I’ve been thinking about loons lately. This is not hard do do because every time I turn around there is a loon either watching me fish, yodeling off in the distance, flying overhead, or feeding its babies just off to my right as I sit here writing stuff. This year, the pair of loons that lives in front of the cabin seems to be producing two offspring … the young ones grew quickly to near adult size and seem fit and healthy as far as one can tell. Last year, the pair living here produced zero offspring.
Continue reading Thinking skeptically about loons
Tag Archives: Birds
Snipers To Kill Penguin Killers in Oz
Professional snipers have been brought in to guard a vulnerable colony of penguins in Australia.
Potograph source
Continue reading Snipers To Kill Penguin Killers in Oz
The Science of Birdwatching
Birdwatching might be a casual activity, a hobby, an avocation, or even a profession (often, perhaps, an obsession) depending on the bird watcher, but there is always a science to it, in at least two ways. First, there is the science of how to do it. In this sense, the term “science” means something vernacular. We as easily say “birdwatching is an art” as we could say “there is a science to it” and here we are using both terms( “art” and “science”) in their older sense where science is how we approach things with our minds, and art is how we approach things with our hands.
Continue reading The Science of Birdwatching
Notes from the North Woods
Someone asked me at dinner “What time did you get up” and as I was trying to remember what time I woke up this morning, and kinda wondering why she was asking me that, my wife answered for me: “Noon.”
So I’m thinking “Why does Amanda think I woke up at noon. As a matter of fact, at noon, we were just arriving at the cabin up here …. oh … ” …brain kicks in … “we got up here a noon. Got it.”
At noon. We got Up. To The Lake. … It’s a Minnesota thing.
Today I heard about a maple tree that fell in half …. the top half fell off … because woodpeckers nested in it and overdid the nest building activity. What this misses is that a rotted tree (and this tree is rotted) has many hundreds of thousands of organisms distributed among hundreds of species, including fungi, bacteria, worms, insects, and so on, working on that woody material. The woodpeckers, being more visible, get blamed. How unfair to the woodpeckers.
The resident loons have two chicks. You could tell they have two chicks without seeing them because the territorial/warning call they give when they have chicks is distinctly different from the chick-free territorial/warning call. But from where I’m sitting right now, I can also simply look out the window and see the chicks, which are a the moment riding on mom/dad’s back. The chicks look no more than 48 hours old. I’m tempted to go over and look at the nest to see if there are any egg fragments, but I’m afraid of getting pecked to death by the loons. (Of course, they’ve probably abandoned the nest by now anyway). These loons did not produce young last year.
Caught and released innumerable bluegills this afternoon. Observed numerous painted turtles in the “lagoon,” and the bigger female turtles are pulling out all over the place to lay eggs. And, we are having a (light) lake fly hatch, and there is another cycle of tree frog lekking going on. A lot of K-strategy organisms are busily scarfing up the r-strategy outputs.
Today’s birds en route from the twin cities to Cass County, and the vicinity of Woman Lake:
- Bald Eagle (pair with two-year old and the two-year old)
- black capped chickadee
- blue jay
- brown cow bird
- Canada goose
- Common Golden eye
- common tern (a good one)
- common yellow throat
- crow
- grackle
- gray catbird
- great blue heron
- hairy woodpecker (breeding pair)
- loon (breeding pair)
- mallard (breeding pairs)
- nuthatch (heard)
- phoebe
- pileated woodpecker
- robin
- ruby throated hummingbird
- tree swallow
- trumpeter swan (pair)
- veery (heard)
- Whip-poor-will (heard)
- wood thrush
- yellow bellied sap sucker
Not a bad day for your basic casual birding! (Most of the more interesting sightings were Amanda’s. I was busy flipping fish out of the lake.)
SpecMapular I And the Bird Web Carnival!
A spectacular edition of the birdy blog carnival, I and the Bird (# 102) is up at The Birder’s Lounge. The carnival provides a map showing the approximate location of each bird discussed.
