Jarvis Bird Sanctuary (Fall Migration!)

During the summers I work in the Chicago parks doing native plant restoration. It sounds more glamorous than it is. What I do is kill invasive plants. Anyway, I am based out of the Jarvis Bird Sanctuary shed so I am very close to one of the better birding spots in the city. I don't really get that much time to bird, but I am always birding no matter wht I am doing, at least on some level. Anyway, I had about 10 minutes this morning to bird before I had to start work. Here's my list --

Wood Duck (family)
Chimney Swift
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Carolina Wren
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
Philadelphia Vireo
House Finch
American Goldfinch (many feeding on Cup Plant)
Orange-crowned Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Black-and-White Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Mourning Warbler
Wilson's Warbler
Song Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Baltimore Oriole

Sure wish I could have stuck around!

Peep ID

Check out this excellent article by Cameron Cox on Sandpiper ID

Birding Meme

I thought these questions up and wanted to know how other bird bloggers would answer. Here are my thoughts.

1. What is the coolest bird you have seen from your home?

When I was growing up outside of Wichita, KS there was a mini fallout of migrants at our house on a rainy spring morning. Warblers were a bit of a mystery to me and only found in my Peterson guide so when I started seeing all these tiny colorful birds zipping around I about lost it. I skipped school and sat under a tree with my guide and binoculars. I think that day I was most enthralled with a Chestnut-sided Warbler.

2. If you compose lists of bird species seen, what is your favorite list and why?

This is a tough one because I really like adding birds to my Morton, Stafford and Sedgwick County, KS lists, but I guess I would have to go with my Kansas list. Especially now that I am in Chicago I truly miss Kansas birds and when I look over my list I see home.

3. What sparked your interest in birds?

Well, that is kind of tough. That mini-fallout day really catapulted me into birding, but as a kid I loved being outside, making and putting up bird feeders and houses, building brush piles, etc... Just growing up in the country helped me appreciate the flora and fauna.

4. If you could only bird in one place for the rest of your life where would it be and why?

I would have to say Morton County Kansas. It is in the far southwest corner of Kansas and even though it is thoroughly explored during migration it doesn't really have anyone that birds there regularly. I would love to bird there daily!

5. Do you have a jinx bird? What is it and why is it jinxed?

Nothing is too glaring. I've been pretty lucky in seeing species reported by others, but I think Red Phalarope might be it. I've "chased" them a few times with no luck. I think I've been passed this jinx bird from my pal Pete Janzen who finally saw one not too long ago.

6. Who is your favorite birder? and why?

Many of my birding pals are high on my list, but I think it would have to go to Kenn Kaufman. As a boy he lived in Wichita, KS (where I grew up) before he took off on his birding adventures. I very much wanted to follow in his footsteps. I wrote him a "fan letter" when I was a boy, and one day not long after, I got a message from my mom saying some guy named Kenn Kaufman had called. What? No way! I thought she was pulling my leg. I called him back and he said he would be in town and wondered if I wanted to do a little birding. Obviously I did (sadly I had a broken ankle at the time!). We went to Oak Park and went birding. A great guy and a great birder and naturalist.

7. Do you tell non-birders you are a birder? What do they say to you when they find out?

I mention it if it comes up. I don't walk around with a sign around my neck, oh wait, my binoculars! Every single time any talk of listing comes up people ask me how I prove I saw the bird. They just assume people will make up birds. I want to SEE the bird not just TELL people I saw a bird!

I'm going to tag The Birdchaser, A D.C. Birding Blog, Vagrant, Jeff Gyr, Birds Etcetera, 10,000 Birds, Birding Is Not A Crime, Mike's Birding and Digiscoping Blog, Steve Blain and Birdchick.

And if anyone else wants to answer these PLEASE DO! Just send me a link to your post. I'd love to see your answers.

Black-bellied Plover

I wanted to try out iMovie and see what captured stills from video would look like. Not great, but at low res they are ok. I'm not sure how to get rid of the vignetting. Hopefully with practice.

