Birds & Beers & OpenSky

Birds and Beers is this Thursday, October 29 at 6:30pm at Merlin's Rest and we have something to celebrate.  I've been testing the waters with OpenSky--creating a shop that only has products I like, use and enjoy.  Well, I thought to myself:  all the best bird companies give back to the birding community and I'd love the blog to be able to help with that.  I told OpenSky that I wanted 10% of my share to go to young birder programs for the American Birding Association.  They said, "Great, we'll match that!" What a cool company!  I never had the chance to go to any kind of bird convention or one specifically for kids.  I would love it if the shop gets enough sales to provide a full scholarship to some aspiring kid birder!  So, if you have any birding needs, check out my OpenSky Store and know that all the things in there are products that I love and that you can see in my photos in my blog and that 20% of the profits are going to help fun young birder programs!  I'm so excited about this and happy that the blog can help kids in some sort of way.

To help celebrate, OpenSky is offering discount codes for five products and you'll be able to get the discount code by attending Birds and Beers this Thursday. Wingscapes BirdCam, EZ lift hanger, Aspects Hummzinger Mini, Finch Flocker, Green Mesh Feeder.

As always, Birds and Beers is an informal gathering of birders to get together and talk some birds.  Anyone from the hardcore lister to the backyard birder to someone who has heard about birding and wants to find out what it's about is invited to attend.  If you have a bird blog--come and tell us about it!  If you are a field trip leader--come and share your upcoming trips!  Have a cool research project--we'd love to learn about what you are doing!  Have a Christmas Bird Count in need of some volunteers--come ask us!  It's low key and fun--many new birders to the area have found some great birding partners.

Young Finches Learning The Ropes At The Feeders

As signs of fall migration make themselves achingly apparent, many of the goldfinches in my area are still holding on strong to breeding plumage.  As I was digiscoping this male yesterday, I noticed differences in the bird calls around me.  No indigo bunting singing on territory or red-eyed vireo--that was first this month.  There were contact calls of warblers.  I did hear a scarlet tanager giving the old "chick-burr" behind me and noted that while the tanager was here, all the orioles were gone.  I know most people in my neck of the woods have lamented our cold summer.  Wearing a jacket in August is crazy, even by Minnesota standards, but I have loved it.  Although, as much as I enjoy cool nights and several days without turning on the air conditioner, I look at all my friends who cannot get a tomato to turn red in their gardens this summer and wonder how this affects the seed crops and insects fall migrants need to head south.  I also wonder if this means an exceptionally long winter as well.

I did notice this male goldfinch on the long tube with kind of a reverse goatee.  He's bald around his beak.  I seem to recall seeing this before in a goldfinch either last year or two years ago.  I wonder if it's an odd molt or some sort of mites (not unlike the bald cardinals we see this time of year).  This particular male had at least one recently fledged chick following him around to the feeders begging to be fed.

The adult male is on the bottom of the sunflower tube feeder and the begging chick is on the upper perch.  The adult would dutifully demonstrate how to get seed out of the port, while the younger bird above continued to beg.  Eventually, the young bird left the adult alone and tried pecking around the feeder.  It ignored the gaping opening of the feeding port, and pecked at the plexiglass tube.  It could see the seed and couldn't understand why it couldn't get at the food.

Eventually, the adult male flew to a different feeder and what does the young finch do? Continue to ignore the open port with food and hang upside down towards where the adult had been feeding and unsuccessfully pecking at the tube around the port.  Not the brightest bulb on the tree.

The young finch followed the adult male over to the Nyjer feeder and begrudgingly began to eat the seed out of that port.  All the while, continuing to flutter its wings in a food begging behavior.

The young bird finally left the Nyjer feeder and flew over to a black oil sunflower feeder.  Soon afterwards, it was joined by a young house finch (who had just a hint of pink show up along his flanks).  Both birds fed in peace, but periodically the larger house finch would lunge toward the goldfinch if it got too close.  I wonder if these will be the last of the fledglings I will see for the year?

Indigo Bunting At The Finch Feeder

I was walking by the kitchen window when a glimpse of blue caught my eye on the finch feeder.  Among the oodles of goldfinches was a male indigo bunting.  I'm not sure why, but he is usually a cagey little fella.  When I see him at the feeders, any movement causes him to take off in a panic.  You would think the other birds chilled out at the feeder would help him keep his cool.  I pressed myself against the refrigerator to try and blend my shape to get some photos of him. I even tried video and you can see in the video for the first few minutes, he is very suspicious.  He takes a few pecks, but then keeps a hairy eyeball in my direction, eventually, he gets a better perch (at least for me and filming):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf2NcClecX0[/youtube]

He stayed for a few minutes this time, rather than me catching a streak of blue fleeing the feeder at meteorite speed as I walk by a window.

I love this time of year--a male indigo bunting next to a male American goldfinch.  There was also a male purple finch bebopping around, but couldn't work him into the shot.

Here's a bit more bunting for your viewing pleasure:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_ZGlDYrn4s[/youtube]

A Few More Finches

I need to burn through a ton of redpoll and siskin photos before I leave. Non Birding Bill and I are knee deep in sorting through the oodles of blog entries that came in. I got a much bigger response to the contest than expected and it's going to be tough to narrow down to the top ten. These will start showing up once a day on February 18 and then post once a day.

I have no idea what my internet situation will be while I'm in Guatemala. If I find a chance to upload a photo or video, I will. However, I have a feeling that my chance to blog while there will be narrow. Watch for updates on Twitter.

