Another Photo Mash-Up

Sometimes when I get strings of flight shots, particularly when the bird is beyond ideal range for good enlargements, I like to make a composite shot showing the various aspects the bird takes on in its flight. The last one I posted was of a sky-dancing Northern Harrier. This time the subject is a White-throated Swift taken on The Nature Conservancy's Carpenter Ranch property west of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I was there on a trip during the Colorado Field Ornithologists' annual convention out of Craig, Colorado. (Click the pic to enlarge.)
The concept is pretty straightforward- first, shoot lots of frames as fast as your camera will fire (in my case, 5 frames per second.) Then, at home I pick shots that show the different aspects that I'd like to include. Out of these, I try to pick one with suitable room around it (although if I run out of room I can enlarge the "canvas" in Photoshop and clone in more sky for background.) Then, I crop out the bird in each additional frame I'll use, and use the "duplicate layer" function in Photoshop to copy it onto the master frame. Then, I use the magic wand tool to select the sky in the copied layer and cut it out (just using the "edit-cut" command), leaving only the bird in that layer (sometimes having to adjust the tolerance level so it selects the right amount of sky, leaving only the bird behind.) Then I can move the layer with the bird in it until I get it where I want it in the sequence. Occasionally I'll rotate the layer to fit the sequence as well- I can't always keep a level frame of reference since I'm not shooting off of a tripod. Plus, my sequences are really photo illustrations, not necessarily sequential shots showing exactly where the bird was in each successive frame, and I nearly always leave out frames for various reasons. In fact, sometimes I put them together in different order than the shooting sequence because it tells the story better, in my opinion. By their very nature, swifts are tough to photograph so I was pretty pleased to get those shots, even at a distance. Frustratingly, when nimble, fast birds like these are closer in and have much better potential for detail, they are also much harder to track and focus on. I did get a couple of cool closer shots, though. This one isn't tack-sharp, but the bird is about to nab a bug in flight (total serendipity- didn't see the bug 'till I got home), as swifts are wont to do. By the next frame 1/5 second later the bug was already gone- yum!! And one more parting swift shot... The day wasn't all about swifts, though. Led by Ted Floyd (editor of Birding Magazine and birder extraordinaire), we tallied 95 species entirely on foot (us, not the birds), walking about 8 miles around the amazing property on the Yampa River. Fortunately, the mileage was mitigated by a near-total lack of climbing. Our steepest challenge was to get up onto and later back down off of the railroad grade. Otherwise the section of the Yampa Valley where we birded is forgivingly flat. In typical Colorado fashion, there was frost on the railroad ties as we began our hike at dawn and by lunch we were enjoying temps in the 70's. Our remarkable big-walk total was due to the convergence of many habitat types, including mid-elevation riparian, wet meadows, arid brushy hillsides, and coniferous forest. Here are a few other photo highlights from the day. Peace out- Bill

Ain't Red Shorebirds Grand??

