The Steve Irwin of Birds

I wasn't going to blog this until Sunday but our friend Kat who is a caterer to rock bands is in town tonight and invited us to an after party for the band she is currently with called Godsmack. It starts at 11pm so I'm blogging to stay awake. It's always a party when Kat's in town. Last year she got us backstage to a Motley Crue concert (no Tommy Lee is not a birder).

So, there was a bird exhibit going on at Cape May Autumn Weekend by John Wood the president of The Raptor Project. That's him above flying a one-eyed golden eagle in the convention center surrounded by a huge and excited crowd. It was interesting to watch his bird handling techniques. The man sure can bring out the birdmanship. The audience was engaged and wowed--especially when he would walk through the crowd with his Harris hawk and perch it on someone's head or when he would let people come up and touch one of his owls. He did quite a few flight demos with his birds which are oh-so-cool and yet oh-so-risky because the bird doesn't always come back...or land where it is intended to land.

While I was there he flew his white gyrfalcon (above)--what a cool bird to watch fly, although a few times it didn't always get it back right away. John's a master falconer so he knows how to fly birds. A wind storm was raging in Cape May during the weekend and I figured he wouldn't fly the falcon--windy days can help propel these fast birds far away and out of sight of the trainer. He flew the bird and during a few of the shows it disappeared, but fortunately he has telemetry hooked up to it and he's usually able to retrieve (although, one show it looked like it took him about half an hour to 45 minutes). I was excited to see the flight. I was told last year when he flew this bird, it ignored him and tried to take out a gull. The gyr grabbed the gull, but didn't kill it and ended up in the ocean.

He flew the bird out on the beach and with the sun and wind and crashing waves it was a movie-esqe scene. John warned all of us to stay together in the group and not to stray so the bird wouldn't mistake any of us for him. He did warn all of us to use common sense, if the bird flew our way we were to duck. I'm not sure if the guy in the above photo was just some poor dude walking the beach or if he was part of our group and foolishly separated from the rest of us. Sure enough, the gyr tried to land on him. It was incredibly windy and the guy was trying to run backwards...

He fell over backwards with the gyr still trying to land. Ooops. The bird backed off and did head over to John and the audience got a huge giggle. Future reference, when the bird handler says stay in the group for safety--stay in the group.

The bird did make it back safely to John and it was a treat to watch the world's largest falcon fly right in front of me. Kids had a great time at his booth. For $20 you could get your photo taken with a bird. I saw kids walking by with two or three different photos showing them off excitedly like little bird baseball cards. Always love seeing kids excited about birds and boy can this guy wind 'em up.

Now, here we have a real bird celebrity. John's birds generate quite a bit of income from television and movie appearances (and not to mention a spanky sponsorship from Nikon). This prairie falcon pictured above played Mordecai in the movie The Royal Tenebaums (awesome movie by the way). According to the trivia on the DVD the original bird used during shooting was kidnapped and held for ransom - production could not wait for him to be returned which is the reason that the bird that appears later in the movie has "more white feathers" - it's a different bird. Doh!

Working Cape May

Once again I found odd bathroom signage on the road when I visited Cape May. Being someone who likes to defy authority, I did change a shirt in this bathroom. Sh, don't tell. I wonder how the whole restroom society falls apart if people are changing clothes in a restroom?

Some of my friends from left to right: Alvaro Jaramillo (who gave some great insight about the western veery in August) he was working a booth for Field Guides, Kenn Kaufman (field guide author and all around good egg), Kimberly Kaufman an Ohio naturalist hanging with Kenn for some reason , Jeff Bouton working the Leica booth, and Carlos 'Hawk Eyes' Bethancourt of Canopy Tower.

One of the really cool things that happened after I finished my time at Eagle Optics was getting work from my friends. It's been really fun and a whole new world of job possibilities has been opened up for me. One of them has been with Bart Stephens at WingScapes (and it takes everything I have not to call him Bart Simpson). He's a birder (although I don't know if he would call himself that) who WildBird on the Fly and I have gotten to know by running into him at different festivals in the last year. He's been channeling his interest in birds into a new product that his company made. When I talked to him in September he asked if I would be willing to give him an extra set hands at booths and oh, would I mind coming with him to Cape May, NJ? Working with a friend and going to a bird hot spot--that was a tough call--NOT!

Bart's a very laid back birder, and I got a kick out of visiting his home in Alabama and he had red-headed woodpeckers coming to his deck feeders--he was very relaxed about that, even as I freaked out with excitement. Also, his deck is elevated and we watched a red-tailed hawk thermalize right off of it--how we got any work accomplished, I will never know. We'll be hearing more about him and WingScapes in the coming weeks. At Cape May I helped Bart conduct surveys at a booth to get an idea of what people know about bird feeder cameras. We had a lot of fun and filled out a ton of surveys.

Here are more friends:

I kept noticing this cute blond and I kept thinking that I know her from somewhere. I also noticed that she kept looking at me too. I worried that I met her at a previous festival and it had escaped my mind. She came over and introduced herself, it was Somewhere in New Jersey (aka Laura). That was fun to say hi to her, I knew she lived in Cape May and was glad to have a chance to connect.

