The Onion On The Peregrine Falcon

From The Onion (a humorous news publication):

Only a few short years after being removed from the endangered species list, the American peregrine falcon—once considered a creature of nobility and grace—has transformed into an "unappreciative jerk," wildlife experts reported Monday.

According to workers at the Peregrine Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting falcons around the world, the predatory bird has exhibited a complete change in attitude since its resurgence. Animal advocates have reportedly observed the falcon flaunting its magnificent 3.5-foot wingspan, nesting arrogantly atop nearby cliffs, and generally acting like "king shit" wherever it goes.

"For decades, the peregrine falcon faced a very real and very serious threat," U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service deputy director Rowan Gould said. "There was a time when many of us feared we would never see this majestic creature again, when we did everything in our power to ensure that this marvel of nature would be around for generations to come."

Added Gould, "If only we'd known then what cocky little pricks they'd turn out to be."

In addition, the blue-gray member of the Falconiformes order has put off dozens of its once-ardent protectors by reportedly just sitting there like it was invincible and never on the brink of extinction or something.

And that's about as much of the article I can post here in the blog. Read the rest at The Onion...just maybe not out loud to your kids.

Arriving In Harlingen

The Harlingen Airport is happy to see birders in Texas--look at the size of that banner! I feel so welcomed for the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival.

We had the opening reception last night, which is a great time to reconnect with friends and eat some fancy foods. There was a new addition to the table--live birds. A small cage full of parakeets was put out by catering company (cause see, we're bird watchers). They startled the dickens out of me, but the budgies seemed to be having a great time preening each other and chirping sweet nothings.

I tried to get a photo of birders using a pair of tongs to get a budgie, but to no avail. I asked Jim from Kowa (above). "No way," he said, "your just going to put it in your blog that Kowa eats birds." He then went the extra mile to put his arm around the birds to prove how much he LOVES birds.

Kevin Karlson walked by and I shouted, "Yo, Kevin, do me a favor, put some tongs to the birds."

He also resisted my request, "No, you'll put it in your blog."

I even offered to say nice things about his books in the blog, but he said that I already do say nice things about his books and he appreciates that.

They're on to me!

So, by the time you are reading this, I'll be a digiscoping fool on the Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park. Then I give my Blogging: The New Nature Journal Program, then do a book signing, and then its Birds and Beers. Such a wild and exciting Thursday.

I've already touched based with several bloggers including Flying Mullet, Round Robin, and one third of 10,000 Birds. Will Mike Bergin sway me to the power of The Nature Blog Network...we shall see...

Oh, and bird banders will get a kick out of this:

Bird bites the cover of the book that identifies, ages and sexes them! And it's a house sparrow too! This sparrow latched on to the corner an would not let go, taking out its frustration on being man handled on poor, poor, hard to read Pyle.

Speaking of the Pyle book, there's a second one out. Yes, the bird id book with no photos, that even uses math equations to id birds, and is the necessary evil of every bander's operation now has a part 2! Here's an earlier post I had about Peter Pyle's Identification Guide To North American Birds and I had to chuckle, Ian Paulsen posted a few months ago: "I think every birder will want Pyle's Identification Guide to North American Birds: part 2!!!"

I hope he was kidding. Pyle is NOT for every birder, it's only for the masochistic Jedi birders that use The Force to identify birds. It's this heavy little book that sits on your back when you're sweating over a flycatcher in your hand and asking yourself if you'll be able to try to identify, let alone age and sex it. Then the book says in a gravelly drag queen voice, "No! Do or do not, there is no try."

Scariest bird book out there, I swear.

Bill Oddie In Trouble

Wow, people in England are really have their panties in a bundle over their hosts. There's already the brew haha over Russel Brand and Jonathan Ross now, bird host Bill Oddie is in hot water. According to This Is London:

Viewers of BBC2's Autumnwatch complained last night after host Bill Oddie broadcast video film shot at his home in Hampstead. It showed a grey squirrel lying dead next to an electric cable it had tried to bite through. Oddie, 67, was heard laughing as he told viewers: "It's not a sleeping squirrel, he's literally dead," and joked: "You squirrels, don't do it. Better red than dead."

Jane Marshall, 42, who was watching with her three children, said: "It seemed as if Bill Oddie was getting a kick out of filming a dead squirrel."