I'll be the first to admit that some of my favorite shorebird sightings involve red birds. Maybe it is because most shorebirding I do here in Colorado involves dull fall birds and often the most red I get to see is the little racing stripe in the scapulars of Western Sandpipers or some vestigial red in Red-necked Phalaropes that come through. The first Red Knots and Curlew Sandpipers I saw were fall birds, pretty gray although still very exciting. Then I went to Cape May in the spring and saw nice red versions of both- danged cool, especially a deep red Curlew Sandpiper along with a more pinkish companion! Well, on Sunday I upgraded my previous Red Phalarope sightings (all of which involved gray fall birds) by picking up a drop-dead gorgeous breeding-plumage female. A friend and fellow Boulder-area birder, Bill Kaempfer, was leading a trip to the Pawnee National Grassland and danged if they didn't find the bird on a little muddy ephemeral pond near the Wyoming Border, probably no bigger than an acre and a few inches deep. I couldn't make the hour's run on the Saturday when they found it, but I headed up on Sunday morning. Initially scanning the playa with my bins as I pulled up, it appeared to be birdless- Noooooo! But the pond sits back a way from the road, and when I combed it more carefully with my scope I found the red beauty against the far side, sleeping in emergent vegetation. WOW!
The bird seemed pretty healthy and content, considering it was thousands of kilometers away from either the pelagic or arctic tundra environs where I would expect it. It was successfully feeding on invertebrates, some quite large. I wasn't sure what could be in an ephemeral pond out on the shortgrass prairie like that, but a couple of knowledgeable correspondents (Henry Armknecht and Steve Larson) suggested that they were probably Fairy Shrimp &/or Tadpole Shrimp. I did some brief online research and both seemed plausible and indeed likely. While I didn't go into much depth in my studies, I found that both reside in ephemeral ponds, the eggs and/or embryos of both can survive complete desiccation for long periods of time- years if necessary (in fact they many species' eggs require drying before they will hatch when the water returns.) They can also survive extremes of temperatures while dried out. Some species of both groups can grow to decent size in short periods of time, with some reaching several centimeters long in just a few weeks. There are many species in these two invertebrate groups (both are crustaceans in the class Branchiopoda, Tadpole Shrimp in the order Notostraca and Fairy Shrimp in the order Anostraca), some with very narrow ranges and even endangered status and some quite common. It seems that in many settings Tadpole Shrimp will eat Fairy Shrimp, along with about everything else animal or vegetable they can find in their ponds, including each other! I did notice that some of the prey items the Red Phalarope captured were eaten quickly and pretty easily, while others required a lot of effort (dashing, lashing, thrashing, bashing, crashing, smashing and occasionally just giving up and trashing.) Perhaps the Fairy shrimp were the easier prey and the Tadpole Shrimp the troublesome items?? I did get one blurry series of the bird with a critter in its bill. I wasn't sure what I was looking at until I compared it to Tadpole Shrimp pictures, when I realized that their horseshoe crab-shaped carapace was almost certainly what I was seeing. Another acquaintance with lots of ecological experience and knowledge of invertebrate biology, David Leatherman, confirmed that the victim in this picture is indeed a Tadpole Shrimp (click on the pic to enlarge.)
While there, I also enjoyed the vigorous singing, skylarking, and chasing behaviors of many shortgrass prairie birds. Horned Larks ruled by numbers, but Lark Buntings seemed to be everywhere, too, seconded by McCown's Longspurs. But one song amongst the cacophony tweaked my radar and I turned my attention north of the pond to find a Mountain Plover skylarking, giving its display song as it glided above the horizon. A bit later, three Mountain Plovers blew by me in a heated chase, giving their little wherrt calls as they went, which took them all around the perimeter of the pond and then out of sight beyond the road to the NE. I wonder if males of the species chase females- it appeared that one bird was being pursued by two followers. After that, one of them, or another Mountain Plover, snuck in from my right to the pond's edge and walked around to where the Red Phalarope was hanging out again near the west shore in emergent vegetation. Maybe I was imagining things, but it seemed like the Mountain Plover walked down to take a look at the weird red thing that was in its pond... Sorry that this pic isn't real sharp but there was a lot of bad air to shoot though across the whole lake. I had to try, though- after all, when was the last time you saw a picture of a breeding Red Phalarope and Mountain Plover in the same frame?I digiscoped these pics through my Leica APO-Televid 77 using a 32X WW eyepiece and Digital Adapter 2 with a new camera I got last week- a Leica C-Lux 2. I had been using the C-Lux 1, which I loved, but the great folks at Leica upgraded me to the current model. It sports a little better resolution (7 MP) but perhaps more importantly, the new sensor has a bit less noise at high ISOs. Other than re-positioning my shutter release bracket a bit, I can still use my same digiscoping rig with this camera. It shoots pretty cool video, too- I'll leave you with a little compilation of some scenes that I shot of the bird in action. The preening clip almost seems speeded up but that is just the frenetic phalarope's pace, I guess. Enjoy- Bill

Lawrence of Suburbia

Last Thursday, a bittersweet email arrived in the early afternoon. A male Lawrence's Goldfinch, Colorado's first, was visiting thistle feeders in Grand Junction, Colorado. I got a message on my phone minutes later- a crew of my buddies were leaving Boulder imminently to race the sunset west to Grand Junction- about a 4-hour trip. With work and family, I couldn't make the run. I was excited that Colorado had picked up another species for the state list (probably #485, pending acceptance of a few others in the queue), but bummed that I couldn't go for it- especially since it would be a lifer for me.