Above we have one of the Swarovski reps demonstrating how light their new tripod is. I even lifted it myself, very light weight.

This blogger I recognized right away from his photo--that smile gives him away. It's Patrick Belardo (aka Hawk Owl's Nest)--who was quick to point out that he had nothing to do with the server crash last weekend--guilty conscious, Patrick?

I did run into another blogger--JeffGyr who was on the same team as I was for the ivory-bill search in Arkansas. The only photos I have of him are from karaoke and I can't post those...

Here's Chuck Hagner the editor of Birder's World, showing off the new design. I pointed out that he's the only bird magazine editor without a blog and when was he going to get on the bandwagon:

Eeep! Angry Chuck! I love Chuck, he's got a great sense of humor and I wish I could run into him more often. Word on the convention room floor was that the Birder's World booth had the best candy, so if you go to a bird fest and BW is there, go for the candy, stay for the magazine.

Here's Taryn, a publicist for Houghton Mifflin rockin' a really wicked bad dragonfly face painting. She helps keep me informed of all the cool bird books they have coming out. You will note the book that's not fully in the picture called All Thing Reconsidered--that a certain Bill of the Birds edited.

There were a few other intriguing booths at the trade show. One is something being developed called iFieldGuides which is supposed to take the Stokes' CDs and organize them on your iPod similar to BirdPod but will also have photos for all the species as well as a listing feature. It's also going to be cheaper. It's not ready yet, but it's interesting watching technology playing out in the birding field. Where will it go next?

There are more and more nature photographers popping up out there with boothes to sell their stuff. I have heard some of my professional nature photographer friends grumbling that anyone with a camera (or digiscoping set up) thinks they can call themselves a professional nature photographer. I didn't really get what they complaining about until now. A photographer had a booth and had quite a few photos displayed that you could purchase as frameable prints or cards, but what first caught my eye were the number of prints for sale where the bird wasn't entirely in focus. I tried to give the photographer the benefit of the doubt--maybe they were being arty...then I found the photo that just really shouted "I don't know quite yet what I'm doing." The photo was of a warbler sitting on concrete. It was an up close shot and I thought, well during migration you can see exhausted migrants. It wouldn't be my first choice for a background to a bird but if you didn't know birds all that well it was an up close shot of a cute yellow bird--then you saw it: a twisted foot out to the side. There were a couple of different prints at different angles of the same bird and yessirree bob, the bird's foot is off to the side and twisted upwards. I just had an image of a birder getting a birthday card in the mail from their mom who didn't know birds well and wondering, "Why did mom send me a card of an injured bird for my birthday?"

Cape May Birding

I may have to revise my answer about the best bird festivals to go to. In the past when someone has asked me, I have said Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest (which I'm going to next week--whoot!) and Detroit Lakes Festival of Birds as my top two must dos. I think Cape May Autumn Weekend will have to come in as number three. It's a weird migration/fall out area where unexpected things like thousands of robins pouring over the top of your hotel occurs. The town is beautiful and in warm weather is a red hatter's dream, but since it's the end of the tourist season, it's quiet and deserted and chock full o' migrating birds.

For me, visiting Cape May, NJ was kind of like visiting Hollywood. There have been a ton of articles written about the magic of birding there as well as books on how the whole place became such a hot spot. It was interesting putting faces to names from the book Season at the Point, it's been a few years since I read it, I'm finding I need to go back and reread. Cape May is definitely a different atmosphere and meeting some local birders you would think they invented bird watching (in many ways they did--lots of field guide authors honed their skill there).

With some of the "top birders" there is an attitude--not undeserved and I admire how open they are about it. We have it here in Minnesota and I'm sure it can be found in any state but they are so open about it in New Jersey. For example, we all have our own personal standards for bird reports. You'll read about a sighting on a listserv and there are some people who may report a king rail who you will believe and some you take with a grain of salt. You keep this to yourself and in select company you might discuss it. Not at Cape May! I actually overheard the phrase (and it was said in front of a crowd), "Somebody whose name means nothing reported a frigatebird from Higbee Beach two days ago." It was later determined that someone who has a name that means quite a lot had seen a frigatebird the following day from the convention center so perhaps that no name was correct.

The weather situation was insane. Friday morning was beautiful (pictured above at the Meadows) and sunny and I woke up to fish crows outside the hotel and had time for some quick birding at the meadows. Friday night a nasty wind storm blew in and all the birds laid low.

Saturday was not good birding but you were practically tripping over yellow-rump warblers (above) and ruby-crowned kinglets. Sunday got a little better but was still windy and Monday was perfect--although all the fish crows were gone--where did they go?

I didn't have to leave for the airport until late in the afternoon and I spent the day hitting Cape May spots like Higbee's Beach and the Beanery. As I was walking the Beanery about 9am, the sun was behind me and I was identifying a Lincoln's sparrow I noticed lots of dark, shadowy blobs in front of me on the ground. I looked up at the sky--raptor migration was on. Forget sparrows, I high-tailed it to the Hawk Watch platform. I'm so glad I did, not only were there several raptors and turkey vultures flying over, but a Swainson's hawk was seen in the distnace as well-very rare for the east coast.