A BBC statement said today: "Autumnwatch has a duty to show nature 'as it is', which sometimes includes scenes of death."

Seriously, Jane Marshall? You're that upset over a dead squirrel? What naturalist worth his salt doesn't get a kick out of investigating dead stuff? Someone send that woman a copy of Last Child In The Woods.

Don't worry, not all is bleak for Mr. Oddie. If you're on FaceBook, you can join a Bill Oddie fan club called Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie, Rub Your Beard All Over My Body. Wonder if anyone will ever start a Kenn Kaufman or David Sibey fan club like that on FaceBook?

David Sibley, David Sibley, rub your...

never mind.

Birds, Beers, Bald Eagles, Bees, and Rio Grande Valley Fest

Holy Buckets, I am in love with the boys at the Golden Valley, MN National Camera Exchange. My all-time favorite point and shoot digital camera to use for digiscoping is a Fuji FinePix E900. It's been discontinued and hard to find. They found one for me. I'm takin' that bad boy to Texas. The Canon A570 I'm currently using is okay, but the color quality is just not as good as the Fuji. Thank you National Camera in Golden Valley, you boys are the best!

Hey, here's some cool news from WFRV:

A bird that's believed to be the oldest banded bald eagle on record in the upper Midwest has been returned to the wild. The 31-year-old female was hit by a car on state Highway 47 near Fence Lake last month. After recovering, the eagle was released by wildlife officials in Lac du Flambeau on Friday.

According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the bird was among 6,000 eagles banded in 1977. The average age of adult eagles is 10-12 years old.

Before this bird, the oldest bald eagle according to the Bird Banding Lab longevity records was 30 years and 9 months.

So, I think I'm kinda grateful for my insanely busy schedule this fall. Mr. Neil wanted to move the Kitty hive so it would be inside the newly installed "bear proof fence" before the winter. This is our least friendly hive and the best time to move a hive is at night. I'm sure you can tell how fun and exciting this is just be rereading that last sentence. I alas could not go this week but you can read all about it over at Lorraine's blog. Of the four of us: Non Birding Bill, Mr. Neil, Me, and Lorraine, only NBB is not the bee sting virgin. Lorraine got her's last night.

Don't forget, we got a couple of Birds and Beers coming up. Birds and Beers is an informal gathering of birders of all abilities--if you're interested in birds, you're invited. You can meet other birders--maybe find a carpool buddy, ask about where to find target birds, share cool research projects you might be working on, ask a bird feeding question, share life lists, share some digiscoping tips, promote your blog--the sky is the limit. It's low key and it's fun.

Here are the dates and note that the first date is in Harlingen, TX--in conjunction with the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest!

Thursday, November 6 at 7:45pm (or after the festival keynote speaker is finished that night). It will be held at The Lone Star, they are holding a table for us.

The next will be back in Minnesota:

Tuesday, November 18 at 6pm at Merlin's Rest.

If anyone is on a Texas birding listserv and wants to post the Harlingen Birds and Beers there, please do. It's open to anyone, even if you are not part of the bird festival.

Speaking of the RGV bird fest, if you are a bird blogger and are going to be there, we're going to have a formal Bird Blogger Meeting in the Alcove at 4:30pm on Friday. This is your chance to meet other bloggers, ask questions, share ideas and network. We're a fun group and we're happy to see you be successful. Please come!

AND if you are someone who has no clue what bird blogging is all about or even what the heck a blog is, I'll be giving a program called Blogging: The New Nature Journal on what bird blogging is all about, how to start one, ideas for what you can blog about, highlights of my blog and other great birding blogs you can find on the Internet. The program is on Thursday at 2pm.

If you're in Texas, I look forward to meeting you. It's gonna be a great time!

Tuesday Morning Cleanse!

Because I think we're going to need this throughout the day! It's crazy warm this November in the Twin Cities. The highs are in the 70s and we have large flocks of both eastern bluebirds and dark-eyed juncos. So breathe in the bluebird, breathe out....

I got these last Friday at Carpenter Nature Center. We were getting a good variety of birds in the nets, but the light was perfect and the bird were cooperative and I had a great time taking their photos.

Breathe in the junco, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out...