My friends, however, heard the worst words that birders on a chase can hear- "you should have been here a few minutes ago..." As they were driving into Grand Junction, other birders were calling them to report that the bird was on the feeders even as they spoke. But minutes later, when they arrived, the bird wasn't there and didn't show up in the remaining light of the day. In sports they talk about the "quiet bus" that the losing team takes home- I'll bet that it was a quiet car that finally pulled away from the house in the darkness of Thursday night.

Of course, after driving to the west slope my buddies didn't just head back home. They made a night run in some of the state's best areas for things like Flammulated Owl and were rewarded with success. Crashing for the night, they were then back at the feeders 1/2 hour before sunrise on Friday morning. No bird. For almost two hours they waited with no Lawrence's Goldfinch. They were about ready to leave when the bird finally appeared. I can't imagine the relief that they felt when this little stunner appeared among the Lesser and American Goldfinches on the thistle feeders.

Meanwhile, I was back at work on Friday, waiting for news of the bird. The first report came after that morning visit, and an afternoon update indicated that the bird was coming in fairly regularly, about every 1/2 hour throughout the day until evening. For added incentive, one of the LAGO seekers saw a Common Blackhawk at a nearby state park. A couple of other working bird buddies of mine hatched the crazy idea to make the drive on Saturday morning. Drive we did, earning the hairy eye of several state patrollers on saturation duty over the holiday weekend but avoiding any pullovers. We also got news en route that the bird was back, greatly cheering the mood of our car. Once there (almost 5 hours from when I left home) we waited a little over half an hour- one very long half hour- before the bright fellow appeared. NICE!

We enjoyed several short visits over a couple of hours, soaking in the beauty of the little bird. Other birds like Gambel's Quail, Blue Grosbeak, and both expected goldfinches filled in the gaps between LAGO visits. Photography was tough, because the bird was very small and moved about frenetically. I got some DSLR shots but opted to set up my digiscoping rig for subsequent visits in an effort to capture more detail since observers had to stay on the back porch, a bit far away from the feeders for excellent photography. At least the bird favored a particular feeder so I could pre-focus there and pretty much start hammering when it arrived. Lighting was kind of tough, too and I wasn't getting great shutter speed, so I knew most of my shots would be blurred by the bird's movements. So I basically just shot in continuous mode for about as long as the bird was there to try to get a few magic moments when the bird paused. The pics of the bird show it upside-down because it liked one of those inverted thistle feeders- kind of a funny, Audubon-like pose but I can't complain.
Big thanks go to Larry Arnold, who found the bird and graciously opened up his back yard for whomever wanted to go looking for the bird. As of this (Tuesday) morning, there hasn't been news of the bird, but it was around all yesterday. Hopefully that was long enough throughout the holiday weekend for folks wanting to see it to get their chance.

Not Forgetting the Peripherals

In the new book Good Birders Don't Wear White, Robert Braunfield has a lovely chapter about enjoying all of the cool things that come with watching birds. Called Don't Forget the Peripherals, he expounds upon the delights of local diners where waitresses call you "hon", picnics replete with engine manifold-heated pastrami sandwiches, beer from a Thermos paired with olives from a jar, and pointing out awkwardly-named birds to non-birders. Good advice indeed- in the heat of a major twitch or under the stress of conducting a field trip it is easy to forget the good stuff that comes along with birding.

So last night I was wasting time a little before tucking in, checking out some offerings on YouTube. Imagine my surprise when I found this video by a feller who plays songs by squeezing air between his hands (manualism for you linguists out there.) I could expound, but a picture (or in this case, a moving picture) is worth at least 1000 words...


If you've stayed with me so far you are probably wondering what a guy hand-farting the song Bohemian Rhapsody has to do with enjoying the peripherals of birding. Well, let me tell you...