(You may be wondering why I don't have more photos of this--the camera I was using "went for a walk" at the Philly Airport. All I can say is that I am so grateful I downloaded all the of the photos from the previous night's karaoke party--WHEW!)

One of my favorite moments was when WildBird on the Fly and I were walking back to the hotel on Sunday night and you could hear some night migration starting. We went to the walkway along the beach, laid on the benches and the ground and watched birds fly just about the street lights in the dark. It was chilly, you could hear the waves crashing on the beach (and no traffic!) and see birds on their way for migration and doing it with a great friend--what an awesome moment.

I dedicate the following photo to Keith Dowling who was envious in a comment about eating at Uncle Bill's Pancake House:

I think this photo is now Non Birding Bill's new desktop. These are the oh-so-tasty pumpkin pancakes available at Uncle Bill's. This is a must stop for refueling for more birding.

Readers, I Need Your Help!

Hey guys, I just looked at the sales of my calendars and the sales are not what they could be for Indiana, Ohio and Illinois--part of that is to be expected, this is the first time we are doing the calendars there. But I need to buckle down and promote them in those states. If you live in any of those states and know of any radio/tv stations that it might be a good idea for me to send a press release and interview request, can you tell me the name of the station (also, if you know of a local show that would be ideal for birds that would help too).

Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are doing well, but I'd love ideas for radio and tv shows I could send press releases to those states too. Thanks guys, in many ways you are my think tank. Please leave suggestions in the comments section.

Bunny Letter Opener

Usually when Cinnamon does this, she doesn't stop with just opening it.

Mystery Bird Found Dead in Texas--Alcid?

A reader sent me this link to the Victoria Advocate in Texas about a weird bird found dead on the side of the road. At first the people who found it thought that the dead bird was a penguin but after consulting with people at Texas Parks and Wildlife Department it was decided that it might be a loon. I think it's some kind of alcid, but then again I am a land locked Minnesotan with not a lot of experience with seabirds. Any guesses from you guys? Any Texas birders read the blog, have there been any discussions about a mystery bird on the side of the road?

Impressive Face Painter

That face painter really did a nice job. When I asked her if she could do a goshawk, she said "A what??" We borrowed a National Geographic Guide and she painted away. You can see it here at Amy's site. Here's a goshawk photo:

And here's me:

Not bad! After it was finished, most people thought it was cool but couldn't quite guess the id. Bill Clark was there, he actually consulted on Amy's kestrel as did Clay Taylor:

But Bill knew what I was. The only other person was this adorable 11 year old boy with red hair who sat down, looked at me and said, "Mmmm, I would say that you are a northern gosawk."

I said, "Wow, the only other person who guessed right away was Bill Clark, you're pretty good."

He said, "Bill Clark, yes. My mother took a class from him when I was 5 months old. I really don't remember much."

Yeah, in another ten years, I see this kid will be hanging out with the rest of us bird festival bums.

CONTEST!

Okay, with the blog being down for so many days I think it's time for a contest! The prize?

1. Brand spankin' new National Geographic Field Guide--hot off the press. Note the new thumb tabs to make it easier to find the birds. Ooooo. Ahhhhh.

2. An official Cape May Bird Observatory Field Guide holder with strap. Oooooo. Ahhhhhh.

3. An official WingScapes (the company I'm working for) key chain flash light--perfect for looking for woodcocks! Oooooo. Ahhhhh.

4. A Leupold tote bag with a meadowlark design. Ooooo. Ahhhhh.

What will the contest be? Well, my friends that's somewhat diabolical. Identify what bird I had painted on my face:

You will note, that I am standing next to Sibley (see Susan, I did actaully get within touching distance). Here is a hint for my face painting:

Next, identify the bird painted on WildBird on the Fly's face:

Now, identify the author who has a cat painted on his face:

Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Evil? A little, but look at the cool prizes! First comment that correctly identifies all three AND includes a name wins.

Not Since Sixteen Candles...

So, I finally am at the same place as David Sibley. I work up the courage to talk to him and ask if I can get a photo with him. I see photographer Kevin Karlson and ask him to take a photo with Sibley and WildBird on the Fly...

Yeah, just like Farmer Ted and the prom queen. From left to right we have my feet, Sibley's feet and Amy's feet. Really, I swear, that's Sibley in the middle. Honest.

The Blog Is Back!

The blog, the blog, the blog is back! Oh happy day. For those who don't know, the server that hosted the site "got corrupted" on Saturday and after waiting for the problem to be fixed decided to switch servers. And I thought not being able to upload photos through blogger was irritating. Try having your site go down right in the middle of one of the busiest bird festivals in the country and introducing yourself as the operator of a very popular birding site and it's gone. Ugh!

It may take a day or two to work out all the kinks with the switch but boy do I have some swag and great contests coming withing the next 24 hours.