Bird Feathers #7

The seventh in a series of occassional rundowns of what’s happening in the world of birds, birding and bird blogging.

Bird News

 A beak is a mysterious and incredible tool | A bird’s beak may be a rather curious object, but it remains a vitally important appendage.

Eagles “Cannibalizing” Other Birds as Otters Disappear | Some bald eagles in Alaska have switched to eating mainly other bird species, a new study says.

Hundreds of Birds Killed by School’s Artificial Lights | Hundreds of yellow warblers and other migratory birds died this week when they flew into a lighted school building that sits on a hill in Hambleton, W. Va.

 

Sea birds’ DNA may hold keys to aging and cancer, researcher says | Leach’s storm-petrels should die young but live a long life and break the conventional rules. First of all, they’re small, and there tends to be a relationship between body size and life span.

Beaches once thick with birds quiet thanks to Ike | One of North America’s renowned bird migration and bird watching areas is strangely silent. Blame Hurricane Ike.

The long march of the penguins | Exhausted birds are washing up on Brazil’s tropical beaches, thrown off course by changing currents.

Belfast Birds Found Covered In Grease | Something in the city of Belfast, Maine is making birds sick, and police are working with biologists to figure what it is.

Birding Blogs

Offshore Wind Power Comes to New Jersey | New Jersey has approved its first offshore wind farm, following the lead of similar projects in Delaware and Rhode Island. A DC Birding Blog

Segway Birding | In my almost four decades of seeking birds, I’ve been birding in many different ways, using many different modes of transport. Then, last week, I added a new mode of birding transport to my “life-experience list”: The Segway. Bill of the Birds

And for those who like jigsawpuzzles, try out this Bald Eagle puzzle.

Thanks to Audobon Birdscapes for the link to the puzzle site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy birding!

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Overnight bird migration

With a combination of a full moon and light northwesterly winds, a heavy migration of birds occured last night over Maine. The Maine-Bird List was alive with reports of birds in-flight and calling during the overnight hours.

As evident in the following image of the 9:00 p.m. radar, you can see that the movement was spectacular.

 Good articles on “birding by radar” can be found at Derek Lovitch’s Blog and another at David LaPuma’s Woodcreeper.com. Reading these articles can help you better understand the relationship between night time bird migration and radar. You can view my radar images at anytime of the night or day at BathMaineWeather.com. There is a controller to loop through the images from the last several hours.

I leave you with a picture of the beautiful full Harvest Moon from last night. Click the thumbnail for a full sized view.

Happy birding!

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Bird Feathers #6

The sixth in a series of occassional rundowns of what’s happening in the world of birds, birding and bird blogging.

Birding News

Alaska bird population has unique strategies | The strategies birds employ to survive Alaska’s upcoming season of darkness and cold, talking about the flighty birds that split, and the hardy few that stay.

Brain Birds: Amazing Crows and Ravens | No matter where you live, they’re your neighbors. You might want to watch them — carefully.

Building faux habitat to lure the cactus wren | Scientists have planted 15 green contraptions throughout Orange County’s Irvine Ranch Conservancy to entice a declining population of the birds.

PHOTO IN THE NEWS: New Bird Species Found in Gabon | A fiery throated bird spotted in the jungles of Gabon several years ago is a new African forest robin species, DNA studies prove.

Researchers study shrimp to learn more about shorebirds | Researchers from Mount Allison University have been making trips out to the Bay of Fundy mudflats to gather mud shrimp. It’s part of a project to study the eating habits of shorebirds and to find out if those habits are different between day and night.

Offshore oil rigs provide welcome stopovers for migrating birds | The Gulf of Mexico is important to migratory birds, too. Somewhere around a billion birds travel to their wintering grounds in Mexico, Central and South America every fall, and return to North America in spring.

Birding Blogs

About BirdPost | John Beetham of A DC Birding Blog gives his take on a new web service called BirdPost.

The BirdwatchRadio Podcast #9 | On this program, they observe the thirtieth anniversary of BirdWatcher’s Digest with editor Bill Thompson III.

A Quest | Jeff Wells, a senior scientist for the Boreal Songbird Initiative, has a post about a new show opening Wednesday evening, September 17, from 5:30 to 8:00 PM at the Jonathan Frost Gallery in Rockland, Maine. The show features artist Susan Beebe.

 

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T.S. Hanna Aftermath

New England survived the remnants of Tropical Storm Hanna last night. Here at home, we received 5.80″ of rain in under ten hours and had a high wind gust of 31 m.p.h. The highest rainfall amount locally that I heard about was 6.92″ in Gray, Maine. At times last night, the torrential downpours woke me up but no lightning or thunder was observed.

I took a ride this morning to Popham Beach State Park. Several low lying areas had water across the road, a few branches and limbs were down and light beach erosion was evident at the park. We have a new pond beside our driveway, but it is receding nicely.

The birds seemed to fare well here at home. Hummingbirds and juvenile American Goldfinches were at the feeders before the sun came up this morning. Eleven Green-Winged Teals with 2 Blue-Winged Teals mixed in were observed this morning in the river just off our back yard.