A bit over a year ago, I had the privilege of participating in the legendary World Series of Birding along with Jeff Bouton and David La Puma. As Team Double XXposure, sponsored by Leica (gracias!) we competed in the digiscoping category and compiled a CD documenting our 102 species by the 10pm deadline, all photographed through Leica scopes in the rush of the big day. I'd have to rank that as one of best birding trips that I've done, not just because of the non-stop world-class birding on our scouting days and on the big day itself, but because of all of the crazy fun we had in our red-lined effort to break the century mark for birds digiscoped in a day. (Click on over here to see a more detailed account and our submission pics from the day...) Sometime in the afternoon, after a successful stop at Reed's Beach (where we snapped things like Spotted Sandpiper, Glossy Ibis, and Boat-tailed Grackle) we were driving back out when I dialed up the Flaming Lips' version of Queen's epic on my iPod and piped it through our rental van's speakers. Now if you don't know Jeff Bouton, you may not know that he is legendary for his karaoke skills- that guy has strong pipes! And La Puma is no slouch either, and I will always chime in, too. So here we were bailing out to get to our next stop, windows down, singing Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of our lungs, putting Wayne's World (remember that scene?) to shame. I'm grinning now remembering it, and whenever I hear the song, even by a guy who plays it on his hands, I can't help but remember that day.

I think that music is one of the peripherals that a lot of birders really enjoy. Bouton isn't alone in his fondness for belting out songs into a communal mike- Amy Hooper, Jeff Gordon, and Sharon Stiteler all espouse the virtues of a good karaoke bar within striking distance of a birding festival. Gavin Bieber even ran his own karaoke business with his wife, carting the rig from bar to bar for karaoke nights (& maybe still does- I'll have to ask him the next time we cross paths.) Ted Floyd has a piano in his living room and rumor has it that he can tickle the ivories. Bill Thompson III often posts song lyrics on his blog and reports on gigs where he and his wife Julie Zickefoose play, (yeah, they're in a band for goodness sake.) And a road trip with Tony Leukering just wouldn't be the same without his steering-wheel drumming to classic rock tunes. But some of my favorite music/birding mash-ups come from Tom McKinney, who works in music themes throughout his birding diary. He dutifully counted down to Iron Maiden's UK visit last year, and comes up with some crazy music videos (find his May 20 post, for example.) So in that vein I'll post the classic that started it all, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Sing along, won't you?

Hey, You- Get Out Of My Tree!

(with apologies to The Rolling Stones for the title...)

So a few weeks back when I was in Louisiana for the ABA's annual convention, my first trip was to Lake Fausse Point State Park. The trip started pretty well when the bus unloaded right under a cooperative Barred Owl- dang cool! Why are the birds seemingly so cooperative down south and so secretive up north?? Maybe has something to do with the subspecies?? Ned Brinkley mentioned that these southern birds have bare feet, while the northern ones have feathered footies. 'Ya learn something every day, especially when birding luminaries like Ned are around.

The highlight of the trip for me, though, was a Red-shouldered Hawk family nesting prominently in the middle of a groomed picnic area. Mom & dad were in attendance, taking turns bringing in leafy branches- an interesting behavior. At least one chick periodically peeked out from the nest, but I'm not sure of the count since I only saw one at a time. It was really neat to study these forest-loving birds in a fairly open setting- by far these were the best prolonged looks I've had of Red-shouldered Hawks. They seemed really pale, particularly in comparison to birds I saw in California last fall. In the Sibley guide these seemed closest to his illustration of Florida birds- I wonder if that subspecies or a similar one wraps around some into Southern Louisiana, or if they just show a lot of variation like many other buteos.

One of the adults took a break, perching in another tree near the nest. Apparently, this was some kind of social gaffe in the eyes of this Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. Taking umbrage that the hawk was in its tree, the wee gnatcatcher dive-bombed the hawk, even making contact with the hawk's crown on the most daring dives. The hawk reacted by totally ignoring its diminutive tormentor, dozing lightly, peering about, and preening throughout the sporadic attacks. The gnatcatcher didn't relax, though, insisting on staring down the hawk from a nearby elevated perch when it wasn't in active attack mode.

All of this was fine and dandy, but then the icing on the cake came when one of the adults approached the nest calling loudly and carrying a snake. Fortunately, it detoured to another tree, maybe awaiting clearance for its final approach. The delay let me run (literally) down the road a bit in anticipation of the bird flying across to its nest, getting the sun behind me. There wasn't anything I could do about the overcast sky, but I was pretty darned pleased with the result. My naturalist friends tell me that this is a Rough Green Snake. It might be my favorite picture so far from 2007.

