Birdchick Blog
"Yes, that's it, rub my ears."
"Hey, wait! Who said you were finished? Don't pull that hand away!"
"That's better, keep rubbing my ears. I almost approve of you."Thanks to Cute Overload for putting the word out on this: Sparrow Shoes anyone?
Must not have been an actual birder who designed those shoes, otherwise they would have been covered in black oil sunflower--which is more sensible, you can always use a great pair of black shoes.
Remember those videos of the porcupet (aka baby porcupine). I had them on Google Video and last week, I transferred them to You Tube--Holy Crap, the one of the baby porcupine eating a banana had 16,000 views yesterday and today it's past 27,000! I just got a message from someone who produces an animal show on a BBC station asking if they can use it. On top of that, Neatorama picked it up so I'm getting a double wammy from them with the Disapproving Rabbits promotion. The internet is a strange and wonderful place!
Sometimes, it's fun to live in our neighborhood. Oh sure, there are noisy neighbors, but there are benefits. Twice in the last week I have seen Sir Ian McKellen, once behind me line at the grocery store and tonight on our way to the movie theater (he's in town performing King Lear at the Guthrie). I didn't say anything at the grocery store, but tonight when I pointed him out to Non Birding Bill, he went over, greeted him and told him how much he enjoyed his work as an actor. He was really, really nice and very gracious. Can I say how much I enjoy just picking him out in the streets among all the other people? It's like finding a Ross's goose mixed in with a bunch of snow geese.
On to hawk banding!
Here's the man who makes my weekends of hawk banding possible--Frank Taylor! One of the coolest guys I know and the man who taught me to handle birds of prey and to give an entertaining yet informative program.
Well, it was a weekend chock full of red-tiled hawks at the banding station (that's a passage or first year red-tailed hawk in the above photo). On Saturday we got 7 birds (1 northern goshawk and 6 red-tailed hawks) and on Sunday we got 8 birds on (1 sharp-shinned hawk, 1 northern goshawk and 6 red-tailed hawks).
I think of all the birding things I do throughout the year, hawk banding is my favorite. I love everything about it, the fall foliage, the layers of cold to ward of the chill in the air, the waxy chocolate donuts we eat in the blind, watching the birds fly in, picking our raptors from the specks flying away.
We got to see some other wildlife besides raptors. We heard the crows going berserk on the other side of the field. Eventually, a coyote came into view. Rick Dupont got the above photo. They coyote kept coming closer and closer. Every time someone's camera beeped, the coyote would look right at us. Even with the wind blew and they coyote turned to sniff, if a camera beeped, it looked towards the blind. The coyote kept on its merry way and disappeared and suddenly as it appeared, followed by some noisy crows.
We even had a lone raven meander towards the blind. We watched this bird for the better part of Saturday morning, walking along through the grass snatching up lethargic grasshoppers. Periodically, the raven would hunker in the grass and sleep. After awhile, the raven would resume hunting grasshoppers. It worked its way closer and closer to the blind, oblivious to the many red-tails zooming over head, the half dozen people popping out of the blind, and even the noisy goshawk. When I watched it through my scope, it blinked both eyes in quick succession and not always at the same time. I've seen birds with West Nile Virus do this and wondered if that had struck this raven. The bird would let people get within 10 feet of it and then would fly. It had an ample food source and was wise enough to evade humans, so we didn't make too much effort to catch it.
There were also quite a few horned larks lurking in the grass. It was fun to watch them disappear and then reappear. A couple of northern shrikes hunting in the field would try to separate one of the larks to catch it, but to no avail, the larks were too fast. Another bird that hung out near the blind was a boreal chickadee. A small flock of black-caps flew in and one of them sounded a little nasally--instead of chickadee dee dee it was more of a chickashneeee. It hung out low in the trees and I got one of my best looks at one (alas, I didn't have the digiscoping equipment set up).
