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.

Chickadee At The Hummingbird Feeder

For some reason this black-capped chickadee kept flying down to the hummingbird feeder today.  I don't think it was after the nectar. Unusual visitors like house finches, verdins, woodpeckers and even fruit bats are known to partake of the nectar, but I think this chickadee was going for either the water in the ant moat or insects hanging around.

The ruby-throated hummingbirds were not happy about it.  It was funny to see a hummer zoom in right after it and then hear the chickadee sputter in irritation.

Filling The Feeders

This is the one time of year that my oh so trendy neighborhood goes insane. I live in an area of Minneapolis where people go for funky restaurants or to get pierced and tattooed.  It's a fun place to live...apart from this weekend--we have there's a huge art fair and a local pizza joint closes down our street for a block party. Fun events...unless they are in your backyard. It's even worse this year because one of the main streets is under construction so parking is already next to impossible. So, rather than sitting at home fuming about how the hippies and their late night drum circles are giving me writer's block, I am keeping Cabal company this weekend and Saturday Lorraine and I will head out to the fair to admire our blue ribbons on our honey.

When I arrived, I filled some of the feeders--the hummingbird activity has really increased in the last week, August is the best time to feed hummingbirds up here. The young are fledging and the adults need to bulk up for the coming migration.  As I crouched on the ground filling the HummZinger with home made nectar, I could hear impatient buzzing above my head, they were circling me like coked up vultures, anxious for fresh nectar in the feeder.

As I was topping off the feeders, Cabal was having a stare down with the gutter. Something inside was taunting him and it was his duty to rid the metal tubing of the small furry creature inside. As he would focus and salivate, occasional chitters echoed from inside, causing him to twitch with excitement. He slapped the metal a few times but the creature would not budge.

It set my camera at the opening of the the gutter and got a shot of Cabal's tormentor--a chipmunk.  All it took was for Cabal to be momentarily distracted by some other aroma carried on the wind and the chipmunk beat a hasty escape, ready to baffle the pooch another day.

70 Bird Day

Today was a great noisy bird day. The woods that were so quiet three weeks ago were alive with sound. Rose-breasted grosbeaks were trying to sing above Nashville, Tennessee and yellow warblers. Yellow-throated and red-eyed vireos were lurking in the tops of the trees with one scarlet tanager following behind. Oddly enough there was blue-winged warbler that just seemed to be following me around and at one point I found a lone male turkey strutting alone on the top of a hill who flew off as soon as it realized I was watching. He was all puffed up in his glory and kind of froze when he found me as if he were thinking, "Oh crap, I'm being watched!' I ended up seeing over 70 species and the highlights include a sandhill crane pair feeding along a road in farm field, a flock of male bobolinks competing with each other and of course an indigo bunting feeding below the finch feeders.

The Nova Bird camera got a workout today:

A black-capped chickadee hangs upside down to get some no-melt peanut butter suet. The orioles were will all over this as well today.

A male hairy loads up on some no melt peanut butter suet on a log. He kept coming up and stuffing his beak full and suspect there are already some young hairys in a hole somewhere nearby.

The ruby-throated hummingbird male found a quiet moment without orioles at the hummingbird feeder. I really don't care for hummingbird art but I'm always excited about them in real life. How can that be a bird and not a bug!! It baffles my little budgie mind.

The orioles were either eating or chasing each other today. This time of year you just can't seem to put out enough grape jelly. There's a huge recycled orange jelly feeder just to the left of this feeder and it was occupied.

Oriole Got a Hummer

Put the camera on a Mini Humzinger this morning (which is one of my favorite hummingbird feeders--they are easy to fill and to clean and they don't drip, I really dislike fancy hummingbird feeders that drip). Anyway, I filled the ant moat with some grape jelly and mealworms and of course the orioles have found it so now we have one of the sissiest bird fights going on. A beautiful oriole descends to the feeder to eat and in zooms the cute little hummingbird twittering angrily for it to leave, the oriole tries to whistle it away to no avail. This contest isn't very macho let me tell ya. Kind of like watching Liberace and Tiny Tim in a fight.