Birds in the Funnies- Another Parrot and a New Comic

A friend of mine pointed out a comic that I hadn't seen before- Tundra. Checking the Tundra website, I'd say it looks pretty funny! Maybe one of my local papers (The Denver Post or the Boulder Daily Camera) will pick it up. Meanwhile, the May 11 edition had another take on the talking parrot joke:

Tundra, 5/11/07:
Here's another, from May 2. We can all relate, can't we?? I especially feel like a bird paparazzo, what with my big lens and all peering into their lives...

Tundra, 5/2/07:

I've Got It Covered

In the "you never know who will want your pics" category, I got an email a few month ago from an acquaintance at Cornell University whose colleagues had an upcoming article in the journal Ecology. They wondered if they could use a House Finch picture of mine for their article about competition between House Sparrows and House Finches, and it turned out to be part of the cover (a montage of House Sparrows and House Finches.) Mine's the female House Finch- pretty flashy, huh? Oh well. The funny thing is that I traveled about 3 feet to get the shot- I took it out of my office window one winter day. When the bugs are frozen out for the season I take the screen out of that window so I can snap birds perching in the tree branches. Now that's good bang for my travel buck, but my house is one expensive photography blind!

Birds in the Funnies- Parrot Day

A couple of parrots in the funnies today to compare & contrast. In Monty, the parrot is a recurring character- funny, but has little to do with being a parrot. Meanwhile over in Speed Bump, we have a high-tech twist on the idea that parrots are mimics & don't understand what they are saying. (Although this isn't probably the case- take N'kisi, for example, an African Gray Parrot with a vocabulary of about 950 words that he uses in context and even a sense of tense...)

Monty 5/12/07:

Speed Bump 5/12/07:

On the other end of the camera

A local TV reporter from KPLC-TV in Lafayette came to interview our group at Lacassine NWR during the ABA convention. The reporter talked to me for 2 or 3 minutes and some of it made the cut- link on over here to see the story (and click on the little camera symbol to see the clip.)

The refuge was a great place to photograph birds- I got my photo lifer #560 (Fulvous Whislting-Duck) there. Stay tuned for some pics when I finally get them processed.

Back from the Bayou

For the past week I’ve been at the American Birding Association’s National Convention in Lafayette, Louisiana. I’m drafting this post on my flight into Denver from Houston, with a laptop full of pics to work on and a mind full of good memories. This was my first time in Louisiana, and I finally managed to catch up with Fulvous Whistling-Duck. I also got my first look at King Rail (I’d heard them a couple of times before)- now if I could just get a glimpse of a Black Rail I’ll have all of the regularly occurring ABA coots and rails on my photo list (no, I don't have Corn Crake, either.) Beyond those new birds I managed to clean up and expand my photo catalog on many other species that I don’t get to see and photograph very often. In particular, I hammered lots of waders and also got my best shots to date of Barred Owl.
As with other ABA conventions and conferences I’ve been to, the Lafayette affair had a good mix of birding and time to mix & mingle with like-minded folks. I enjoy the chance to see birders I haven’t seen in a while and to meet others. Leica brought me out and I worked the booth when I wasn’t on field trips or in a workshop- I got to see Andrew Farnsworth’s Radar Ornithology / Flight Note workshop which was heavy duty but very cool!! I’d been exposed to both topics from other speakers but Andrew really brought me up to speed on both fronts and juiced my interest in both a little more. I really want to thank Leica Sport Optics for getting me out to Louisiana!
This convention also gave me the chance to sample some mighty fine food. I think I managed to have crayfish (aka crawfish or crawdads) every day in some form or another. At the dinner prior to Richard Crossley's talk I had crayfish-stuffed pork chops. Oh, and I had an interesting fellow sit next to me at that dinner- none other than David Sibley!! Then, last night I had stuffed shrimp and guess what was in the stuffing- yeah, crawdads! That one reminded me of another southern specialty, the Turducken (a turkey stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken.) It gave me an idea to try if I ever open a seafood restaurant- Lobshrimpdads or maybe Shrimpdadcrabs. I think you can figure out what would be in these crustacean versions of the Turducken.
If I had to pick a favorite entrée from the trip (or maybe ever) I’d say it was the crayfish enchiladas at the Blue Dog, preceded by an amazing bowl of soup, the Sherwood Forrest Brie Bisque. I’d say that selection only narrowly outranked the redfish Randall (a specialty at Randall's), which was a stacked-up tower of food consisting of a bed of shrimp étouffée topped by a blackened redfish fillet, topped by a crawfish stuffing cake, topped by another blackened redfish fillet, drizzled with Randall’s special sauce and skewered together by a big stem of rosemary. OMG, I ate every mote...
But of course, this is a birding / bird photography blog, so enough about all of that low-calorie food. Yesterday I went on the digiscoping trip to Jefferson Island and shot almost 900 frames of birds at the rookery there with my trusty Leica rig. Here's a twist: a digiscoped shot of digiscopers!
It was an amazing place, especially for a Coloradoan. When I see a rookery in Colorado it is usually full of Great Blue Herons and Double-crested Cormorants, neither of which were present at Jefferson Island. Instead, we were treated to the comings and goings of Cattle Egrets, Little Blue Herons, Roseate Spoonbills, Green Herons, and Tricolored Herons. A few Anhingas visited, and opportunistic American Alligators prowled the waters or basked on the shore below the rookery islands.
It was also cool to tour the Rip Van Winkle Gardens and see Lake Peigneur, which in November 1980 drained completely into a salt mine when a gas drill rig penetrated the salt dome beneath the lake- oops! Nobody died or was even seriously hurt, but you’ve got to check out the story here- especially the part about the fisherman who had a narrow escape and the temporary 150-foot waterfall that was created as the outlet canal reversed, carrying Gulf of Mexico water, huge trees, a mansion, barges, a tugboat, and 65 manicured garden acres into the whirlpool's swirling maw.