For the record, the following is a somewhat more accurate location for the birds in my post. The X is where the sighting sarted, and the circle is approximately where I saw the falcon last.
The falcon eats tonight …
My car was parked a block away owing to the plethora of construction equipment and dumpsters around the house. On my way over, I was looking at the storm clouds coming in and wondering what kind of weather we would have tonight, when I noticed the crows going nuts across the street. It sounded to me like they were mobbing something, and my first thought in these situations is “Great Horned Owl.” So I stood in the gathering breeze and watched in the direction of the crows to figure out what was going on.
Suddenly I spied rapid alate movement among the mid size trees and shrubbery of the vacant suburban lot across the way, but I could see that this was neither raptor nor crow. Then, a few more movements, and I discerned that I was observing a small flock of pigeons moving in perfect unison back and forth among the vegetation in two or three residential yards and the vacant lot. A strong burst of wind slapped me on the back and made me look up, and that is when I saw it.
Galapagos Diary
Galapagos Diary: A Complete Guide to the Archipelgo’s Birdlife
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… Continuing in our look at bird books to consider, I wanted to bring in the Galapagos Diary. I cannot tell you which is the best book for birding in the Galapagos, because, sadly, I’ve never done that myself. But my daughter, Julia, has, and she recommends this title. She brought a copy home from the Galapagos, and I am personally quite impressed by it. If you are planning a trip to the Galapagos, have a look at it.
What makes for a good bird?
As I write this, I am preparing for a trip up north. As we drive north we will follow the ecotone between the prairies and the deciduous woodlands, then track the ecotone between the prairies and the coniferous woodlands. Then we will make a turn and drive into the coniferous zone, cross the Mississippi, and then with a couple of small but palpable jumps in elevation and another hour and a half drive north, enter the lake region. Here, the primary vegetation cover certain times of the year is the nearly invisible diatom and algae layer on the top of the clear lakes, the bog plants, and the marsh grasses, even though the white pine gets most of the credit for making the place look pretty. I surmise that the dominant fauna is flies, broadly speaking (mosquitoes are a form of fly) but the deer, wolves, bear and beaver are far more often fetishized in the locally hawked wooden and plastic icons.
But really, we come here for the birds.
Continue reading What makes for a good bird?
Bird and Mammal Field Guides for Africa
As long as we are on the subject (this week) of field guides, I thought I’d go ahead and suggest what guides you might take if you happen to be planning a trip to Central, East or southern Africa1
But since we are doing Africa, we need to do mammals as well as birds. But let’s start with the birds.
Birding Binoculars
I am not an expert on binoculars, but that is not going to stop me from giving you some excellent advice.
Wildlife watching requires binoculars, and although I’m focusing on birding here, everything we’re talking about applies generally. So this advice may be useful for your Safari to Africa where birds will be only one component of your viewing.
Here are a few guidelines that I’ve found to be useful. I’d love to see people add comments.
1) The person in the store knows crap.
2) Bigger binoculars will always be optically better all else being equal. In other words, whatever you are looking for optically will be more easily achieved if the designers do not have to make it all happen in a miniature binocular. Or, putting it yet another way, similar optical results can be achieved for less money with a larger pair of binoculars. Bigger is better.
3a) Big binoculars are a pain to carry around, won’t fit in your carry on as easily, and in general are less convenient. Small is better.
3b) Almost all small highly portable binoculars under $150.00 are unsatisfactory, even if they carry a famous name brand. They might seem OK when you try them out, but once you use actually good binoculars you won’t like them so much.
4) You need to have one pair of binoculars per person, so if you are a couple, get two.
5) A really nice compromise between size, quality, and price is the Orion Savannah 8×32 Phase-Coated Waterproof Binoculars
For our second pair, I think we are going back to the Orions.
