Disapproval Update

From my buddy Carrol Henderson...a disapproving viscacha.

"I don't approve of foreigner, not the band."

Now that is one dedicated friend, he went all the way to Peru to get me a special disapproval. Love you, Carrol! I'm not sure this is an official lagomorph, but it looks close enough to a rabbit to be considered for the blog.

In honor of the campaign to prevent people giving baby rabbits as Easter gifts (Cinnamon was an unwanted Easter gift that ended up at a Humane Society) I present My House Rabbit.com, a blog dedicated to educating and providing great info to current and potential rabbit owners. This is a site that I think Cinnamon would approve of and I tried to get a photo of her approval:

She didn't seem to hip to that idea. We tried bribing her with some bunny loving:

And this is as close to an approval as we're going to get. Look, she's kind of smiling...

Speaking of disapproval, Non Birding Bill just informed me that he has uploaded a new page of bunny disapproval! We're pretty jazzed at the moment, we saw some of the early pages of the Disapproving Rabbits book today--it's really going to be out this fall! Whoot!

Spring Movement

One of the more evil participants on our crane tour just emailed over this photo. On the ride home, I made a little nest for myself on the luggage and fell fast asleep. I was happily dozing when I heard, "whisper whisper...is she awake...whisper whisper...oh if only we could put this on her site..."

Now it all becomes clear...

Leave it to spring to get people excited about blackbirds! The red-wings are starting to descend on the feeding stations here in Minnesota. Yesterday was an insane 81 degrees in the Twin Cities. Above 80 in Minnesota in March--that was a record. Non Birding Bill and I took a walk around the neighborhood before his rehearsal and heard at least six species singing on territory: mourning dove, house finch, kestrel, cardinal, rock pigeon, and starling. There was one intrepid grackle giving it a try but his call was even squeakier and rustier than usual. They always sound like that when they first arrive in spring. I wonder if it's because of the journey or if it has just been several months since they've given that call? It sure is the equivalent of a bird cracking its voice.

I think this is my favorite nuthatch shot I've taken so far. I have no other reason for posting it, other than I thought it was cool. I'm having trouble thinking at the moment. We were incredibly busy at The Raptor Center this morning, it was non stop programs and tours. My final program was a very rowdy group of kindergartners. I'm bushed.

Hey, did anyone else see the corgi on Cute Overload this morning? I wonder if that's Phoebe, the Stokes' dog? If so, I'm very impressed.

Fox Sparrow Sunday

Well, Sunday was a free day since we came home early from the tour. It was an incredible 60 degrees in the Twin Cities in the morning, so what should I do with that free time--finish up an article that's due Monday for a friend who will be nameless or go birding...hmmm...birding....article...which to choose?

I went birding of course! And got some kick arse digiscoped photos of fox sparrows:

I ended up at the Minnesota Valley NWR. Oooooooo. Ahhhhhhhh. I love the above photo of the fox sparrow with the tiny morsel of food with a bit of dirt in its bill. How do these guys find anything edible?

There were at least six sparrows mixed in with a huge flock of juncos. All were a bit cagey, but after me standing still for a bit, got used to my presence. The fox sparrows were constantly kicking with their feet to move the leaves and other natural debris to get a s tasty seeds beneath.

For a brown bird, these sparrows really are very pretty and very striking. Well, I better get to work on finishing that article due Monday.

Saturday's Adventure

Saturday morning I woke up at 3am in my hotel room to the sound of rain beating a pipe outside my hotel room. "Wow," I thought to myself, "If this keeps up, there's no way we can watch prairie chickens this morning." I then rolled over and went to back to sleep.

Our plan had been to get up early and have breakfast, go to watch prairie chickens dance, meet Paul Johnsgard, confiscate Paul for a day of birding and then go watch cranes fly in during the evening on a friend's private property.

At 5:30 am it was still pouring raing and the weather forecast was bleak with a 90% chance of rain all day until 10pm. During breakfast Stan and I weighed our options. Stay and risk staying in the hotel all day or heading home. We opted for heading home.

We did have time to stop at Crane Meadows to meet Paul.

Here are Stan and Paul meeting for the first time. I was anxious for this to happen, I think both of them are the only two guys alive who have written the most books on natural history in North America.

And keeping with the glamour classification of the blog, I had to make sure to get in the middle and get my photo taken with Paul and Stan. Me sandwiched between two bird authors--my idea of heaven. I have said it before and I'll say it again, I love Paul Johnsgard. He was a tad under the weather and yet was happy to autograph books and answer questions from our group. Paul is a great public speaker, but I find I learn the most when just listening to him talk as he is sketching. Both Paul and Stan influence people with their writing. Stan's books get new people and kids excited about learning to identify birds, mammals and trees and Paul uses his books to educate people about the conservation of the prairie. I was honored to be the one introducing the two.

On the way home, I discovered a new use for my birdJam and iMainGo speaker: playing calls and having the group try to identify them. The speaker is loud out in the wild, but in a large vehicle, it was harder to hear it, I had to pass the speaker around for the group to hear the calls. It was still a good time.

