little year

a phoenix rises (the bird, of course, not the city)

2010-01-18T21:35:55Z

Been a while. Mostly because good bird blogging is hard work. But we're off to Minnesota next week for about 10 days, so there should be some good action. There may be live blogging, too, since I'll try it from my iPod, as I'm doing now. We shall see what we shall see. And maybe you will, too.

mango dip

2007-10-01T05:04:27Z

There's a Green-breasted Mango in Beloit, Wisconsin, just over the Illinois border. This hummingbird's home is in Central America, so such a bird out of water created a lot of racket on the bird lists. It seems that everybody -- us included -- went to check it out. The bird shows up a few times a day at the backyard feeders of a couple of adjacent houses. The homeowners whose feeder the bird seems to favor don't mind a row of scopes pointing at their house as long as we stay behind the fence. They seem to get a kick out of the notoriety and even have a book for people to sign. So today we made our first visit.

]]> I tell a lie. We actually decided to check it out yesterday, but I didn't bother to get good directions, so went to the wrong house. Today, though, it was the right house. A good clue was the row of cars lined up outside.

We got there about 11 a.m. We left at 6:45 p.m. And we never saw the bird.

Most of those seven hours (45 minutes for lunch) was spent standing at the same spot with the scope focused on the same feeder. We've never done anything so boring or crazy in our entire birding careers. It didn't make things any better that there were sometimes a dozen people standing there doing the same thing. (Just between you and me, those other people were insane freaks, not normal people like Pole and me.) We were the last to leave, along with a couple from Missouri. High point of the day was a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird that gave everyone a Mango thrill for a few seconds. I hadn't seen the Ruby-throated yet this year, so at least there was that.

So, in birder's parlance, we dipped on the Mango. Maybe we'll come back tomorrow. But that would require wasting a vacation day -- yes, I said wasting -- and getting up very early. (The sightings are usually in the morning.) I don't know if we'll do it. We're not crazy, you know.

Update: Posted on the Wisconsin birding list on October 2:

On 28 September, Mike Ramsden of Beloit, posted a note saying that over 400 persons had visited looking for the Green-breasted Mango and "All have been courteous and respectful. Kudos." On 30 September, Mike posted this request from the most gracious home-owners who have been hosting the mango for over a month - "Joan indicated to me today that both she and the neighbor down the hill would like for this Wednesday Oct 3 to be the last day for birders to come view the bird. I'm going to need everyone's help getting the word out so that birders do not keep coming after that. If you are a member of another list-serve in addition to WISBIRD, please forward this message to that list or else post the deadline yourself. Many thanks."

So we dipped permanently. We dipped good.

we're in iowa ten minutes, and pole's already ahead

2007-08-26T05:24:58Z

Today was my birthday, so we decided to go to Galena, Illinois and be tourists. It's a historic town -- home to U.S. Grant -- but now it's just full of crummy gift shops and middle-aged Viagra types riding Harleys. We didn't do any birding, though, but we did make a quick dash across the Mississippi to say we'd been in Iowa. (Who wouldn't?) We drove through the small, grim island town of Sebula and managed to see lots of Great Egrets roosting in the trees and wading in the water. And while I was keeping my eyes on the road, Pole got a quick glimpse of a Belted Kingfisher. So after ten minutes, she has an Iowa bird list twice as big as mine.

go home, your excellency, or at least get lucky

2007-08-13T00:53:30Z

IBET, the Illinois birding email list, alerted us to the presence of an ORANGE BISHOP at Montrose Beach. It was there all right. All the way from Africa maybe? No, all the way from some moron who released it from its cage. Since it's almost certainly an escape, we can't claim it as a lifer, bitchin' as it was. Apparently, the same poor fella showed up the last year or two, but he's just a cipher in the birding community until he hooks up with some of his kind and starts a breeding flock. But what do we care if he counts? We've got the His Eminence the Northern Cardinal who is just as bitchin' and outranks our foreign ecclesiastic to boot.

two lifers and least, but not least, a weasel

2007-07-30T03:11:04Z

Today we took a trip up to Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin--our first of the year, I'm surprised to say. The Wisconsin email list reported two rarities, and we saw them both: a BLACK-NECKED STILT and an AMERICAN AVOCET. We hadn't seen these birds since our trip to Texas last year, and it was a strange sight. Lucky for us, the birds also attracted two very good birders: Tom and Carol Sykes. Tom is the administrator of the WISB list that brought us up here. It was a hot day, and the Sykeses were able to get us two lifers: a WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER and a BAIRD'S SANDPIPER. They helped us navigate our binoculars through the dried-up mud using fish carcases as bearings. Best sighting of the day, though, might have been a LEAST WEASEL that dashed across the road in front of our car. Good day: two rarities, two lifers, and a weasel. But then a weasel day is always a good day.

