Leftover Horicon Marsh Photos

Hey, remember in May when I went to Horicon Marsh?  It's funny, I've always been the sort of blogger who puts stuff up as she goes, never one with a backlog of material but as the Internet has changed to interacting with people via Facebook and Twitter, I don't blog as much and now I have a glut of back posts and photos.  Last week on one of my bird surveys, I found a yellow-throated vireo, then a Tennessee warbler and even a yellow-rumped...a pang hit me--an early mixed flock?  Fall warbler migration! Noooooo!  Perhaps it was the long, slow cold spring (I wore gloves in June) but it seems like it was only two weeks ago that I was watching warblers like the above American redstart pop in through new leaves.

Horicon Marsh is an awesome place.  And if you are looking for a great place to stay and relax when not birding, I highly recommend the Audubon Inn in nearby Mayville, WI.  It's a lovely old huge hotel in the theme of John James Audubon--even some of the windows in the hotel have his paintings etched in them.  The rooms are lovely, the floors full of cozy common areas with books, buy my absolute favorite part with the hotel bar--the food was excellent and it made for some great people watching. It was a great place to get to know the local townsfolk and fun to watch their interactions and it had Internet access.

Below are some of the birds that I managed to digiscope while out an about Horicon Marsh:

Palm warbler.

Yellow-rumped warbler.

Black-necked stilt (part of a pair).

Common moorehen.

Eared grebe.

Forster's tern.

Sandhill cranes...caught in the middle of the cloacal kiss.

Sandhill cranes trying to pretend that I didn't just catch them in the middle of something.

 

 

Odd Field Sparrow

I have a sparrow that has been driving me nuts on my surveys the last week.  I tried turning it in to every other bird but have finally landed on a field sparrow.  The bird perches on a bush that is not part of my survey property, so I can't just walk out.  Plus, I'm supposed to be monitoring other birds and can only do so much with a non survey species. Yesterday, I tried playing a field sparrow call to get the bird to fly over.  It didn't but a neighboring field sparrow did.  Then, I tried playing a clay-colored sparrow call and the bird flew over--and it doesn't sound like a clay-colored at all.  So, is this a young field sparrow working on his sound?  A really hoarse field sparrow that has been singing like crazy all summer?  Or is a hybrid field sparrow/clay-colored sparrow.  They have been known to occur. Here's a video of a hybrid singing.

I may have to drive down to the survey area on my own time and see if I can get a photo.  The few times the bird has flown by and not hidden itself in foliage, it looked like a field sparrow.  Anyway, here are a few videos of the bird singing:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCAuHpFuLPQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdl8zHt6CaY[/youtube]

 

25 Things that Changed Birding (Recently)

Hello all, NBB here. This week has been hecka crazy, as I'm doing a show in the Minnesota Fringe Festival (which Sharon is acting in) and Shaz is running around doing early morning bird surveys. But I wanted to take a moment to engage in a little husbandly bragging because of this blog post from the American Birding Association blog: "25 Things that Changed Birding (Recently)" by Ted Floyd.

The piece talks a lot about how technology (digital photography) and social media (Facebook and Twitter) are changing the way birders connect and share information, but it also singles out a few people, including, as you might guess, my wife.

14. BirdChick. Think of a really famous birder. Then Google that person’s name and the word “birding.” Next, Google “BirdChick + Birding.” Note to purists, traditionalists, and any other holdouts in the Old Boys’ Club: Google doesn’t lie. BirdChick has “arrived.” Birding has changed.

I believe this is about more than Sharon being a woman (SPOILER ALERT: she is!), or the way she embraces new technology, but also about her personal style of birding. She's a hard core birder, who can speak about things like "primary projection" and is very interested—excuse me, "unhealthily obsessed"—with things like aging and sexing a bird by its plumage while she's banding them, but she also gets the other part of birding, which is being really, really excited about birds and passing that excitement along to others, especially kids and other who want to learn more about nature.

In my plays I make fun of geek culture a lot, because, well, that's who I am. The bit that I return to is that Geeks Ruin Their Own Fun. They get narrow-minded about whatever their topic is, forgetting what made them love it in the first place. It becomes about posturing, and proving you know more than anyone else becomes the focus, rather than having a good time.

Sharon has never lost that sense of wonder. Being outside in nature is still her way of relaxing, and I still see her be stunned into silence as she watches a bird do some behavior that she's seen a thousand times before. But more than that, when she sees it, she'll grab my arm, point it out, then explain why this goofy little brown bird is so fascinating to her. And then it becomes fascinating to me.

 

Final two rescued herons released

Photo by Brian Peterson.

Hello all, NBB here.

The StarTribune has a story about the final two heron chicks that were rescued after a tornado destroyed their rookery on the Mississippi River. Sharon's been involved with this story as one of the first people to investigate the damage, to being part of the rescue team, to helping release the birds.

The Strib talks about the rehabilitation process for the birds:

The nine chicks had spent much of their three-month respite in a 20-yard-by-5-yard kennel, on property in Inver Grove Heights that belongs to Vance Grannis. Their kennel, originally built for rehabilitating swans, also held a pool stocked with fish, giving the birds a vital chance to practice hunting. They also could spread their wings and fly, though not far. The nine young were lucky. They came in healthy, if a bit stressed. The center's staff and volunteers worked hard to keep them that way until they were old enough to care for themselves.

Check out the Strib site for more on the release, and some great pictures of the birds.