Down at Popham Beach, not much activity was observed. A few Dunlin and a smattering of Semipalmated Plovers were feeding on the exposed flats.  A lone Osprey was seen hovering near the Seguin Island Lighthouse and several Double-Crested Cormorants were seen toward the Morris River. We had a juvenile Herring Gull follow us around like a puppy while we were on the beach.

All in all not a devastating storm except for a few flooded roads and basements.

The view early this morning from Popham Beach State Park:

Happy birding!

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Labor Day Birding

Today: Sept. 6th, 2008: As I watch our feeders being over-run with Juvenile American Goldfinches, you can’t help but wonder if they know that the remnants of Tropical Storm Hanna is coming. A literal feeding frenzy has been going on since first light here at Fiddler’s Reach.

 

Even through the gloom of fog and showers, many species of birds are feeding. In anticipation of the four to five inches of rain and strong winds that are expected, I made sure the feeders were filled to the brim early this morning.

 

As Hanna nears, you can watch the progress of the storm on the BathMaineWeather.com Nexrad Radar. Also, as an added bonus, there is a page on the site with Live Buoy Observations.

It’s 1:00 p.m. and we have a influx of Warblers coming to the trees and feeders. As we are trying to identify the Warblers, a Hawk came screaming in to the finch feeder, not snagging any prey and just avoiding a collision with our house.

I have been using a mixture of Niger Seed and Sunflower Chips in my Finch feeders. In our other feeders, we use a regional blend from Wild Birds Unlimited. Choice Blend has nuts, blackoil sunflower seed, safflower, cherries, rasins and suet nuggets.  This mixture is a hit for the birds visiting our feeders. Squirrels love it also, so it’s a good idea to put it in feeders that the Squirrels have no access to.

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Over the Labor Day Weekend, the weather was beautiful. (Saturday morning was cloudy and foggy, but it all burned off by noon.)By simply walking out onto our back deck Saturday morning, we were treated to a Warbler fall out. The action was nearly impossible to keep up with!

Bird watching from your deck or back yard takes little effort, causes no pollution and you have the added benefit of having all of your tools of bird identification on hand.

As all good things come to an end, so did the plethora of birds. A Red-Tailed Hawk flew in and just missed grabbing a Wilson’s Warbler. The Hawk then decided to sit in the tree in the middle of our yard, which in turn kept all birds away for the rest of the morning.

We did manage to tally 50 species!

Location:     Home (Fiddler’s Reach section of the Kennebec River, 2 miles SE of Bath, Maine)
Observation date:     8/30/08
Notes:     Cloudy, light fog, Temp. 60 F. Wind: Calm, Low Tide
Number of species:     50

Canada Goose     35
American Wigeon     1     With Green-Winged Teal and American Black Ducks
American Black Duck     90
Mallard     15
Green-winged Teal     6     With American Black Ducks
Common Loon     1     In Flight
Double-crested Cormorant     16
Great Egret     1
Snowy Egret     9
Little Blue Heron     2
Osprey     1
Bald Eagle     1
Red-tailed Hawk     1     Attempted to grab a Wilson’s Warbler without luck
Semipalmated Plover     13
Lesser Yellowlegs     4
Semipalmated Sandpiper     6
White-rumped Sandpiper     2
Mourning Dove     3
Ruby-throated Hummingbird     7
Downy Woodpecker     2

Hairy Woodpecker     1
Eastern Phoebe     4
American Crow     8
Fish Crow     1     Vocalizing
Common Raven     1
Black-capped Chickadee     7
Tufted Titmouse     6
Red-breasted Nuthatch     1
White-breasted Nuthatch     3
Ruby-crowned Kinglet     2
Gray Catbird     2
Cedar Waxwing     1
Northern Parula     1
Chestnut-sided Warbler     2
Black-throated Blue Warbler     1
Yellow-rumped Warbler     4
Blackburnian Warbler     1
Palm Warbler     1
Blackpoll Warbler     1
Black-and-white Warbler     2
Common Yellowthroat     2
Wilson’s Warbler     3
Chipping Sparrow     8
Clay-colored Sparrow     2     With Chipping Sparrows allowing us to differentiate between the two species.
Savannah Sparrow     1
Song Sparrow     7
Northern Cardinal     2
Purple Finch     2
House Finch     4
American Goldfinch     8

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2

 

Sunday morning, we took a short drive to Atkins Bay. The tide was at low, and shorebirds were out on the mudflats some distance from the shore.

Large flocks of Bonaparte Gulls were competing with shorebirds for space and food. One group of Snowy Egrets in flight numbered 15.

Whimbrels, Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs, Great Blue Heron, and many “peeps” could be seen from Green Point. Two first year Bald Eagles were seen flying over Atkins Bay, disappearing over the spruces towards Parker Head. A lone Osprey was seen fishing near Coxs Head where a few Black Ducks and Canada Geese were resting.

Not a bad three-day weekend!

Happy birding!

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