I also rediscovered my love of the game euchre. We played for several miles and reminded me that I need to find some people to play with more often.

Friday Nebraska Adventures

So, Friday morning our group went to a crane blind at Rowe Sanctuary. They were kind enough to give our group our own blind that holds about 16 people so our group of 13 fit right in. It was a two story blind, people upstairs got to kind of look down on the cranes, while those on the floor got a head on view. I was on the bottom floor, above is the view from the window.

Here is the view of the cranes through the scope. The sandhill cranes use the Platte River as a roosting area at night during their spring migration. Our group watched about 17,000 - 20,000 cranes hanging outside of our blind.

During spring migration, cranes will paint themselves with mud, giving their feathers a rusty appearance. You can see on the bird above with wings outstretched, that it has already gotten underway in painting its plumage.

You do see some other birds on the river, like this greater yellowlegs pictured above. I'm calling this a greater yellowlegs because it was larger than the killdeer running around and because when it called it said, "you you you". Generally, lesser yellowlegs will only give a single "you" or a double "you you", while greater will give three or more. If you're Kevin Karlson, I'm open to other options on the id.

We also heard a great horned owl calling outside the blind. I did see a few red-winged blackbirds and wondered why they even bothered singing on territory since the din of 17,000 cranes tended to drown out their song.

Normally at a crane blind you sit in there for about an hour and a half to two hours and then they all fly off at once--a big noisy lift off and you can leave the blind. The cranes Friday morning were total slackers and we were there almost three hours and no lift off. Our volunteer guides let us vacate the blind and we thought the cranes would take off, but they didn't. Don't get me wrong, it was still very cool, but I was hoping our group would get to experience watching the several thousand cranes take off at once. Ah well, another adventure for another day.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous and I suspect the cranes we were watching were planning to take off and head north on Friday, so perhaps they were getting in a touch more rest? By mid afternoon the cranes were catching thermals overhead and the easiest way to watch them was to just lay on the ground. Temperatures in the sixties, bright sun, cranes flying overhead--what a great way to spend an afternoon.

Nebraska is still fairly dry and we had a tough time finding waterfowl in potholes as compared to previous years, but a visit to Prairie Dog Waterfowl Production area proved some great entertainment. We found loads of prairie dogs and some distant waterfowl including snow geese, pintails, shovelers, and greater-white fronted geese. Stan gave a great talk on prairie dogs and tried to get them to bark. All he got was the disapproving look above--I felt surprisingly at home.

There were quite a few killdeer running around amongst all the mounds. They both look so distrusting. I guess they have good reason--well, at least the prairie dog does. It's hard to find love for prairie dogs among ranchers. I don't know what the killdeer's excuse is.

One of the tour participants said that she was having a tough time getting a photo of a single crane. After going through my photos, I had to agree with her. I have the above shot thanks to some cropping. I took this shot on our way to Fort Kearney. We were going to the bridge to watch the cranes fly in.

The bridge was packed. Some of our group was there on Thursday and not many people were around, but Friday night the Kearney night life came out. Above is a group from a local school who are part of an after school/outdoor club. This trip had some fishing and crane watching.

One of the really fun and cool things about this group was the willingness to share bird information and to corrupt Nebraska youth towards birding. I let the kids borrow my binoculars and look through my scope. The guy pointing towards me is Howard, a tour participant who let the kids look through his scope.

Wow, I thought I was trendy with the digiscoping, but here Howard is helping a youth photograph cranes with a cell phone through his scope. Now that, my friends, is high tech. The kids got some great veiws of the cranes thanks to our optics. I'm grateful the local schools have these outdoor programs and hope the kids know how lucky they are to grow up with multitudes of cranes every spring. They seemed really excited.

Home a Day Early

Check out what I found for sale at Rowe Sanctuary:

Crane temporary tattoos! I wonder if my tatoo inspired it?

We did make the trip back on Saturday instead of Sunday. The group was very understanding about it, and we're going to try and find a way to make up the lack prairie chickens to them.

I'll post more later, I am starving and there's rumor of a black vulture near the Twin Cities metro area, I may go look for it after breakfast and then come back and post about our group's Friday adventures. It's weird...now that I think about it, we left Thursday, birded the heck out of Friday and came back Saturday--still feels like we were gone five days.

Rainy Morning Entry

Some random photos of cranes, because, hey, that's about all I got.

Sometimes you just can't help but take pride in your work--I had that moment in spades yesterday. I really enjoy leading bird trips, they are exhausting but it's so much fun. It's kind of like hosting a mobile party that lasts all weekend. Many people don't realize that bird identification is the smallest part of the job. A more important factor is customer service and anticipating the groups needs and being sensitive with their comfort. The number one priority is not the bird, it's food. People will be forgiving if a target bird doesn't show or if you were planning on seeing 600 swans and only 4 are present. They know that you cannot control the birds. However, you can control food and if you don't have enough and people get hungry. If they don't get fed soon they get hangry (deadly combo of hungry and angry).

