Phriday Photo – Christmas Bird Count Season Begins
December 18, 2009
Article in: Photography
This is from last year’s romp through tons of snow. Here’s hoping for a little easier walking 
Look for photos and a recap from tomorrow’s Christmas Bird Count. Hope we see a ton of birds!!
Week 4 – eCornell Course – “Courtship and Rivalry in Birds”
December 16, 2009
Article in: Birding
We have recently enrolled in an eCornell course called “Courtship and Rivalry in Birds“. This is a 5-week course and here is a recap of the third module/week of this course. [View Week 1] [View Week 2] [View Week 3]
By far our favorite week! The featured birds were from the family of Birds-of-paradise. Several videos, pictures, and activities helped showcase the strangeness of their behavior. Birds-of-paradise are some of the most interesting birds and their unique ornamental feathers provide for some fascinating behavioral study.
The footage of these incredible birds is jaw-dropping. Our favorites include the Superb Bird-of-paradise and Lawe’s Parotia both of which perform absolutely ridiculous displays on leks.
Side note: my dog Bella was incredibly interested in the videos as well, poking her nose at the screen when the birds started squawking.
Also in this week’s module we were asked to “put numbers” on behavior and come up with ideas for better recording such data from observations in the field (those observations unaccompanied by a video camera).
Much of week four covers the amazing research and field study (including video) conducted by Edwin Scholes III. His work in behavioral research of Birds-of-paradise is superb and beneficial to anyone wanting to study other types of birds as well.
The videos Ed Scholes took are all accessible via Cornell’s Macaulay Library. However, it is a bit difficult to find them unless you search via latin names of the birds.
This week also included a discussion and final exam. At the end we were asked 10 questions and I got 7 out of 10 (bird behavior is tough but rewarding for learning more about birds.)
Look for our recap of the final module, week 5 coming soon. Another session of the course begins January 6, 2010.
Review of Oscar and Olive Osprey – A Family Takes Flight
December 15, 2009
Article in: Book Reviews
Oscar and Olive Osprey: A Family Takes Flight
is the story of a family of Ospreys who nested off the shoreline of Maryland in the Chesapeake Bay. The story is told by Janie Suss, locally known as “Bird Woman”.
Janie erected a platform off her pier in the hopes of attracting an Osprey pair to nest. She was successful and her story recounts the lives of this pair, who she named Oscar and Olive.
The chapter book covers the lives of this Osprey pair from first building to the nest, to brooding three young, and all the difficulties that Ospreys encounter when raising young, hungry birds. Various challenges are recounted including encounters with a Great Blue Heron (Harriett), stormy weather, and the challenge of teaching young birds to fish and be on their own.
Oscar and Olive Osprey provides a great story for young naturalists who can learn about one of North America’s coolest birds. The story also encourages young readers to go out there and observe what the natural world has to offer.
“Bird Woman’s” story shows a parallel to how important families are even in the birding world. Even though the story is Anthropomorphic (that is, the birds are given human traits and emotions), it provides a great message while encouraging kids to observe birds. The author also promotes that families spend more time enjoying nature’s ongoing show instead of television, something we wholly agree with.
Recommended ages: 8 to 12
Disclosure: we were given a copy of this wonderful book by the publisher to review. However, we were not persuaded to say or do anything other than give an honest review, which we have.
Review of the iFlyer Birdsong Scanning Wand
December 14, 2009
Article in: Product Reviews
The iFlyer Birdsong Scanning Wand is a fun birding tool that can greatly enhance your field guide and your bird song learning abilities.
With 206 bird species and 10 kinds of frogs included, the iFlyer Birdsong Scanning Wand is a great way to learn sounds. The wand itself is like an oversized pen with a build in scanner for the point. You use the wand to scan bar codes and the wand itself has a speaker for sound playback.
Included with the iFlyer is a full-color booklet with all the birds (and frogs) pictured with their accompanying bar code. The birds are organized by habitat and in some cases, by family. There is a section for yard birds, birds of the night, and a “bird caller” section as well. This last one includes some alarm and owl calls that are commonly used to attract birds (similar to pishing).
Many of the wood warblers are included and are organized by similar sounds to help ease what is often a difficult family of birds to learn.
The wand is easy to use and bar codes can be scanned left to right or right to left. However, you do have to practice a bit with the angle (recommended 45 degrees) to get a scan. But within seconds of having the batteries installed I was scanning bar codes with ease.
