A bunch of boys are getting together to tell us about the state of the birds in the US:
On Thursday March 19th, 2009, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will release the first ever U.S. State of the Birds report.
The report was developed by a partnership among the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, state government wildlife agencies and non-governmental organizations. The report documents the decline of bird populations in many habitats due to habitat loss, invasive species and other factors. At the same time, it provides heartening examples of how sustained habitat conservation and other environmental efforts can reverse the decline of many bird species.
The red-winged blackbirds are arriving in larger and larger flocks in Minnesota--spring. I got this photo on Monday while filming a segment with weatherman Rob Koch from KSTP. We were doing a segment on migration and I figured our best bet would be at the Minnesota Valley NWR--sure enough, there was a flock of red-wings. This female downy woodpecker hopped over to a male red-winged blackbird and the two birds stared at each other for a moment. It was almost as if they were having a conversation:
Downy: Oh hey, when did you get back in town?
Red-wing: Just arrived last night, still gotta go another 70 miles north Hinckley, any good grub around here?
Downy: Not to many insects in season yet, but the peanut suet isn't bad down at the feeders.
This is a trumpeter swan (that is banded, haven't heard back on the origin of the neck band yet). The bird is preening (think of it as brushing its feathers). It's rubbing its head over its preen gland on the back of its body and rubbing the oil from the gland all over the rest of its feathers to keep them waterproof.
Although, between the pooping and the crazy head rubbing, it looks kinda drunk. Needs some wacky music in the background.
Some fun odds and ends: my buddy Amber was on the Nebraska news. She was co-leading a trip to see the massive amount of sandhill cranes in Nebraska. The group came across a huge flock of snow geese...and a local Nebraska tv station. Click here and you can see this Minnesota girl give a sound bite on how awesome it can be to watch snow geese in Nebraska, go Amber!
And speaking of sneaking in a little birding. Non Birding Bill and are currently at a St. Patrick's Day gig that our buds Lorraine and Paul. I picked up NBB from his place of work in down town Minneapolis and we headed on our way. While stopped at a traffic light--a Cooper's hawk flew right over the hood of our car! I could see in the rear view that it landed on a sidewalk nearby and whipped the car around.
There it was on outside a liquor store off of Washington Street near 35W! It stayed there until an unsuspecting driver pulled up to park next to it.
From the looks of things, it appeared to have taken a starling. It was a nice healthy looking adult, looked to be male based on size.
So, after our birding detour, we made it in plenty of time to the gig! What a fun St. Pat's animal sighting. Totally beats the giant dogs dyed green that I saw before I picked up NBB.
So, with all my crazy travels, it's been tough to keep up with all my back emails. Boy, have I missed a whopper! Thank you, so, so much to Robbyn Spratt for sending this my way! Brace yourself, are you ready for this? Okay, here it goes:
There's a great horned owl nesting in a planter in Viera, FL.
Yes, you read that correctly. Viera, FL home of one of my all time favorite birding spots, Viera Wetlands has an owl nesting in a pot! Apparently, a pair of great horned owls chose to use a planter outside of the Brevard County Commission and the eggs have hatched--there is even a LIVE owl cam. The camera does not appear to be visible at night, however, there are clips that you can watch any time, so bookmark the Brevard County Owl Cam for some on the job entertainment.
This is an awesome diversion, especially since the owls at the Valmont Owl Cam appear to be having issues.
I thought I had planned my bird festivals so well this winter. Florida and San Diego--what better places could a Minnesota girl go to in January and March? Alas, both were a bit chillier than I expected. Florida had a record setting cold snap. And well, San Diego was still really warm at 50 degrees compared to where I live, but not shorts weather. Part of it was that I did many field trips where it's expect to be chilly, like on a boat or in the mountains.
While on the woodpecker trip for the San Diego Bird Festival in the mountains we looked through my scope, we could see the top of the mountain was covered in frost. Glad we weren't going to the top. It was pleasantly chilly enough where we were. I have to say, I had some of the best field trip grub ever at this festival. The best part was all the Laughing Cow Babybel Cheese. Nothing like enjoying great birds in the mountain and eating cheese.
I'm so excited! I found another photo of a Brewer's blackbird that I forgot I took in my iPhoto stash. He's so pretty, shining in all his iridescent glory of the full sun. This bird was part of a flock hanging out at a picnic area. I got to feed them as I tossed bits of my sandwich to the flock. Ah, one person's trash bird is another birder's treasure.
Another bird I was excited to spend time with was the western bluebird. We get tons of eastern bluebirds where I live and westerns are different because their rufous coloration extends to their backs. Eastern bluebirds just have the sky blue down their backs. I was happy to find a male western bluebird that wouldn't turn around and just show me his back.