My final piece of advice: 7) Use the binoculars. Spend time looking at the creature. After you’ve had it in view long enough to get the distinguishing marks down, and to know what you are looking at and what it is doing, keep looking for a while longer. Interesting things sometimes happen.
The basic North American bird book
You’ll notice that I’m reviewing bird books. (Don’t worry, not all will be US based.) Please feel free to chime in with your suggestions and comments.
The ultimate bird book for North America has always been two books: both Peterson’s field guides, one for the East, one for the West. Now, the new Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America (Peterson Field Guide Series)
Anyway, even though I find myself not liking the publisher too much, the book is a standard and you need to have one.
The Young Birder’s Guide: A Bird Book for the Middle Schooler
This is a repost of an earlier review.
This is a new offering written by Bill Thompson III and published by the same people who give us the Peterson Field Guide to the Birds and many other fine titles. The book includes excellent illustrations by Julie Zickefoose.
A birder since childhood, Thompson says he would have loved a book like this one when he was just getting interested in birds. Now a father of two, he spent many hours over a two-year period with his now eleven-year-old daughter’s class getting their advice on what to include in the book.
Bill Thompson III is the editor of Bird Watcher’s Digest, a bimonthly magazine with 70,000 subscribers and the author of Identify Yourself: The 50 Most Common Birding Identification Challenges. He lives with his wife, author and illustrator Julie Zickefoose and their two children on eighty birdy acres in Ohio.
Continue reading The Young Birder’s Guide: A Bird Book for the Middle Schooler
A good day for birds.
This was not an intensive bird watching day. This was a day driving to the cabin, sitting in the cabin writing, looking out the window, driving to run an errand, going to town for dinner, sitting in the cabin looking out the window some more, etc.
But the birds insisted on performing. So I thought I’d give you a list.,
En route north from the Twin Cities:
- Two probable trumpeter swans heading west.
- A flock of about 45 cormorants heading north. Leech Lake look out!
- Near Fort Ripley: Rough Legged Hawk?
- Blue Jay
- Nisswa, overlookng Round Lake: Bald Eagle in tree
- Lesser Scaup (small flock)
At the Cabin (Woman Lake):
- Bald Eagle 1 (or two) of our nesting pair. Bald Eagle 3 (yearling).
- Loons 1 and 2 feeding.
- Loons 1 and 2 feeding with otter.
- Loons 1 and 2 getting harassed by BE 3
- Loons 1 and 2 joined by interloping male Loon 3, displays, much ado for a while, Loon 3 leaves (unlike three years ago, when one of the two males died in the ensuing fight)
- White throated sparrow
- Hooded mergansers (2 males breeding plus 1 female)
- Red breasted nuthatch
- White breated nuthatch
- Phoebes
- BC Chickadees
- Various woodpeckers (sound only)
- Common Goldeneye (sitting on edge of ice in the lake)
Longville:
- RW Blackbirds
- Loon
South of Longville
- Bald Eagle sitting alone in the forest.
The above does not count numerous LBB’s unidentified.
A New Field Guide to the Birds from The Smithsonian
OK, not so new, but still relevant. The following is a repost of a review of this book.
Having said that, I do think there is room for improvement in this product, so do please read the fine print:
Continue reading A New Field Guide to the Birds from The Smithsonian
Where have all the ducklings gone??
Or, more exactly, where are they all going to go during the next two or three months?
I’m sitting here between a large frozen lake and a small “pond” (connected to the lake with a channel) that has patches of open water on it. (The melting on the pond is probably because the bioactivity at the bottom of the pond increases water temperature.) There is a pair of mallards on the pond, and I expect that in a few weeks there will be two or three mallards and three or for mergansers, all females, and each with between six and 12 or so ducklings. These 60 ducklings will initially hang out only with their mothers, but as time goes by the mothers will overlap their feeding territories and night time roosts, and the ducklings will start to form a creche. It is even possible for a multispecies creche to form.
Continue reading Where have all the ducklings gone??