Even though we had almost all red-tailed hawks come in, each one had an interesting story. Like this bird. It was in haggard (adult) plumage, complete with red-tail (although the eyes were kind of half passage, half haggard). Note the blood mustache over the bill--this bird had eaten fairly recently. However, it did one of the most powerful dives into the nets I had ever seen. We actually almost missed this bird coming in. We were kind of chit chatting, someone had asked me a binocular question and looked out the blind window and said, "Well, 8x42's are good GASP..." and most everyone else saw it at the same time straight ahead, wings tucked, the bird going over 60 miles straight for the pigeon.
The red-tail blasted through the front net so fast and so hard it went all the way into the back net! Frank and Rick had to get the hawk out of two nets! Rick, ever the master yanker, did manage to pull the pigeon out of the way before the hawk nailed it. I did get to thinking though--if the nets hadn't been there, and this hawk was hunting the pigeon, it would have hit the prey so hard it would have blasted right into the woods. It would have rolled and tumbled and maybe slammed into a tree. That bird was intense. It wasn't skinny either, it had been eating well.
It's always interesting to see the differences in adults and young birds when you have the up close. Even without seeing the tail, you can know this is a young bird by how yellow the eyes are. Red-tailed hawk eyes get darker as they get older. So, above is passage red-tail...
and here is a haggard bird--look at how dark brown those eyes are! Speaking eyes, one of Frank's sub banders was up the whole week banding hawks and found an interesting one:
Chuck Schotzko got in this one eyed red-tailed hawk. Look at that, the whole entire eye ball is missing from the socket! Chuck is a medical doctor and guess with how dried out and healed up the injury is that this happened long ago, perhaps even when the bird was young. He speculated that this happened with the bird was young, even in the nest. It would be much easier for a young bird to learn to hunt with only one eye, than for an adult to suddenly lose an eye after hunting for years with two. Regardless, the bird was very chunky, the tissue around the keel was very plump--this bird had been eating well. If it can fly and is a good weight, there's no need to take it some place like The Raptor Center, this bird is doing just fine on its own.
Here you can see clear back into the empty eye socket. This really makes me wonder about birds in wildlife rehab facilities with only one eye that are turned into education birds or euthanized. This is the second red-tail we've gotten into the nets with vision in only one eye that was fat and sassy. Birds always remind me that they are more resilient than we give them credit for.
On Saturday night, I slept in Frank's van. He has a cot set up inside, so all I had to do was unroll my sleeping bag. I brought a pillow and stuck some hand warmers in the bottom to keep my toe warm. The stars crowded the skies and I was tucked warmly inside my sleeping bag and watched the sky. I was only disturbed once when someone drove slowly by shining a very bright flash light (I assume looking for deer). I set my iPod and iMainGo speaker to alarm so that I would wake up the next morning to the sound of bobolinks. I met Frank and his wife Trudi in their cozy trailer for hot chocolate and donuts, then it was off to more banding. It is nice to stay in hotels, but I have to say that I'm glad that I still have it in me to sleep in a van and use the woods for a restroom all for a cool birding experience!
This is one of the many red-tails we got in on Sunday, note the blood stains on the breast? This bird totally punk'd me! We were watching it in the distance and it hovered, it held its wings in a v-shape, the wings looked longish--I called it a rough-legged hawk. Until it flew into the nets and showed itself to be a juvenile red-tail. Later on, I tried to turn a kestrel into a merlin--I was having an off identification day. Maybe sleeping in a van dulls my bird id skills. Ah well, happens to all of us.
I did find a red squirrel lurking in the trees. It was surprisingly quiet. I suppose it noticed all the hawks flying in and decided that hunkering down and eating would be a sensible tactic instead of chirping and drawing attention to itself.
After we banded and released one of the many red-tailed hawks that came into the nets, it landed in the top of a spruce. As I set up my digiscoping equipment, it started to take off and I got this photo. But my favorite photos to get are the ones of me laying on the ground while people release the birds:
Like this...