Anyway, all of the pics on this post were digiscoped on that trip- I’ll put some DSLR shots up from my other trips later.
So if I ran into you down in Louisiana, good to see you and thanks for the memories! If you weren’t there, consider taking in an ABA event sometime- say, at the national convention in Snowbird, Utah, June 2008. Adios for now.

Surreal Bluebird

Sometimes I get inquiries about using my bird photos as references for paintings. I'm generally happy to oblige, and I really like it when the artist sends me a picture of the finished product. It is amazing how different painters can capture the essence of birds in so many different ways, from ultra-realistic duck stamp painters to fantasy worlds.

I'm not a student of art, but I know that I like Wes Hyde's stuff. Wes asked me if he could use a Western Bluebird pic of mine for a reference. After peeking at his web site (http://weshyde.com) I knew that whatever he did with it would be cool. There is a very western flavor to what he paints, so choosing the Western Bluebird really fit his style. Still, the picture is pretty surreal- it reminds me of the kinds of dreams I have before big trips or after long, productive birding days (visions of birds are involved but not always in ways that make logical sense.) Here's the pic he used as a reference:
And here's a pic of the painting (posted by permission):
So check out Wes Hyde's stuff- you won't be disappointed.

Photo Update

Folks- I have a bunch of Colorado bird pics from late winter and early spring that I've finished adding to my site (http://schmoker.org/BirdPics). Check 'em out and let me know what you think. Enjoy- Bill Included this time:
"Snow Geese" (a little photo pun- click it to see what you think.), Canada Goose, Trumpeter Swan, American Wigeon, Mallard, Cinnamon Teal w/ hybrid Cinnamon x Blue-winged Teal, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, Lesser Scaup, Long-tailed Duck, Bufflehead, Common Goldeneye, Hooded Merganser, Common Merganser, Red-breasted Merganser, Ring-necked Pheasant, Wild Turkey, Western Grebe, Turkey Vulture, Northern Harrier, Red-tailed Hawk, Ferruginous Hawk, Rough-legged Hawk, American Kestrel, Virginia Rail, Wilson's Snipe, Glaucous Gull, Rock Pigeon, Eurasian Collared-Dove, Mourning Dove, Barn Owl, Great Horned Owl, Northern Pygmy-Owl, Burrowing Owl, Long-eared Owl, Northern Saw-whet Owl, Belted Kingfisher, Downy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Black-billed Magpie, American Crow, Chihuahuan Raven, Horned Lark, Mountain Chickadee, Pygmy Nuthatch, American Dipper, Hermit Thrush, Varied Thrush, Curve-billed Thrasher, European Starling, Cedar Waxwing, Slate-colored Fox Sparrow, Harris's Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Hepburn's Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, Brown-capped Rosy-Finch, House Finch, Red Crossbill, & Pine Siskin.

