any more whining from you! *snap*"
Sorry I fell behind on that one, I blame the bee class. Email your snail mail to me.
Okay, a BIG FAT thank you to Veronica B in SoCal for bringing this to my attention:
Okay, to the untrained non birder eye, this might look like bird "marital relations" but it is quite the opposite. This is an all out peregrine falcon territory battle happening at the Riverside Falcon Cam. You can view all of the photos at the website, but you will need to scroll down to March 11, 2007.
You'll note in all the fight photos that the raptors are keeping their heads back and their feet forward. On raptors, the feet are the business end of the bird, they are strong and sharp. The goal is to kill or severely disable your opponent--aim for the eyes with the toes. The eyes are the last thing raptors want destroyed on their body--they can't see to hunt or defend the territory. That's why people who work with birds of prey and have them sitting on the fist aren't worried about being bit. Raptors don't want to use their bills as a primary weapon, they want to keep their eyes away from any potential danger. By bringing their face close to your face to bite you, they risk bringing their eyes closer to a dangerous situation. It's much safer for them to use their talons.
Speaking of fights, I go out today for awhile and when I come back home all heck is breaking loose on the birding blogosphere. Laura Erickson has left binoculars.com and started her new (temporary) blog here. I had a link earlier to her notice of resignation that was up at the old blog, but it has been taken down. Mike has a copy of the original notice up on his blog. I'm sure Laura will come out on top when the dust finally settles. If you're worried and want to help her, you can always purchase a copy of one of her books--even if you already have one, purchase another and gift it to a school, your senator, or library.
If you're looking for a place to purchase binoculars, I still recommend my former employer Eagle Optics. Their record for giving back to the birding community and funding for conservation programs speaks for itself. There's even quite a bit that they do that no one ever hears about. Early on in the current war in Iraq, Dan Hamilton (the owner) read about an army unit that had really poor binoculars among the many hardships they were enduring. He sent the whole unit new optics. It didn't make the papers. Just one of the many interesting facets of Dan Hamilton.
Well, our little swallowtail has gone to that big field in the sky. The other wing ripped this morning and we put it down. I did some great macro photos of it yesterday. In the above photo, you can see the shriveled remains of the right wing that didn't develop well in the chrysalis.
It was fun to have a chance to get some macro photos of it. Here you can even see it pooping/excreting something. How do butterflies do it? They even make the act of pooping look dainty and artistic.
You might notice some liquid int he flowers above. Hyacinths aren't that nectar rich--we tried to feed it by putting drops of nectar and juice from a fresh orange into the flowers. Above you can see the butterfly using its proboscis to search out nectar.
Mmmm, it found some tasty nectar. Watch it slurp!
It really dug the freshly squeezed orange juice even more than the home made nectar. I wasn't sure about the nectar, I've read so many different formulas for butterfly nectar: 10 parts water to 1 part sugar, 4 parts water to 1 sugar (aka hummingbird nectar), equal parts water and sugar. I made equal parts first and the swallowtail ignored it. It did sip a little of the hummingbird ratio nectar though.
All the macro photos were taken with the Nikon Coolpix 4500.
