Entries Tagged 'On the Web' ↓

Accomplished writers and webmasters Michael and Diane Porter are bird enthusiasts who want to share and celebrate birds through birdwatching.com. Their website has a bit of everything, optic reviews, which they write for Birdwatcher’s Digest, birding tips, and stories about birds.

You can find wonderful examples of Diane Porter’s work on the site such as The Secret Life of a Soft-hearted Tree, a story about the Great-crested Flycatcher.

The Birdfreak Team was lucky enough to meet Diane Porter at the Midwest Birding Symposium back in September. She was very nice and even took a photo of Dakota for her website! He is the kid in the section Birding FAQ - What’s in it for me if I start birding?

The American Bird Conservancy has recently updated their website and they’ve done quite an excellent job. If you aren’t familiar with ABC, they are a four-star charity not-for-profit with a sole purpose on bird habitat conservation throughout the Americas.

The American Bird Conservancy is a leading force with many campaigns for the “Future of Bird Conservation“:

Despite the complex array of threats facing birds and their habitats, the opportunity to advance bird conservation has never been greater than it is today, thanks to the growth of the birding movement and to technical advances in bird conservation practice—many of which are led by ABC.

To take full advantage of these opportunities, ABC is launching a five-year, $40 million campaign, based on the principles of leadership, program excellence, innovation, and results, to advance the cause of bird conservation across the Americas.

The campaign aims to safeguard the rarest birds, conserve habitat for declining species, and eliminate the worst threats to bird populations. It will also help ABC lead the way in bird conservation science and innovation through a new Institute for Bird Conservation, and supercharge the bird movement through a broad-based Bird Conservation Alliance to leverage maximum conservation results across the hemisphere.

[Full list of all the programs ABC is a part of]

Now would be a good time to join the American Bird Conservancy!!

Not counting cool Kenn Kaufman and other great birders and authors, we tried finding a well-known celebrity bird-lover to feature on a post. We were looking for someone who is well known among the non-birders. We found exactly one, and his specialty is the Bald Eagle. I know, there are many features done on the Bald Eagle, after all it is one of the most popular bird species in the United States. Can you imagine the help birds would get if even ONE big name was an actual birder?

Stephen Colbert, who hosts The Colbert Report on Comedy Central LOVES Bald Eagles and talks about them on his show. Last night, some of the Birdfreak Team caught Colbert explaining that there should be a National Bald Eagle Day and of course we agree. He even had someone from the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota on the show to talk about them. Very cool, especially when late night (and early and middle-of-the-day) talk shows usually have one or two topics featuring Paris Hilton (who probably won’t ever become a birder).

Are there any other potential celebrity birders out there? The Birdfreak Team will have to keep searching. There must be someone out there that could promote birding and conservation to its fullest. Who knows? Maybe with the help of Laura Erickson and Birdchick we really can have our first nationally-known celebrity birder.

I went “cicada hunting” today and found just a small patch of Brood XIII Cicadas at Sugar River Alder Forest Preserve. We are not giving up though! We will go again tomorrow to find those hungry birds!

The Lake County Forest Preserve has an Interactive 17-year Cicada Emergence Map showing where they are being found. There is a feature to send them your sightings so they can predict where they will be in 2024 as well.

Links to other cicada posts
Brood XIII Map
Cicadas Are On The Menu

After 17 years, a new dinner item will be on the menu for our birds, though for a limited time only (late May through June of 2007). They have the sci-fi name of Brood XIII and they are the only 17-year cicadas in our area. Periodic cicadas come out every 13 or 17 years and are only found in North America. Some people call them locusts, but locusts are a different speciesn

Northern Illinois Brood (Brood XIII)—The Northern Illinois Brood has a 17-year cycle and last emerged in 1990. Most of the region occupied by this brood lies within the Wisconsin-age glacial plain. Brood XIII also occurs in Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and will emerge again during 2007.

Here is their entire range from the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology’s Insect Division

More information on cicadas can be found on Cicada Mania

We are going to try and get pictures of birds eating these cicadas-we have heard that American Kestrels love them! We want to track the different kinds of birds who love cicadas.

Maybe we will have a taste of cicada….we found this recipe online-

Soft Shelled Cicadas

1 cup Worcestershire sauce
30 freshly emerged 17-year cicadas
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups flour
Salt and pepper to season the flour,
1/2 cup corn oil or slightly salted butter.

You should marinate cicadas in Worcestershire sauce for several hours. Dip them in the beaten egg, roll them in the seasoned flour and then gently saute until they are golden brown.

Links to other cicada posts
Brood XIII Map
Brood XIII Interactive Map

We discovered this on the American Bird Conservancy’s website. Apparently the first ever video of the Marvelous Spatuletail’s courtship display has been recorded. This is a super cool (and rare) hummingbird found in northern Peru.

A California Condor laid an egg in Mexico for the first (known) time since the 1930s… full story from MSNBC

This is obviously great news, but of course the Condor still has a long way to go. But it’s stories like this that get the blood pumping!!