Check out this super cute dark-eyed junco (the western version sometimes known as Oregon junco). They were flitting around all over the ground and this one paused to get a sip from a small puddle of water. It's the same species as the dark-eyed junco I see here, just a different color. Dark-eyed juncos used to be divided into five different species, a few years ago, this would have been a countable bird, but now the five are lumped into one. I wonder how long until they are divided again?
There were some common birds for me that others on the field trip where excited to see, like this male purple finch. He's beautiful, but he was a lifer for several people on my field trip. And we had to work to see this dude. I'm used to peering out at the feeders at Mr. Neil's and there they are. This one was singing at the top of a tree and it took some time to find the right angle for folks to see him. I giggled at working so hard for a feeder bird. He was singing his territory song, and I managed to get a video of him singing:
Such a pretty song and it's lovely to hear territory song after a long winter.
Anna's hummingbirds were all over the place and we found a female who appeared to be incubating eggs on a nest. She must be well habituated to humans. This nest was at about my eye level in a bush. The bush was in the corner of a "V" where two well travelled paths intersected and people walked by unaware as we watched.
We saw quite a few red-tailed hawks. Many were grabbing thermals and starting to do pair bonding activities. In Minnesota, these guys are setting up territory now. Females should be laying eggs soon. The red-tails in San Diego looked like they were on about the same schedules.
We did see some mammals out on the trip. This was a ground squirrel watching the birders as we were watching the birds. Something about his posture made it look like he was plotting our demise.
Don't forget that this Thursday at 6pm at Merlin's Rest is a Birds and Beers (Birds and Beers is an informal gathering of birders to sit down, have a beverage, and talk some birds). If you are remotely interested in birds, from the hardcore lister to the backyard birder to someone who saw a bird once, this group is for you.
I was really excited to do the Woodpecker Field Trip at the San Diego Bird Festival. I was hoping to see some new species like white-headed woodpecker or Lewis's woodpecker. I got skunked on both but had a fabulous time--that's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise when birding. Ah well, another bird for another day. I did have a great time with all of the acorn woodpeckers and several other species.
We had a great moment with a western variety of northern flicker (this is a red-shafted variety). Where I live, we get the yellow-shafted version of this species. The red-shafted version of the northern flicker is different, the shafts of wing feathers are red and the males have a red moustache and not a black moustache. Note the above male. Now, here is a photo of the yellow-shafted that I'm used to. See the difference?
We had paused for a break in the trail and could hear this bird in the distance. We played its call once and it flew in and immediately flew in and started to drum on the trunk to announce territory. I got a video of it:
What amazes me most is how little movement the flicker appears to be making and still manages to create quite a sound. The birds look for a good, resonant tree but still the sound is remarkable.
We had a spectacular time, the view was beautiful up in the mountains surrounded by burnt trees. One of the field trip leaders was Steve Shunk head of Paradise Birding. He's got a woodpecker festival going this June in Oregon and says that he could easily get me white-headed woodpecker there...was that his plan? Maybe he was keeping the white-headeds away on this trip, so I'd have to go to Oregon in June? Doubtful, since I've never met a man so gung-ho on woodpeckers...ever. Seriously, this guy needs to be seen to be believed. I have never seen a grown man get so excited over seeing a downy woodpecker, as Steve Shunk.
I did get one new woodpecker species and that was a Nuttall's woodpecker. This is such a cool woodpecker at least the one I was was watching. She was gleaning insects off of the leaves. They do peck like other woodpeckers, but some do go for the bugs crawling on the foliage. I got a video of her foraging. In the background, you'll hear Steve talking about a sapsucker, he's not talking about the Nuttall's--you can hear his excitement (that's the same excitement he would have for a downy woodpecker), he was on the trail of an odd looking sapsucker:
While at the San Diego Bird Festival, I got to enjoy one of my favorite bird species--the acorn woodpecker (this is a female above, she's just as handsome as the male). I love this species, the first time I ever saw one was years ago in San Francisco. They look like they are about to tell you joke at any moment. Actually, they look like Groucho Marx to me. I think she needs a cigar and say things like, "From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it."
This species lives in family groups and one of the interesting this is that the group will select one tree for food storage. This tree is called a granary tree. They drill a hole and put an acorn into that hole.
Actually, they drill LOTS of holes. One granary tree may have up to 50,000 holes in it. The woodpeckers fill the tree in the autumn when acorns or plentiful and feed off of their cache through the winter. The tree we saw during the festival was very empty since it's practically spring in San Diego. But acorn woodpeckers may not be fun for everybody, especially if they choose a house as their granary tree.