Perhaps the coolest feature of the iFlyer is the included bar code stickers. These stickers (separate from the included booklet) can be placed in your favorite field guide so when you are out on a birding trip simply bring the scanner and you can play the sound like it is straight out of your guide.
Note that not all field guides have adequate room for these stickers. We placed ours in the Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America but some names were partially covered up. The stickers do have the species name on them, so you don’t have to worry about losing information, just ascetic appeal.
The iFlyer Birdsong Scanning Wand is excellent for bird hikes and handy for those without smart phones or PDAs. The wand itself seems durable and comes in a carrying case that has room for the booklet as well. There are expandable chips in the works for more bird sounds and the creator, Terry Allen, is looking to best organize a new booklet of bird sounds for birders.
We recommend adding a whole section of sparrows and improving a few of the sounds that are a bit off. (White-throated Sparrow sounds distorted.) We will gladly forward any of your ideas to Terry if you leave them in the comments section below.
Bird Photography Weekly #68
December 13, 2009
Article in: Bird Photography Weekly
Join in now on the 68th edition of Bird Photography Weekly!!
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Phriday Photo – White-breasted Nuthatch Digiscoped
December 11, 2009
Article in: Photography
This is a White-breasted Nuthatch we digiscoped last year. One of our favorite birds and photos.
Week 3 – eCornell Course – “Courtship and Rivalry in Birds”
December 10, 2009
Article in: Birding
We have recently enrolled in an eCornell course called “Courtship and Rivalry in Birds“. This is a 5-week course and here is a recap of the third module/week of this course. [View Week 1] [View Week 2]
Week three focused on the “Whats and Whys of Conflict” and showcased examples of conflict among Red-winged Blackbirds. This week provided some insight into how to ask questions on bird behavior, how different approaches can reach different answers (depending on your field of study and how you want to go about finding the answer), and overall how to better expand on a simple question of why a bird does a certain thing.
Module 3 was definitely more advanced than the previous two and can be a bit overwhelming. Even as a self-proclaimed Birdfreak, a lot of the scientific wording and complexity of biology is difficult to comprehend immediately. It is important to realize that the modules and the course itself do not need to be fully mastered all at once. This course is heavy in knowledge but should provide a helpful trigger into further learning, especially through the multitude of resources available through Cornell and other places.
This week also included a “game of life” where you took on the role of both a male and female Red-winged Blackbird and had to make choices on when to migrate and what to do when you migrated. (Note that this isn’t actually a video game with animated birds.) The goal was to understand how different strategies can drastically effect individual birds breeding success (or lack of).
The module concluded with a discussion which provided all the students to interact and discuss what they learned. The discussion was directed by the instructor but overall the various insights of everyone makes for a pretty interesting learning experience about bird behavior.
Look for our recap of week 4 coming soon. Another session of the course begins January 6, 2010.
Gearing Up For Christmas Bird Count Season
December 9, 2009
Article in: Bird Conservation
December marks the beginning of Christmas Bird Count season and even though we are already pressed for time it is tradition to try and do as many counts as possible.
So, we’re signed up for 3 counts including the second year of the Rock Cut Christmas Bird Count which we started last year and coordinate.
Being prepared for multiple CBCs is crucial especially in our climate where the weather can be just about anything and the bird habitat to cover is huge. We’ve come up with a few suggested items that can help enhance your counting experience. All of these can be found in our OpenSky store.
- Grabber Hand Warmers – these have been so appreciated when the temperature dips below freezing and the wind chill is unmentionable.
- Two-Way Radios – great for splitting groups up to cover large, heavily wooded areas or even to coordinate multiple vehicle movements
- Rite in the Rain Notebook – great for keeping field notes during a drizzle or blizzard (and keeping field notes is especially important on a bird count)
- Kaufman Field Guide to Birds – Kaufman’s guide is great for count day because it is small and light weight yet fully functional for bird identification.
- Delorme Topographic Atlas – we’ve mentioned this before but these large atlases make finding out-of-the-way roads and habitat nuggets a breeze
- Optics – don’t forget your bins at home and if you’ve got a spotting scope make sure it comes along!
- Digital camera – capturing a photo of that unusual bird is a sure way of getting it accepted on count day
- iPod with BirdJam software – being able to call in birds or match an unfamiliar sound is vital to a successful count
These are just some of the items you should consider when going out on a Christmas Bird Count. After the count, treat yourself to a much deserved glass (or bottle) of Burning Hawk Wine to complete the day.