Montrose Beach

I birded Montrose Beach this morning. Here are a couple videos and a still. I don't care for the pixelation on Google Video so I may try something else at some point. I didn't get as much vignetting this time. Baby steps!

Black-bellied Plover

Sanderling

Sanderling still

Digiscoping with my Fuji e900

So I headed out early to Gillson Park hoping for some migrants and hoping for some digiscoping practice with my new Fuji Finepix e900. Well, the birds were few and far between. I saw Chipping Sparrows, Red-breasted Nuthatches, American Robins, Baltimore Orioles, a Black-and-White Warbler, Northern Cardinal, Canada Goose, etc... So I focused on trying my hand at digiscoping.

I don't have an adapter so I used a Gatorade cap, cut a hole in it and taped it on my scope (Kowa TSN-4). I have to hand hold my camera up to the scope and hope for a steady hand. That is not very easy.

Here's what my scope looks like with the bottle cap. can you see the cottontail?

Here's an attempt, a bit blurry, but you can tell it's a rabbit!


Here's a still of a Baltimore Oriole.

Here's what it looked like with the naked eye. He's at the very top of the middle tree.

Here I started messing around with the video function. The shaking at least seems appropriate with the live action shots!




I still need a lot of practice and some more subjects to practice on, but I'm at least happy that I can get record shots in case I come across something rare.

A Couple More Garden Pics

These pics brought to you courtesy of my new Fuji Finepix e900. I got it to do some digiscoping of birds. Hopefully I'll get some presentable photos soon, but for now here are some non-digiscoped shots from the garden.

Things are slowing down in the garden a little. Today I got one full basket whereas we had been getting about two baskets.



Here is the path in front of our plot. Ours is on the right with all the sunflowers.

White-eared Hummingbird Nest

While going through some old photos I found this.

When I was working at the Southwestern Research Station in 2000 I heard a report of a White-eared Hummingbird nest up in higher elevations. I had seen a WEHU before, but a nest in AZ. That was too cool to pass up.

New Blogger

Well, I finally caved. I joined the new Blogger. I'm not liking my page right now so it will be changing quite a bit, but it really is easier to add links, etc... so I hope I can make things look a little better.

Some Garden Pics

The community garden has been a success this year. We've been inundated with tomatoes and squash to the point where we can't give them away. The corn has been attacked by Western Corn Rootworm. Little bastards. But we did get some corn and it is so sweet! The cherry tomatoes have been great. This was a bit of a learning experience as far as how to place plants in a way to get the most out of them in a small area. Our Cucumbers, Peppers and Eggplant got shaded out by our squash, but still produced enough for us. Broccoli sure takes up a lot of space for such a small return. Here are a few pics we took before the tomatoes started to turn.

Elkhart Sewage Lagoons

Birders love sewage. Well, birds love sewage ponds, lagoons, treatment centers so what is a birder to do? My favorite sewage lagoon is in Elkhart, KS. It laps its green, floaty-filled water against cement in the furthest reaches of southwest Kansas. If you are a Kansas birder you've heard of or been to this birder friendly lagoon. Unlike here in Chicago where sewage is guarded like Fort Knox, Elkhart has nice dirt roads outlining their lagoons. A window mount and scope are well suited for a nice leisurely drive around the lagoons. Many rarities have been seen there including, Red Phalarope, Little Gull, Eurasian Wigeon, Lesser Nighthawk, Sabine's Gull, etc...

A welcoming sign to birders!


Not as welcoming, but we know we are loved.


Maybe some of the locals aren't quite so sure what we are out here looking for? Well, yes, I guess they are Toyd Boyds!


A few birders checking out the lagoons. From left to right: Pete Janzen, Dave Williams, Brandon Percival

Burrowing Owls

So I'm planning a birding trip to Cimarron National Grasslands in a couple weeks and I'm going a little bird crazy. So I was looking over some old bird stuff and found a couple things I thought I'd post.