bbq bird

2007-07-05T02:59:19Z

Pole and I spent today -- the Fourth of July -- at a barbeque in the Chicago suburbs at the house of one of my sisters. Her backyard abuts a wetland wildlife refuge, so hopeful, I brought my optics. Though we did see some Green Herons with the scope, the big catch for me was a HOUSE WREN. It was nervously hopping about in a locust tree that overhung the deck. An easy lifer for a lazy day.

headhunter

2007-06-11T05:57:05Z

We made a quick trip to the Chicago Botanic Garden today, and since it was Sunday, the place was packed. We decided to walk away from the main area, and loop around the lagoon through the parking lot. Good thing, too, because as we walked along the path, a large raptor flew in front of us. It looked like it was carrying something and it was being mobbed by some Red-winged Blackbirds. We followed it to the tree where it landed, and Pole spotted it. It was a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk eating a even younger juvenile blackbird. No wonder the parents were upset. It was gruesome sight, but impossible not to watch. The first chunk the hawk ripped off was the head, and it was having a hell of a time eating it. (Skulls are so inconvenient.) The whole thing was amazing to see. I guess species whose names begin with "Red-" don't always stick together.

one more

2007-05-20T05:46:00Z

We went to the Ryerson Conservation Area today, which is northwest of Chicago. We hadn't been here in a couple of years, but this is where we spotted some of our first warblers when we were beginning birders. They've built a new visitors center since our last visit, and that's where we saw the best bird of the day: a SHARP-SHINNED HAWK. It was a lifer for both of us. Not a single warbler was seen, though an Eastern Bluebird was a nice surprise. We then headed back to Chicago to check out the Magic Hedge, where there were plenty of warblers. Always dependable, the Hedge.

another reason to hate cbg

2007-04-10T05:25:19Z

I received a letter from the Chicago Botanic Garden about my membership. It started like this:

Dear Scrubb,

We've noticed that your Garden membership has expired.

Thirty years ago, who would have thought swampy land and foggy lagoons would become the Chicago Botanic Garden we see today? Our members did.

This shows how ignorant the CBG management is. They think wetlands ought to be improved. It's the kind of mentality people had 100 years ago, the kind of mentality that has led to the disappearance of wetlands today. What a bunch of ecological philistines.

some count, some don't

2007-03-24T23:17:35Z

Not legalToday was our last full day in New Mexico, so we decided to do some local birding in Albuquerque. We saw birds at the inn where we were staying, a place called Los Poblanos. It's one of the nicest places we've been at, I think, and it comes with its own flock of noisy peacocks. There were two males and two females, and one of the males was all white. It was spooky to see his ghostlike form roosting in the trees at night. The other male was the noisy one, and he always squawked back at the beeping of the car's lock. They were the most spectacular birds of the trip, but, unfortunately, not countable.

]]> Our first birding stop was Embudito Canyon, which is at the edge of the city. It's an arroyo that runs out of the Sandia Mountains. There weren't many people using it, mostly dog walkers. It wasn't long before we saw a CURVE-BILLED THRASHER, which was a lifer for me. Pole saw it in Texas last year, so I was glad to finally catch up. We walked the dry bed all the way up to where a stream fell from the mountainside. We saw two other lifers, a BLACK-THROATED SPARROW and a flock of SCALED QUAIL. The quail were running about in the brush and were hard to see, but once you get a glance at the "cotton top," they're unmistakable.

The other stop we made was to the Rio Grande State Park Nature Center. There wasn't much to see there that you can't see in Chicago (Downy Woodpecker, Wood Duck, Northern Shoveler, etc.), so it was a disappointment. The trip as a whole wasn't, though, and the final count was 60 total species for Pole with 18 lifers, and 58 total for me, with 18 lifers. And, of course, I got to pass the 300 mark. A beautiful state, so different from the Midwest but not as insufferable as the Texas coast. We leave tomorrow, but we'll have to come back.

migrating south with some other locals

2007-03-24T05:15:10Z

Our bladders braved itToday was dedicated to birding. We took a longish (100 miles) trip south to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. On the way there, we we pulled into a rest area with the rattler sign on the left. I love snake signage. You just wonder, though, if they could have put the rest area somewhere else. Bosque is one of the big birding hotspots in New Mexico, mostly, I think, because it has so much water. People here get excited about birds that are common up north, and they're especially proud of their Sandhill Cranes. But for us, the big draw was the local birds. If we want cranes, we can just drive a few hours to Indiana and see literally thousands. So whenever anyone here got excited about some crane sighting, we just thought, meh.