Or this...
And this...
This was a little boy who got to release a red-tail. Since he was a tad short, I opted to take his photo from the side. The last thing I want is a face full of red-tailed hawk. He did a great job doing the release--that's a lot of bird for young boy.
I love this photo, that little boy looks like he's about to go into the sky along with the red-tail!
At first when I was looking at my schedule and budget for the fall, I was worried I just wouldn't be able to get to my friend Frank Taylor's hawk banding station--my favorite bird activity I do all year. I was very down that I would not get to see a northern goshawk (my favorite raptor and next tattoo) fly into the nets But thanks to help from my great friends, I managed two trips. And I got to see a first year northern goshawk fly in! Whoot!
Frank asked me to hold the young goshawk so he could get photos and I gave my camera to a wonderful woman I've been getting to know at the blind named Joan. We were working as swiftly as possible with the goshawk so we could send it on its way.
Why would we want this magnificent bird away so quickly? Because the moment it hits the nets to the very second it is released, it give a loud, piercing, melt-your-eardrums shriek over and over and over. All we're doing is holding it, it's not in any pain what so ever. Such a big bird, such a big whiner. Even the smaller cousins of this accipiter, the sharp-shinned hawk and the Cooper's hawk take the banding process with stoicism. Frank wanted to try and get a photo of the goshawk with its mouth closed--not an easy feat.
I think this photo that Joan got about sums it up. Yes, here I am with my favorite raptor and you can see that I'm clearly thinking, "Are we done yet? Can we move on?" I bet you're now curious, just how awful this sound is, aren't you? Okay, here is about five seconds of ear-splitting goshawk (those you cannot view video should be grateful):
Annoying, huh? As if that weren't bad enough...
The goshawk started attacking my coat. It was time to set this bird free and continue on its way.
I tossed the bird in the air and Joan got this great shot which actually looks like the bird is reaching out to attack me. Actually, what's going on is that I tossed the goshawk out to the field, but being the type of hawk that hunts in the woods, the bird is turning around in mid air so it can fly into the safety of the trees behind me. Still, I love how it looks like I'm reaching out it and the goshawk looks like it is going to nail me.
More banding fun to come!
Hey Disapproving Rabbit fans, there's a caption contest going on over at Neatorama and you can get a sneak peak of some of the bunnies in the book.
"I'm gonna eat you and your little disapproving rabbit too!"Just rolled in, ate some dinner, pealed off two layers of clothes, and sifted through 98 emails. Am now going to bathe and autograph some books. More hawk banding fun tomorrow.
The next Birds and Beers is October 18, 2007 at Merlin's Rest at 6pm (not to be confused with the Cape May Birds and Beers on Friday night, October 26, 2007 at 8pm I at the Jackson Mountain Cafe.)
There are so many people who are doing interesting things bird wise--research projects, banding, writing, etc. and we don't often find out about it on the listservs. This is the chance! It's a fun get together of people interested in birds and we can have a drink and talk some birds. It doesn't matter what you're experience level is. If you are interested in birds, you are welcome!
Hope to see you there!
I am so loving the dead oak in Mr. Neil's yard! This may look like a bunch of dead boring branches, but it is teeming with life. It was struck by lightening and had to be felled and when the tree was down, I asked if he would mind leaving it there to do its decomposition thing. He agreed and this fall it has been sparrow town! I've been scattering seeds for sparrows all along the edges to encourage them to pop out, mostly white millet, flax, canary seed, sunflower chips, cracked corn, canola, and Nyjer.
The juncos have just been lovin' it. They will even perch on some of the branches and chill out for a bit, allowing you to get cute photos of them doing their impersonation of a fluffy puffball.
Others juncos just give you the sass. It's a fun challenge getting photos of tiny birds not at a bird feeder.