Back in the summer of 1996 I worked at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in SW Oklahoma with the Student Conservation Association. I did a lot of different things there, but probably the most memorable was transplanting a family of Burrowing Owls from an unstable area and onto the refuge. This consisted of building a Burrowing Owl burrow, leg trapping the male Burrowing Owl and digging up the female and young birds and then after transplanting them, watching their behavior and supplementing their food with chilled (slow) walking sticks, grasshoppers, etc... It was quite an experience. The male took off, but the female stayed in her new burrow and raised 3 young (the total number we transplanted). Here are a couple of pics. I scanned them so they may not be the best quality.


Ken with male Burrowing Owl


Ken holding baby Burrowing Owl, cute huh?


A drawing I did of a young Burrowing Owl

El Santuario de Chimayo

Our New Mexico trip this spring took us to El Santuario de Chimayo, a small Catholic church northeast of Santa Fe. It is known for the pit inside the church which holds sand which is renowned for its healing capabilities. Visitors aren't allowed to take pictures inside the church, but the site Roadside America has a few shots of the pit and the crutches placed on the wall after people have been healed. And here are some more inside the church photos in this Flicker photo group.

Here is the official site -- Archdiocese of Santa Fe

Radio Lab

Sounds a bit like a cross between Stereolab and Radiohead, but it's actually an hour long NPR program. I just finished listening to season 3 while pulling weeds and now I'm on to seasons 1 and 2. They are incredible. I guess it can be compared to This American Life because they take a theme and do stories based on that theme (so yeah, it's a LOT like TAL), but it focuses on scientific answers/questions about very interesting topics like morality, memory, etc... I have to say each episode makes me want to write. Check it out -- Radio Lab

Wallace Stevens

Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs.


It is true that the rivers went nosing like swine,
Tugging at banks, until they seemed
Bland belly-sounds in somnolent troughs,

That the air was heavy with the breath of these swine,
The breath of turgid summer, and
Heavy with thunder’s rattapallax,

That the man who erected this cabin, planted
This field, and tended it awhile,
Knew not the quirks of imagery,

That the hours of his indolent, arid days,
Grotesque with this nosing in banks,
This somnolence and rattapallax,

Seemed to suckle themselves on his arid being,
As the swine-like rivers suckled themselves
While they went seaward to the sea-mouths.

Recurve-billed Bushbird

from NationalGeographic.com

June 26, 2007—Call him the Mona Lisa of the bird kingdom.

The rare recurve-billed bushbird, recently rediscovered by scientists in Colombia after a 40-year absence, sports a curving beak that gives the illusion of an enigmatic smile.

This photograph, taken by a conservationist with the Colombia-based nonprofit Fundación ProAves, is the first ever taken of a live bushbird.

The elusive species had not been spotted between 1965 and 2004, due to its limited range and remote habitats. It was seen recently in Venezuela and in a region of northeastern Colombia, where it was photographed.

Researchers found the bird in a 250-acre (101-hectare) reserve next to the Torcoroma Holy Sanctuary near the Colombian town of Ocaña, where in 1709 locals claimed they saw the image of the Virgin Mary in a tree root. The forests of the sanctuary have been protected by Catholic Church authorities in the centuries since.

The researchers also found and photographed the extremely rare Perija parakeet, of which only 30 to 50 individuals likely survive.

Deforestation and wildfires for agriculture and grazing have denuded much of the birds' habitat, conservationists say.

"[A]s more and more remote areas are being settled, the bushbird reminds us how important it is to conserve as much natural habitat as we can," said Paul Salaman of the American Bird Conservancy.

"Who knows what wonderful biodiversity is being destroyed before it has had a chance to be discovered?"

Poems

I have a few poems up at Mipoesias.

Calculate your impact

tag

Read this question over on Sturgeon's Law.

Say someone asked me, "I kind of like poetry, but I don't know anything about contemporary poetry. Who should I read?"

My taste in "contemporary" poetry is fairly non-contemporary, but I consider anyone still writing in the 1960's to be contemporary, so with that in mind here is my list for today (in no particular order).

Robert Wrigley
Evan S. Connell
Robert Penn Warren
Larry Levis
Albert Goldbarth
William Matthews
Bob Hicok
James Wright
Ted Hughes
Galway Kinnell
James Dickey
Gary Snyder

poem

I have a poem up at Diagram.