I'm watching all the winter finch activity and wondering if they will still be around when I return at the end of the month. When we were at Mr. Neil's last week, there were so many finches descending on his feeding station that when the flock suddenly took off in fear of a predator, the culmination of wings made a jarring "woosh" sound. So many tiny birds makings such a mighty sound just with feathers.  Even the 36" long finch feeder isn't enough perches for them!

The pine siskins went after all sorts of food, from finch mixes to this woopecker mix in the wire mesh feeder above. This mix has sunflower seeds in and out of the shell, nuts, and dried fruit. Many of the pine siskins at the feeder have a hint of yellow, but some really stood out.

Check out the yellow on this male! Oh he's splash of bright during the winter.

Okay, I seriously need to pack for Guatemala. I'll be posting a few more thing before I go, but NBB is telling me to get my pack on.

Finch Fight Club

The other day while we were doing a bee inspection, I kept an eye on Mr. Neil's finch feeder--they were chock full of common redpolls and pine siskins. You can see some of the tracking of pine siskins at Audubon's Great Backyard Bird Count website...interesting that they are calling it a winter finch invasion. I recall a few year ago when the thousands of great gray owls were in Minnesota, a couple of ornithologists' took me to to task for using the term "invasion" instead of "irruption" (apparently the proper term for ornithologists). I did some digiscoping and digivideoing while at Mr. Neils and even set up a couple of different motion sensitive cameras. Check out some of the finch hissy fits I got with the Wingscapes camera:

Redpolls fighting!

More fighting!

And yet more fighting!

And even picking on a poor little junco! Here's a digivideo of some of the sqaubbling on our 36" long finch feeder:

Winter Finches

Here's a video from Mr. Neil's feeders yesterday. You can see goldfinches in winter plumage, common redpolls, and pine siskins. The most fun is the sound of the hundreds of finches in the trees waiting to come down to the feeders. I love the up slurred, "shreeeee" of the siskins!  They are all over the Finch Flocker!

Pine Siskins and Bonfires and Bees

Just a reminder: The next Birds and Beers is this Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 6pm at Merlin's Rest.

This weekend was kind of a blur, I'm still trying to catch up. This early winter weather is just perfect for a one last hurrah before the hardcore cold temperatures force us inside. Non Birding Bill got Mr. Neil to host a bonfire gathering.

We had a great bonfire going and we burned some unusable beehive frames which made for some spectacular pyrotechnic effects with the old wood. Speaking of frames, we still have some frames full of honey to extract and a big fancy extractor. I thought that maybe we could do some extracting at the bonfire gathering--lots of friends over, "Hey, don't you want to be a junior beekeeper and extract some honey?" We could all take turns, running the crank. Alas, much like all the beekeeping equipment out there, NO INSTRUCTIONS (beekeeping equipment manufacturers--that sucks and makes me not like your products and is off putting to new beekeepers).

So, little was extracted and we now have a fancy extractor that we are not real clear on how to use. Lorraine has gone to the cheesecloth method for some of our frames.

This morning we woke up to a dusting of snow and LOTS of finches at the feeders--the long tube feeder almost had all 20 perches were full. Non Birding Bill and I headed out to our remaining hives we are going to over winter--Kitty and Kelli. We were going to screw in the metal entrance reducers so the girls would have less area to defend and to also keep mice from moving inside.

When we arrived, we found paw prints which looked remarkably like skunk at the entrance of both hives. This snow fell in the early morning hours. That jerk skunk had just been there a mere few hours before NBB and myself. Skunks knock at the entrance of a hive. This makes the bees angry and they come out to attack, the skunk eats them, apparently unfazed by the stinging. We have carpet tacking around the entrances to prevent this (when the skunks come knocking, they get pricked by the nails), but it's gotten strewn around this past bee season. So NBB and I rearranged it to give that skunk a few good pricks if it comes back. Hanz (the guy who does yard maintenance) built our bees a wicked bad electric fence to keep bears out, Lorraine is going to ask him to add one more line of electricity, closer to the ground and closer to skunk height to encourage the b@stard to look for food elsewhere.

NBB and I put our ears to both hives and heard contented buzzing from within each hive. Love that!

Early plans for next season--six hives! We'll divide Kelli into 2 hives (cause she's gonna swarm and if we divide her, we can control the swarm), 3 new hives, and Kitty...well, that's our angriest hive and we're just gonna let her do whatever she wants to do. If she wants to swarm, then she can swarm. I'm not gonna argue that hive.

There was a constant flow of goldfinches all morning. None of them were banded, so it was just a steady stream of hundreds visiting. The day before, I had noticed a couple of pine siskins and the more I watched the goldfinches...

...the more I would see streaky pine siskins mingle in among the flock. Which is right on target according to the Winter Finch Forecast: "A conifer seed specialist in winter, most siskins should leave the province this fall because the spruce cone crop is poor in the boreal forest. It is uncertain whether the huge white pine seed crop will keep some siskins in central and northern Ontario this winter."

I put some fine ground sunflower hearts and thistle on the tree stump. Goldfinches flew in for it, as did juncos and (of course) pine siskins. In the above photo, you can see some of that yellow edging on the wing feathers of the siskins. If you have goldfinches in your yard and you've never noticed a pine siskin before, take a closer look at your finches. Pine siskins can be easily mistaken for goldfinches in winter plumage. But look at the breast. If it's clear, it's a goldfinch, if it's super streaky, it's a pine siskin.

Once two or three siskins were on the stump, more moved in. It wasn't too long before the siskins outnumbered the goldfinches! I didn't get a photo of it, but we did have one crazy pine siskin going to the no melt peanut butter suet. I'd never seen a siskin on suet before, I thought they were strick seed eaters.