Opposable Chums Competitive Bird Watching Documentary

We got a copy of a movie called Opposable Chums: Guts and Glory at The World Series of Birding. It's a documentary about the "famed" birding competition that happens in Cape May, NJ in the spring where teams of birders go out and compete to see who can see the most species of birds in a 24 hour period. There are different competitions from the all out listing to county listing to a big sit to photography. I was on a digiscoping team this past spring for Swarovski.

I made Non Birding Bill watch the dvd with me. I wanted to see if it would have appeal to both birders and non birders. I really enjoyed it, but I think part of that was because I know quite a few of the people in the film. "Oh hey, there's Gail."

The film follows some World Series teams from midnight to midnight as teams go along to tally their species and is interspersed with interviews of past participants like David Sibley and Kenn Kaufman. There are tales of war wounds and food poisoning and how birders go the extra mile to get as many on their list as they possibly can.

When it was finished, I looked at NBB and asked what he thought, fully expecting a non committal shrug as his review. He said, "That should be required viewing for anyone who is thinking of dating a bird watcher!"

I asked if he thought there were too many inside jokes for a non birder and he felt that the film really captures the nutty nature of birders and serves as a good primer to the uninitiated. We both especially enjoyed the part when participants were asked if the World Series of Birding was competitive: "yes, no, no, yes, yes, no, I WANT TO WIN!"

So, bottom line? Check out the movie and it's approprate viewing that will be enjoyed by both birders and non birders alike.

Random Acts Of Birding

While doing some digiscoping around Cape May, I found a cooperative flock of yellow-rumped warblers. These are such a challenge to photograph and finding a big flock of butter butts is always a good practice. I remember when I first started digiscoping, I thought warblers would be impossible. But after lots of practice, it is possible to get a warbler shot. Maybe one day this will all pay off and I'll be posting a blackburnian warbler?

It was a fairly busy day when I was taking these photos, it was beautiful fall weather and lots of people were out--even non birders. Some people were really polite, they'd pause to let me get the shot before continuing on the trail past me. People are generally curious when they see you with a large scope and want to know what you're looking at. Some are surprised that it's a bird and not some mammal. Some are surprised that it's a brown bird. Many are happy to tell you about other birds they've seen that they think you would rather photograph--the most common being the bald eagle.

I like to set weird goals for myself. Something like trying to get a shot of the red eye on a coot. But often people passing by, I think feel sorry for me for going after something like a coot and want to tell me about the bald eagle they just saw. When I was taking photos of the butter butts above, a couple passing on the trail kept encouraging me to head towards the beach to get a photo of the bald eagle flying around the beach. I thanked them and went back to the warblers, but they insisted, "That eagle isn't going to be there all day, you should go now!" I thanked them and stayed put, but the man pressed me to go for the eagle. I finally said, "I appreciate that, but I live in Minnesota, we have the largest breeding population of bald eagles in the lower 48. I've seen 'em."

I feel bad, eagles shouldn't be taken for granted and I love seeing them and I don't want to minimize someone's eagle sighting--but darn it, I'm after more difficult fish (er-birds). When I'm digiscoping at Carpenter Nature Center, I periodically run into a guy who regularly walks the trails and is always trying to get me to go take eagle photos. The best part is that he also is ready to interpret bald eagles for me: how long it takes for them to get the white head and tail, their mating habits, prey items, pretty much an abbreviated program of what I would give at The Raptor Center. I often think that he should sign up to be a volunteer there--he's full of info and ready to share it with the world.

I am just of guilty of doing these impromptu bird interpretive sessions. While digiscoping some ducks at The Meadows in Cape May, I heard a group of ladies walking by who were trying to identify all the ducks I was photographing. They didn't have a field guide with them and they were trying to remember what they'd seen so far, so they could identify it later. I was happy to say, "Hey, those are pintails, if you want, you can look at them through my scope."

And I was happy to point out other birds I speculated the had not noticed, "If you're interested, there's a male hooded merganser loafing on a mound, check him out through my scope." They seemed very excited and that just kind of goaded me on, what other waterfowl could I point out to them? Why, how about my favorite duck:

the gadwall! And it's about the time that I start pointing out the all gray duck that I realized I was getting that polite look of "Okay, you've been really nice, but please let us go on our way."

So, why this undeniable need to interpret? Is it to try and recruit more birders? Is because we are all so excited by what we see (no matter what our birding level) that we must share it? Is this some sort of lek behavior, "Gee whiz, look at how much I know!"

Anyone else out there ready to interpret birds at a moment's notice?