This week, the migratory sparrows have shown up in earnest. Even around my neighborhood I've found some lurking white-crowned sparrows. So far in the fallen oak I have found white-throated sparrows like the one in the above photo. They seem a tad cagey compared to the juncos, preferring to stay within the tree branches. They must have just arrived, maybe after a few days of refueling they will stay out in the open more.
Speaking of cagey, there is at least one fox sparrow lurking in the oak. The above photo was the best that I could do for a photo. I swear, that is the back of a fox sparrow. Really, it is. It's different than the other brown birds featured in this post. Honest.
This bird popping out for the sparrow mix surprised me. I would have thought they would be outta the state by now. It looks a little different from we're used to. Can you guess it? If you said chipping sparrow, you'd be right. The tree sparrows should be here very soon after these guys go.
The song sparrow in this awkward position is hoping that if it sits still enough, I won't notice and will aim my scope else where and it can enjoy whatever morsel it just found in peace. It's not every day you see a bird with it's tail caught in a branch--how embarrassing. Someone call Mr. Blackwell.
Sparrows aren't the only birds enjoying the fallen oak. The titmice have been grabbing leaves and pecking the heck out of them, there must be some type of bug or larvae lurking in there.
And it's not just the fallen tree itself that has been fun. You may have noticed in previous that we've turned the stump into a tray feeder and everybody has been using it (well, maybe not the hummingbirds, hard to put nectar on a stump).
And it's not just the brown birds either. I put some mixed nuts on their for the chickadees, titmice and nuthatches, but it's never long before a blue jay wants in on some of that action. They love their nuts.
I love this photo. That chickadee looks like it's thinking, "Well, there goes the neighborhood." There's now attractive way to mammal proof a stump, but we have all the other feeder poles mammal proofed so I'm not too bothered if the squirrels and chipmunks want to hoover up the seeds. Since this stump doesn't have much in the way of drainage holes, it helps to have birds and critters move the seed faster.
Woof. I have a lot of signing to do. I bailed on Carpenter banding this morning because I'm behind on some blog posts, I'm going hawk banding this weekend and need to get some work done if I'm gonna sit in a blind for two days, and holy cow you guys are so cool and have ordered a lot of books for me to personalize. My goal is to get them done this weekend and to commence the shipping on Monday. But, really, holy cow, thank you to everyone who has ordered a book, it's an overwhelming and strange sensation that something that started as joke between my and my husband got turned into a book and so many people enjoy it. I am truly grateful and never cease to be amazed by what a strange and delightful trip life can be.
I haven't found an ink I feel safe using on Cinnamon's paw for her to do a "pawtograph" and she would not be happy to have Non Birding Bill and myself hold her down and mark a bunch of books. However, she seems to tolerate running a book across her back (see how thrilled she looks?) so I can get you some Cinnamon DNA on your book (or at the very least bunny fur) and your book will absorb a lot of disapproval. It should be palpable when you open the package.
Last night I picked up NBB from work to go out and do some celebrating of the book's arrival. When we pulled into the liquor store parking lot, I saw Leann and Jon who designed and produce our Disapproving Rabbit shirts (by the way, Carri Ann, they LOVED disapproval gate). I fumbled in the car for a book and went to personalize one for them. I was so flustered because it was the first official autograph, it's illegible, I made up a word, and when I got to the actual signature...well it was sad. They laughed and said they were honored to get the very first autograph. They were being kind. Leann mentioned that the brown women's shirt is being discontinued and Jon says he has a new design he's working on so be prepared for a new disapproval shirt, and if you want to be someone who has one of the original Disapproving Rabbit shirts (you liked Disapproving Rabbits before they were popular), you might want to get one fairly soon.
And don't forget, if you would like to meet Cinnamon in person and learn more about living with a rabbit and meet some foster rabbits looking for a new home, we are having a Disapproving Rabbits Party at DreamHaven Books on November 2, 2007 at 6:30pm.
Okay, now to work on the next blog entry--brace yourself for a super cute junco photo as well as lots of brown birds!