While I was enjoying the great birds at San Diego, a whole woodpecker discussion started on a hardcore birding listserv called ID Frontiers. This is not the type of listserv where you email a blurry photo of a house sparrow and ask what it is. This is the type of listserv where you discuss gulls for days on end and the differences in their primary projection and whether or not the gull in question is just an aberrant herring gull or some hybrid no one has ever imagined before.
Well, a more light hearted discussion start came up: What species is Woody Woodpecker? As a kid, I always thought he was an ivory-billed woodpecker. Okay, the ivory-bill isn't blue and Woody's white patches don't match up, but you can't argue with Woody's size, his crest and his light colored bill. When I worked at a wild bird store and we had to listen to bird identification CDs all day, I heard an acorn woodpecker call and it gave the "Ha ha ha HAAA ha" call. I realized that sounded a little familiar. Here's an example that you can hear over at Xeno Canto. Can you kind of hear it the laugh sound. From then on I figured that Woody was a hybrid between an acorn and an ivory-billed woodpecker.
Well, I guess NPR's "All Things Considered" program referenced Woody Woodpecker in a story recently about acorn woodpeckers damaging houses in California and said that acorn woodpeckers were the inspiration for Woody Woodpecker. My favorite blogger and frequent contributor to All Things Considered, Julie Zickefoose sent a note that Woody was in fact a pileated woodpecker.
ID Frontiers went nuts over this.
Kimball L. Garrett, the Ornithology Collections Manager of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County started it by stating that Walter Lantz (the creator of Woody Woodpecker) personally gave him a copy of his biography published in 1985 and that it reads that Woody Woodpecker was inspired by acorn woodpeckers seen during his honeymoon in 1940. Apparently, Lantz's new bride suggested he should turn the woodpeckers into a character.
But not so fast. Leave it to the wonderous Alvaro Jaramillo (the guy who can truly make watching and identifying gulls seem like fun) to find the video/photographic proof as to Woody's identity--proof so dramatic that David Luneau would weep. Alvaro said, "There is a Woody Woodpecker episode where someone is trying to hunt down “Campephilus principalis” and Woody looks him up in a book, and there he finds a picture of himself. I remember seeing that when I was a kid."
And if you're not down with your latin names, Campephilus principalis is also known as ivory-billed woodpecker.
So, there you have it. Proof of Woody Woodpecker's ID and proof that even the most hardcore birders can have a sense of humor. And now I leave with a video of a male acorn woodpecker looking for food:
One of the cool things for me, being a Midwestern girl is that when I go to the coasts, just walking out the door of my hotel room brings exciting birds for me like the young Heerman's gull (it was foraging on the lawn and pandering for a handout). Have you ever seen an adult Heerman's gull? Check out this link, it's a pretty classy lookin' bird.
Okay, mallards are not the most exciting bird on the planet but I did think it was funny that a pair was hanging out at the heated pool at night--yes the pool was heated, it did get down to 40 degrees at night. This male must have quite the line going with the hens, "Hey, baby, I know a place we can relax. It's fenced, far from predators, we can get some snacks, and nothing but class all the way."
Okay, this I thought was very cool. At first, "I though, are those cell phone receivers tacked onto palm trees?" Then I realized that the trunks were wide and realized that they were fake palm trees. Cell phone towers disguised to blend in with the landscape--and no guy wires to kill birds. Check it out, there a bird perched on top of one of the trees.
Thanks to the magic of digiscoping, we can see that it's a Cassin's kingbird. That must be a great place to watch for insects.
My buddy Clay chuckled when I got a photo of a Brewer's blackbird. "You can tell those Easterners gettin' a photo of a Brewer's blackbird." What can I say, it's different.
Black skimmers were roosting in the afternoon on a beach near the convention center where the San Diego Bird Festival was held at Mission Bay.
A pleasant surprise for me was seeing brant swimming around near shore. This is one of those birds I could never see, but once I finally saw them, I see them everywhere now. They were on their northward migration.
Willets were all over. I took this photo off the San Diego river, it was foraging and when another willet walked nearby, it stopped feeding and then sat down and was still until the other willet passed. Was this some sort of submissive behavior?
There are also the numerous brown pelicans, anyone can get an award winning shot...
So why not get a shot where they look really goofy and not unlike that rarely remembered Showbiz Pizza Place character, Uncle Klunk.
Well, if you are in the mood for something that you know will be gross, but you just can't look away, here is a video I got of a western gull eating what looks like someone's discarded catfish. Warning: entrails ahead:
