Another Day On The Job, Another Animal Part In The Tree

I honestly thought yesterday was going to be the strangest day on the particular job assignment I have here in the southern Midwest. It apparently wasn't quite over. Another day on the job, another day of animal parts in trees!

As I was walking my point, something in the trees caught my attention. Do you see anything? If you have colorblindness, you may not. Basically, I noticed a red bird not moving.

Closer inspection revealed an eviscerated male cardinal wedged and pinned to branch.  I don't think this is a case of a sharpie or Cooper's hawk dropping some prey after eating from up high in a tree.  The body of the cardinal was really wedged into the fork and hooked well on the branch. I suspect the body was cached here by a shrike, but dang on, shrikes are only 9 - 10" long and a cardinal is about 8.5" long.  That's some fancy beak work to kill a bird that size. Since shrikes don't have the talons for gripping and killing that hawks and owls do, after they kill their prey with their beak, they try to wedge it into a branch or in the case of small prey, impale it on thorns or barbed wire as a larder for later or as a way to hold it still while they hack off strips of meat.

I imagine it was a nice meal for that shrike!

Kind of excited to see what sort of dead stuff I'll find in trees today!

Yes, I've Seen The Golden Eagle Attacks Kid Video. Yes, It's Fake

If you were not on social media last night, you may have missed this discussion.  But if you are remotely into birds, especially birds of prey, someone will send you this video: WARNING IF WATCHING THIS AT WORK. THERE IS A SWEAR WORD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE0Q904gtMI&feature=youtu.be

Yes. Fake.

And in case you still don't believe that this video is as authentic as Kenny Rogers's face, here's an article on the golden eagle attacks kid hoax video that identifies the makers of the video.

So, please everyone who keeps sending me an email or text saying, "I told you an eagle could grab a kid,"...stop.

Dead Stuff In My Office

FYI: No podcast this week.  I got called away to work in Missouri for the week and well, we just don't like Skyping in for the Podcast.  We'll be back next week. Also, kinda gross photos ahead.

I have a weird lifestyle.  I don't often know where I'm going to be from day to day. Most recently that came to an extreme level when a quick phone call Wednesday afternoon turned in to me on the Illinois/Missouri border on Friday afternoon to help with a habitat survey.

As I travel, I frequently post to social media what I call Today's Office, which is basically a shot of what my outdoor office looks like that day.  Often, it's beautiful.

Then there are these sort days like I had yesterday:

Look close...that's not a bird in that tree...I think it's some sort of way to let nature clean off of a deer skull.  Apart from the weirdness of suddenly noticing a giant deer head with an amazing rack suddenly appear out of the branches like a magic eye puzzle is unsettling.  But then you just tell yourself, "Oh, those hunters." And press on.

Then you find another one:

And you note the rotting and shuttered farmhouse surrounded by goats and how it looks like something Jason would live in on the property and think, "Maybe I'll step a little livelier on this survey."

But deer decapitation wasn't the only fun body parts I found in today's office!

My field partner called me over to see "something cool" and he's not as into birds shouted, "You have to see this, it's so cool!" And he was right.  It looked like some sort of cache, possibly a fox had left a large, dark wing wedged into some trees.  Hmmm, what could this be? I had noticed some large black feathers as we were walking and took mental note.  I was trying to resist the temptation to explore the wing further because I have a completely different assignment to this survey and it doesn't involve CSI Special Bird Unit. But I couldn't help but take a photo and notice a familiar smell...mmmm...vulture.  And I wondered given my location if it was black or turkey.

We soon found the rest of the carcass...yep, turkey vulture based on the light gray edging on the underside of the wing.

As if that weren't proof enough, we found the head!! And that totally sealed the deal for turkey vulture based on the nose opening--look how huge it is! Black vultures do not have the sensitive aroma sniffing abilities that turkey vultures have.  Definitely a cool find and one of the things I love about my super wacky unpredictable schedule lifestyle.

I can neither confirm nor deny that this head is in a make shift field envelope tucked away in a back pack in my hotel room (yes, I do in fact have a permit if I did choose to pick up the decomposing vulture head). I'm more worried about recriminations that could be suffered when a particular cohabitant finds out.

Site update, and why image previews aren't working

Hello all, NBB here. As you may or may not be aware, we've been dealing with an ongoing spam attack here. The problem does not affect you, the reader nor your computers; it's an exploit designed to screw around with our rankings in search engines.

As part of trying to fix this problem, I've had to make some changes to how the site works on the back end. One effect of this is that image previews aren't working right now.

Thank you for your patience.

Why I Love Social Media

I love Bill Oddie.  I got to go birding with him last year in Israel, great birder and loads of fun.  People in the US generally aren't familiar with him unless they were fans of watching the original Doctor Who on late night public television and caught The Goodies, or are professional comedians (again, The Goodies). How awesome are The Goodies? Someone literally died laughing while watching the infamous Ecky Thump episode. You can find quite a few episodes on YouTube, I recommend Ecky Thump, Goodies The Movies AKA The British Film Industry (the ending montage is comedy gold) or Kitten Kong.  Though my friend Max would feel I was remiss if I didn't include Punky Business. It's a little Monty Python, a little Monkees with a touch of Benny Hill.  If any of that appeals to you, start Googling. Mr. Oddie is known over in the UK for not only his mad comedic skills, but as a writer, birder, naturalist and nature program host.  (That's right, he's the total package and my second favorite Bill on the planet).

Well, as fate would have it, my partner in beekeeping Mr. Neil once interviewed him in the early 1980s (and Neil is the one who introduced me to Mr. Oddie years ago, by loaning me one of his books thinking that we would be kindred spirits). And we are.  I am unbelievably honored that Mr. Oddie wrote the foreword to my book coming in 2013, 1001 Things Every Birder Should Know.

I was out with Neil today as we put some insulation around our beehives for the winter. Bill Tweeted a photo to us waving a hello:

Isn't he adorable? What a sweetheart of a guy.  So, we tweeted back:

That's me looking wacky, there's Neil looking debonaire. Also, note the distinct habitat difference between the two photos.

Neil mentioned that he wrote an article about Bill in 1984 for a magazine I wasn't familiar with called Knave.  With the help of his personal assistant Lorraine, I went to look it up in his vast archives so I could scan the article and email it to Bill...and discovered that it was a bird magazine, but in the British sense. There were a lot of naked ladies in there! Apparently it's the equivalent of Playboy. Wow.  Hair was a lot different in the early to mid 1980s (wink wink, nudge nudge). Non Birding Bill was happy to take it and scan the article for me...thanks, NBB.

So, a fun, if not educational day for me.

Birds and Beers coming up! And Random Crow

Just an FYI for Twin Cities peeps, there's a Birds and Beers this week on Thursday, December 13, 2012 at 6pm – 9pm at the Lion’s Tap in Eden Prairie, MN.

One of the things I love after a good snow is how crazy blue the sky can get in Minnesota.  This was the day after the snow dump, accented by one of the lovely crows that frequents our neighborhood. We live within five miles of the Minneapolis winter crow roost so quite a few pass over every morning and night.

This bird hunkered down for a little bit, dozing and periodically eating snow until a smaller flock of crows came by and it joined them. I wonder if the roost is so noisy that some crows just need a break for a nap during the day? Kind of like getting stuck at the party dorm in college.

Birdchick Podcast #126: Birders Argue (Whaaaaaaaa?)

Elders of the Internet, save us all.  The American Birding Association opened up a debate about using taped calls of birds to find them in the field. Also, we can see how people voted about what areas could be included in the ABA listing field.

Study muses that some species of birds use cigarette butts to deter parasites in the nest.

For the birder who has everything...

For some reason, Non Birding Bill will talk about this sketch from SNL.

Bunny Murder Mystery

WARNING: Some people may find a photo in here gross...especially if you are of the Disapproving Rabbits persuasion.

I know this may shock some of you, but it's December and we got SNOW in Minnesota! In the Twin Cities we got roughly 12" from Winter Storm Caesar. Much to the chagrin of the National Weather Service, the Weather Channel has started naming winter storms. On the one hand that seems silly, but on the other, in this day and age of social media and climate change bring about more extreme weather and storm systems, it makes sense.  We can't call every snow storm Snomaggeddon or SnOMG.

But we got our first real snow of the season in the form of 12" and not the expect 4 " - 6" that usually is our first dusting. It was beautiful snow if you didn't have anywhere to be and was warm enough that a walk through the neighborhood yield gorgeous views like at Lakewood Cemetery yesterday. Not much in the way of bird action, but I imagine birds had staked out feeders and thick bushes to wait out the storm.

As I was walking home, a lump on the unshoveled but well trampled sidewalk caught my attention. At a distance I wondered if someone had lost a scarf or as is becoming all too common in my neighborhood, a wayward hair weave.

Closer inspection revealed it to be the remains of an eastern cottontail rabbit. A few nudges with my boot showed the carcass to be fresh and malleable, not stiff and several hours old. Hm.  I, of course, had to study the surrounding tracks.  I noticed right away boot prints and crow tracks and was wondering if someone's dog got the bunny and the crows came in for the ample food source (we're withing five miles of a large crow roost). But I couldn't find dog paw prints with the bunny prints.

Then I found what I was looking for, rabbit tracks with wing prints. What struck my attention was how the wing prints seemed short next to the rabbit tracks and that the rabbit tracks didn't stop.  I would expect that a red-tailed hawk would be the raptor going after a rabbit in my neighborhood (we have a few urban residents). And when red-tails nail a rabbit, the bunny track usually stops.

These tracks went all over from the sidewalk to the yard, you could even see where the rabbit tried to turn around.  Based on the short width of the wings and the tracks, I wondered if what killed the rabbit was a Cooper's hawk?  That's a very common hawk in our neighborhood too and yes they are large and can go for rabbits, they do not have feet suited for dispatching a bunny quickly.  They have skinny toes meant for crushing songbirds and pigeons, not the big beefy toes of a red-tail. That rabbit wouldn't have gone gently into that goodnight.

The corner where I found the bunny carcass and evidence is well traveled and close to a coffee shop.  I suspect once the Cooper's got the rabbit, it couldn't eat that much as there would be people walking by, flushing it.  The several crow prints makes me wonder if they got more of the bunny than the hawk.

Survival continues even in the most urban of neighborhoods.

TV Show Is Casting Birders!!

OK, kids, it's time to polish those bins and put on your Sunday best convertible pants! A national cable network is looking for birders to appear on a new television series about birding.  If you are an avid birder – bordering on obsessive – we want you.  You do not need to have a degree in ornithology or a book coming out (although if you do, we want to hear from you). Please send your contact information, a short description of your birding experience (where you bird for instance) and a photo (if you have one) to natgeocasting@gmail.com.  (Please put “Bird” in the subject line.) 

Send it now. Because, after all, the early bird...  well, you know the rest. I personally hope that this morphs into an Amazing Race style show with Kenn Kaufman, David Allen Sibley, Richard Crossley and Lillian Stokes all sharing the same vehicle. But this is probably what we'll get:

The Lonely & Quiet Of Winter

I have been surveying the same patch for on and off for the last three years in southern Minnesota. I really enjoy watching how the patch changes during the seasons: seeing when certain birds arrive, listening to all the birds on territory, noticing when certain birds leave and when winter birds arrive.

But every December I'm always surprised at how lonely I find myself during my many hours in the field. Oh sure there's still some crows and bluejays around and there are the bald eagles which I'm watching for but it's still so quiet compared to what it had been the several months previous.

This year I'm getting a bonus. I've had such delights as the above common redpolls and a few white-winged crossbills too. And they're large flocks of Lapland longspurs all around and they're now being joined by large flocks of snow buntings. But these birds are predator wary and not like feeder birds. However, these birds are different. They are wary and distrustful of someone watching them. It's not like the birds that were singing on territory that were so focused on proving that they were the best male for breeding. These birds are constantly on the alert for predators. I don't blame them, I've seen plenty of merlins, northern harriers and Cooper's hawks around here even make me worry for their safety.

But combined with the wind, these fields are now a lonely place.