]]> As soon as we drove into the refuge, we saw a lifer: a WESTERN MEADOWLARK. This was a good omen. The next stop was the visitor's center, where we wandered around the grounds and spotted one of the birds we were hoping to see: a GAMBEL'S QUAIL, a double lifer. While I was inside, Pole also had a quick look at a Cooper's Hawk. This was frustrating for me because it would have been a lifer. I got over it, though, because after driving around the refuge all day, we had a nice haul of lifers:

BLACK PHOEBE
CLARK'S GREBE
VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOW
MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD
BREWER'S BLACKBIRD

We saw plenty of typical Illinois waterfowl like shovelers, teal, gadwalls, etc. Who knows, maybe they flew down with us. But were also treated to southern specialties like a Greater Roadrunner and some Neotropic Cormorants. Finally, we saw two species variants that don't count as lifers: a Mexican Mallard and a Red-shafted Northern Flicker. The grebe, with its long, elegant neck might have been the highlight, but the phoebe and the bluebird were also a treat.

After leaving, we had some green chile cheeseburgers at the Owl Bar Cafe. It's a famous local spot, apparently, and though a little bit of a dive, it was fun. Then we drove back north to Albuquerque.

recalculating

2007-03-23T03:33:10Z

We toured Santa Fe yesterday, but did no birding. Today we headed out north to Bandelier National Monument to visit the Pueblo ruins and, yes, do some birding. We concentrated on the ruins on our first go through, though we still carried our bins. The last stop on the tourist trail is Alcove House, which you get to by climbing a series of long ladders. They warn you it's not for everyone, and since Pole is acrophobic, she decided to sit it out. I bravely went up the first ladder on my own, but it was pretty spooky; the ladders are long and crooked. I hate to admit it, but I chickened out and went back down, which was even scarier than going up. Most humiliating of all were the little kids who passed me up. A birder, you say, afraid of death? Go figure.

]]> We headed back to the car after viewing the ruins. It had started to rain, but once it let up, we decided to give the birding another try, this time with the scope. We first headed to our respective washrooms, agreeing to meet up at a promising tree we had spotted near the first ruin. I got there first and waited a long time before Pole showed up. She arrived late and very excited because she had seen a RED-NAPED SAPSUCKER. It was a lifer for her and would have been for me, too. I did see a woodpecker near where she saw hers, but it was just a Hairy. I swear.

Hanging out at the tree, we saw a few more birds -- like the Mountain Chickadee -- but the only new lifers were some WHITE-THROATED SWIFTS. There were plenty of them flying high above us, but it took a long time to ID them. We also saw some Turkey Vultures, which look at home flying above the golden cliffs. Along a nearby path, we saw an Abert's (or Tassel-eared) Squirrel. Pretty damn cute.

We rented a car for this trip because -- unlike all of our trips to date -- we actually flew down from Chicago. As we didn't know the area, I also rented a GPS receiver. It was a Garmin and the kind that has a voice -- Bitchin' Betty, as they call her -- who gives you directions on when to turn, etc. So after we were finished with Bandelier, we fired her up and asked her for directions back to ABQ. She gave us a different route than we expected, and we hadn't been driving it long before Pole wanted to turn around. First of all, the route was on small roads that wouldn't be as quick as the highway. And second, these were winding mountain roads that made her acrophobia kick in. So we just followed an old-fashioned map, which in the end, was probably quicker. That's the problem with the Garmin. As with Google Maps and MapQuest, the algorithm doesn't always pick the best route.

Pole isn't crazy about Betty. She complains that by following her directions blindly, we never have a sense of where we are. True enough, but I told her she's welcome to follow along on a paper map if that makes her feel any better. Speaking as the driver, the Garmin is a great convenience. And when I miss a turn, Betty will just say "recalculating" instead of calling me an idiot. Recalculating. I like that. That's what my brain said to me at the top of the Pueblo ladder.

One entertaining thing the Garmin lets you do is change the voice. There's male or female, and American, British, or Australian. We tried the Aussie male once just for kicks, but he's not as competent as Betty. When you turn the machine on and she's on duty, she always starts with "Fasten seat belts." The Aussie, however, has a little trouble with this and instead opens with "Dollar sign." That must be some kind of variable that wasn't properly assigned. It's like the garbled text you get when a computer crashes, but in this case, the computer speaks it aloud. It made us laugh a lot, especially since it was spoken in this hokey Crocodile Dundee accent. It's now the running joke of the trip.

300 + 320

2007-03-21T02:24:51Z

Pole and I arrived in Albuquerque on Sunday to do some vacationing and some birding. That's why there's no birding entry until today, Tuesday. This isn't a Big Year for us, so we don't have to be psycho birding every single second. So after fooling around in ABQ for a day or so, we headed north to Santa Fe, but instead of viewing the beautiful colonial city, our first stop was the Randall Dewey Audubon Center. Psycho.