Having led a fair share of birding tours of the years, I've picked up on some little tricks and tasks that need to be done. I usually lead tours with my friend Amber and she is the best organizer. We have our trips planned down to the minute. Doing this trip with Stan has been very different, he's very...shoot from the hip, keep the schedule flexible and just do whatever. I think we're making a good combo as I play Julie to his Gopher (yes, that was a Love Boat reference).

The breakfast situation on Friday morning was up in the air, I knew we were going to Perkins, they don't really do reservations and I wasn't sure of our exact arrival. We have to stay in the crane blind until all the cranes take off which can be anywhere from an hour to two hours. I did call Perkins last week and say "Hey, sometime between 8:30 am and 9:30 am nest Friday you will have a group of about 13 people come in for breakfast. I'll give you a call a half hour before we arrive so as not to overwhelm your staff."

They appreciated the heads up. Yesterday we left the blind, I called, they said the were ready. As soon as our group arrived we were whisked away to a table and the waitress was pouring the coffee--and they were busy too, almost all the tables were full. Just as the last of our group came in, another tour bus arrived with 21 people who had been to a crane blind and they were ready for breakfast--but the tour leader had not called ahead and they were turned away. I smiled to myself and thought "Amateurs." I pitied the tour guide, the bus was looking a little hangry and restaurant options for a large group with no reservations are tough. We've seen the group a few times and they've been having a few glitches here and there. Even if you get great birds, a hangry group can be brutal.

As I'm typing this, it's pouring down rain--the worst weather for bird watching on minimum maintenance roads. According to Weather Underground it's not going to stop until tonight. Prairie chickens are not Gene Kelly and will not be singin' and dancin' in the rain. We're contemplating canceling the dawn prairie chicken watch this morning and perhaps even heading back to Minnesota today instead of tomorrow. From my table in the hotel lounge I can see the group with the glitches loading onto their bus...surely they are not going out birding in this weather? Not only is it hard to see the birds, but the gravel roads are much too dangerous and slick. Another part of being a tour leader is to "know when to fold 'em" as Kenny Rogers is known to sing.

Lights Out in Twin Cities to Help Migratory Birds

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Two downtown Minneapolis skyscrapers are the initial participants in a new project that will turn off lights to prevent birds attracted by the nighttime glow from crashing into tall buildings or circling them in a daze until falling.

The 57-story Wells Fargo Building and 33-story Accenture Buildings will turn off unneeded lighting during peak migration hours under the Lights Out Minnesota Project.

Most songbirds migrate at night. Although most manage to navigate around tall buildings and other hazards, millions die each year. Lights Out programs in Toronto, New York and Chicago have saved migratory birds, said Mark Martell, director of bird conservation for Audubon Minnesota.

"The Lights Out program costs building owners or managers little or nothing to implement and will save energy and money at the same time it saves birds," Martell said.

The Minneapolis and St. Paul Building Owners and Managers associations are encouraging members to sign on.

Citizens who want to help the effort can donate money to the Nongame Wildlife Program on their state tax forms, or they can volunteer to collect fallen birds to help experts assess mortality causes. For more information, call the state Audubon Society at 651-739-9332.

You can also watch a video of the segment at WCCO. If you or someone you know works in a tall office building please encourage them to get their building managers to join this effort to help birds on their way to their breeding grounds. Also if you work in either the Wells Fargo Tower, the Accenture Building or any skyscraper participating in the Lights Out campaign, it probably wouldn't hurt to tell them thank you.

Have We Seen Any Sandhill Cranes Yet?

In case you were concerned whether or not our group had seen any cranes yet, here is your answer:

Oh, just a few...thousand! Once we got past Grand Island, they were all over in the fields. The group was antsy for them too. I forget how exciting the multitude of sandhill cranes can be. I was assuming after our nine hour drive that the group would want to unwind at the hotel, but as soon as we started seeing cranes, no one was interested in checking in to the hotel, they wanted to just sit and watch and listen--I was the same way my first time too! So, stop and admire we did.

We stopped at Fort Kearney and found a large flock that was spooked into the air and looked like a cloud of smoke off in the distance--pure magic!

Another highlight in Nebraska for all the Minnesota birders was all the Harris sparrows mixed in with the juncos. Boy, you know it's a hardcore birding trip when people are excited about sparrows. I must admit, I do enjoy Harris sparrows. They always remind me of Bluto...or Pavarotti.

No Way, Wireless already at the Lunch Stop

We are stopping for lunch and I must say, we are seeing oodles of red-tailed hawks at least six of which are dark-morphs, mostly in Iowa. Red-tails seem to be one every 4.3 miles. It's gotta be some spring migration. Other highlights include merlins and meadowlarks--spring woot.

No cranes yet, but we won't see those until we're much closer to Kearney.

Oh and in case you have not heard, the long-whiskered owlet has been "rediscovered". There are photos and everything! This is a species that wasn't discovered until 1976, and until now was only known from a few specimens captured in nets after dark, has been seen in the wild for the first time by researchers monitoring the Area de Conservación Privada de Abra Patricia – Alto Nieva, a private conservation area in Northern Peru.