Well, it's a marvelous day for a sky dance!

(Sorry for the title, Van Morrison!)

I had a real birding highlight last weekend watching the sky-dancing aerobatics of a male Northern Harrier south of Greeley, Colorado with my dad Jim and Warren Finch, a birding buddy we ran into there (one of those guys with a KILLER birding name!) I'd seen this display only a couple of times before, both at a fair distance yet still very cool. But this chap was doing his thing quite close to the road, at times so close I just watched, slack-jawed and stunned, without need of bins or even the thought of trying to catch anything on (digital) film until I snapped out of my reverie.

The show began as we watched the bird bringing nest material from a meadow across the road into a large cattail marsh and delivering them by hover-landing straight down into the marsh.
After a few deliveries it whipped into its sky-dancing routine above the spot- amazing speed and aerial agility accompanied by understated kyakk kyakk kyakk... vocalizations. The bird would do these crazy inverted rolls at the top of every climb followed by sickening plunges nearly to cattail-top, when the bird would somehow reverse it all and seemingly break the rules of physics to climb again as fast as it came down. The whole show seemed to happen without acceleration or deceleration- just full-time full warp speed, kind of like a bottle rocket whose stick snapped off. If anyone describes the harrier sky-dancing flight as being like a roller-coaster they are seriously understating the speed and gyrations involved. When I decided to get my trigger finger in gear I had a heck of a time trying to even get the bird in the frame, much less holding it centered enough for auto-focus, but I did squeeze off a few bursts at 5 fps on the ol' D2X.

Sometimes when I get a hawk or other bird doing something cool like that but none of the individual images are really great, I'll stitch together a sequence to give a sense of the motion I saw in the bird. These two montages are continuous sequences- only a fifth of a second between each pose and no missing frames. Check out the first two frames of the second sequence- that guy leads out of the inversion with his head, facing it around while his body is still belly-up at the top of one of his neck-snapping rolls!

The festivities wrapped up when he landed again out of sight in the marsh, presumably to visit (ahem) the hidden female beneficiary of his show. Then he emerged out of the cattails and flew off to hunt some more around the periphery of his marsh. What a show!

Pale Pair

On Wednesday, I chased a young Glaucous Gull that Bill & Inez Prather found east of Longmont, Colorado at Saint Vrain State Park. Unfortunately, from the moment I stepped out the door of my bird-mobile I was subjected to cold, shrieking wind. Not ideal observing conditions, but when I found the bar where the gulls were hanging out I quickly spotted a big, pale bird. But then I thought I was seeing two such birds- did I have wind-induced, hypothermic double-vision? No, one was actually a little bigger (likely a male- unlike raptors where females typically are larger) and was a different age class. So in-between shivers and smashing gusts I figured out that there was one youngster (1st-cycle, I think) and a 3rd-cycle bird.

Bird quiz fans: ID the birds from left to right, including age... (I'll declare the cropped one on the right un-identifiable in this view.)

Now this was cool for several reasons. First of all, Glaucous Gulls are just sharp-looking gulls. Second of all, they are pretty rare in Colorado even in winter, but by April it is indeed an unusual sighting (although something odd is going on this spring with pale-winged gulls around here with an Iceland Gull last weekend in Loveland and a really pale Thayer's Gull down in Aurora yesterday & today.) Third, I've only seen singles previously in Colorado- never a pair together. And fourth, this is the first third-cycle GLGU I've seen.

I know that plenty of birders bail out on gulls, but they are missing out on a lot of fun (and a lot of cool birds.) You've got to think a lot when dealing with gulls. For example, why are 3rd-cycle gulls the hardest to find? Well, some gulls don't have a distinctive 3rd-cycle plumage, for starters. But among 4-year gulls, 1st-cycle birds and adults are the most commonly seen. Why? Adults can live a long time, and plenty of youngsters are produced every year. In fact, I suspect that a high percentage of vagrant or out-of-common-range gulls are 1st-cycle individuals who messed up their migration. Anyway, lots of young birds don't figure out the game of life and die before their 2nd plumage cycle. So there are lots fewer 2nd-cycle gulls than 1st-cycles. 2nd-cycle birds also fare worse than experienced adults, leaving even fewer 3rd-cycle individuals. If they make it to adulthood, though, they are much more likely to survive for many successive years.