]]> There was a naturalist there who really knew her stuff, and she told us what was around. It was already the afternoon when we got there, but we took our time. We walked down to a lake and then hung out at the center, checking out the feeders and bushes. Since the Southwest is a new habitat for us, there were lots of lifers:

SPOTTED TOWHEE
WESTERN SCRUB-JAY
MOUNTAIN CHICKADEE
BUSHTIT
TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE
CANYON TOWHEE

For some reason (she's better?), Pole saw most of these before I did, and so I was goddamming a lot. The Mountain Chickadee was my 300th bird, a nice little fellow to have that honor. (It was Pole's 320th.) All these lifers were nice, but the chickadee was the prettiest. And as often happens, once we saw it, we kept seeing it and seeing it and seeing it.

The naturalist told us we might see a Pinyon Jay at Ortiz Park, a place where she walks her dog. We made the trip, and it seemed like that's where all of Santa Fe walks their dogs; the place was packed. We walked around a while, but no jay. However, we did see the last lifer of the day, a SAY'S PHOEBE. A good end to a short day of birding.

ahead a state

2007-02-28T04:15:52Z

I'm in San Francisco today for work, and I saw my first California bird: a Common Grackle. All I've seen of this city so far are the two blocks of Market Street between the hotel and the office, so I was lucky to see anything at all. Best thing is, I'm ahead of Pole for once: she doesn't have a bird from this state. Thank you, Common Grackle of California.

if you could read my mind, we wouldn't be here

2007-01-29T20:06:04Z

Last Wednesday (the 24th) we left on what's becoming our annual winter trip to Gunflint Lodge in Minnesota. January 28th is Pole's birthday, so that's primary reason we make the trip. Unfortunately, we only had a full three days up here, so the whole trip was rushed, and a bit of a disappointment, really. The entire last day -- the 28th -- was spent driving the 1000 miles from Gunflint (basically the Canadian border) to Chicago. Happy Birthday, Pole.

]]> On our first full day we headed to Aitkin County, MN, and saw a lifer on County Road 18: a SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. And when I say "we", I mean Pole. We caught a only quick glimpse of the bird as we drove past. I pulled over about 100 feet away, and as I was setting up the scope, it flew off. Pole, of course, watched the creature the whole time and saw its diagnostic tail feathers as it disappeared into the boreal wood. Typical. Further down the road, though, was a nice consolation prize: a couple of the always magnificent Great Gray Owls.

The next day, Friday, we made a trip to the Fond-du-Lac Conservation Department office in Cloquet, which is on an Indian Reservation. We went there was because there was a lot of excitement on the Minnesota bird lists about some unusual visitors: GRAY-CROWNED ROSY-FINCHES. They weren't around when we got there, but some people came out of the office and gave us encouragement, and soon enough, three of the birds showed up. We watched them for a while as they hopped around the potted plants. We actually came by to see them the day before, but missed them; we weren't even sure it was the right location. It's a very odd place for such a bird, and doubly odd that it's so far out of its normal range. A lifer times two.

We spent a great deal of time on this trip driving. Gunflint Lodge isn't really conveniently located for anything but Gunflint Lodge, so going south, as we always did, takes time. We also spent most of Saturday visiting the International Wolf Center in Ely. We were unimpressed, and the wolves seem bored and overfed. They're neutered and spayed to make them more docile. But when they spayed the former omega wolf, they messed up big time. Apparently, one of her stitches opened up, and when the other wolves smelled the blood, they disemboweled her. So much for docile. The intern naturalist told us that, in the wild, bleeding packmates often get torn to shreds. First, I doubt it, and second, then the idiot naturalists shouldn't have let Miss Omega in a pen with the other wolves. So in addition to being bored and overfed, the wolves are also neglected and psychotic. And hell, I can see wolves in Chicago at the Lincoln Park Zoo. The long drive to Ely was not worth it.

We had some time to kill in Ely, so we went to dinner at a funny little Italian restaurant. The food was OK, but it tasted like something your non-Italian mother might make. Strictly suburban. And when I asked for the smaller portion of lasagna, the waitress asked me if I wanted the senior portion (senior being 55 and up). That never happened to me before. Kind of humiliating, but Pole was absolutely delighted.

Another funny and memorable thing happened at a McDonald's on the way home. Some woman there had a t-shirt that said: "If you could read my mind, you wouldn't be here." That sentence is totally illogical to me. I mean, if it said, "If you could read my mind, you'd know I despise you," that would make sense. But the whole, "you wouldn't be here" means -- what? -- that the reader would be offended by reading the wearer's mind? Does not compute. Anyway, I was rattling along in this nerdy manner about the shirt, and Pole was getting more and more irritated. So I said to her, "I know what you're thinking: 'If you could read my mind, shut up.' " We repeated this joke for the rest of the drive home.

So what did we get out of this trip? Two lifers for Pole, one lifer for Scrubb, and 2500 miles for the odometer. We did have fun -- we always have fun -- but next birthday, we need a better plan.