Pigeon- It's what's for dinner!

It's been a while since I've posted on the Valmont Plant Great Horned Owl nest cam- mostly because the owl has been quietly doing its thing, incubating two eggs. This evening I glanced at the cam and noticed a bunch of feathers cast around the box- sure enough, a bit earlier this evening our mother-to-be dined on Rock Pigeon, judging by that thick, dark terminal tail band.
Then I went over last evening's shots and found a few frames of the bird eating mystery prey- any guesses what this is? I'm thinking it is a mid-sized mammal- maybe a bunny or squirrel? Anyway, good to see that nesting attempt #2 is progressing.

Birds in the Funnies- Twitchers

For some reason I waste 5 seconds of my life almost every day reading Fred Basset. It isn't that the comic is terrible- it just isn't funny. So imagine my surprise today when the theme was birding. Still not funny, but not where I would suspect to find a twitching reference. A tip- if you are twitching a rare duck and go to the trouble of hiding behind shoreline vegetation, apparently for hours based on the chairs and thermos, then leave the big tail-wagging, over-the-bush-peeking dog at home. My prediction for tomorrow's punchline: "Bollocks! We dipped on the Ferruginous Duck!!"

Fred Basset, 4/11/07:

Booked

I got a great package in the mail yesterday- my author's copies of Good Birders Don't Wear White. I feel very fortunate to have been invited to contribute a chapter (mine is on birding in bad weather)- the list of contributors is impressive, and it is great to rub shoulders (well, ink?) with such luminaries of the North American birding scene. Here's the blurb from Houghton Mifflin, the publisher:

A light and fun collection of birding advice, with contributions from Kenn Kaufman, David Sibley, Pete Dunne, Tim Gallagher, Don and Lillian Stokes, Bill Thompson III, and forty-four others. Original essays from the biggest names in birding dispense advice to birders of every level, on topics ranging from feeding birds and cleaning binoculars to pishing and pelagic birding. Whether satirizing bird snobs or relating the traditions and taboos of the birding culture, each essay is chock-full of helpful information and entertaining as well. Pete Dunne’s lively foreword kicks off the collection of essays, which are organized by category. Half of the essays are illustrated with delightful black-and-white line drawings by artist Robert Braunfield.

So check it out- I see that Amazon.com now has it so I'm sure your local bookstore would, too. I enjoyed Pete Dunn's forward (all I've had time to peruse so far), and look forward to seeing what the other folks had to say in their chapters.

Birds in the Funnies- Timmy the Owl

All right! Early spring is a great time to catch up with owls (like, say, in my blog here, here, here, here, or here...) and the funny pages is no exception. Another Pearls Before Swine masterpiece:

Pearls Before Swine, 4/6/07:

Howdy Owl

Turning back to the wee owl front, one great sign of spring in Colorado is the return of Burrowing Owls to their prairie dog town abodes. These are really user-friendly owls, hanging out in full daylight in the open environs of the colony (prairie dogs clear vegetation, both to eat and to keep their lines of sight open for predator detection.) Many publicly-accessible areas in the plains portions of the state offer the chance at these sharp-looking little guys (for example, see the Colorado County birding page for Burrowing Owls), but last weekend I had the opportunity to see some up close on a private ranch in east-central Colorado. One of the ranch roads (just a two-track through shortgrass-cholla prairie) went right through the p-dog town, with some burrows almost spilling onto the road. A pair of Burrowing Owls was set up nearby, allowing me to use my vehicle as a blind. It was really cool to hear the birds giving their little coo cooooo song and their chattering calls from that close (I suggest using the free Raven Viewer plug-in from Cornell to see the sonograms as you listen- really cool stuff so get it!) I was also psyched to finally clean up my photos of this species. (They can be really frustrating to digiscope even from reasonable range because the air over the colonies is often very distorted as sunlight warms the bare ground.)

In a couple of the pictures you can see how they "decorate" their home burrow with cow dung. Once thought to help camouflage their scent, new research suggests that they are aiming to attract and cultivate dung beetles, a major part of their diet, by garnishing their burrow this way.