Space Station over the Twin Cities

And now for something completely different. This is the first astronomy related post to the Twin Cities Naturalist. I'm a fan of astronomy and stargazing and strongly consider it part of being a naturalist. There's a great opportunity to stretch your space science geek muscles coming up and I figured I should tell everyone about it.

The International Space Station will fly over the Twin Cities at 11:19 p.m. on July 6th. It is not especially rare to have a fly-over but this one should be good as it will 87 degrees up in the sky so almost right overhead. If you haven't seen it before you should check it out.

I remember the first fly-over I saw was years ago but as the space station grows they keep getting brighter and brighter.

Here's an animation of how the station has changed over the years.

If you miss it there is another pass on the 8th at 10:33 pm that will be only slightly lower elevation (84 degrees)

The ISS passing overhead looks like a really bright star. Don't expect to see much. With a telescope you can actually make out the solar panels. You could try to make out some detail with binoculars. Tracking is tricky and it is bright but some people have reported seeing a few shape details from Earth.

At any rate, it is fun to watch it glide by and to think that there are people living up there in space.

~Kirk

Read More

Phoebe Web Cam Back Up

After some strange server problems, the live Eastern Phoebe Web Cam is back up and running. The Eastern Phoebe has been on the nest every night this week cooking up a new batch of eggs for round 2 of nesting. So far so good. Four days, four eggs. We're really hoping the Brown headed Cowbirds don't come back to the nest. We checked the phoebe nest about 400 feet from this one and it currently has cowbird eggs in it. I expect the phoebe will lay one more egg tomorrow morning and then start incubation.

~Kirk

Read More

Electric Squid Lightening

Summer storm season is upon us and that means all kinds of interesting natural phenomenon. I think as a naturalist you have to be a little bit of an amateur meteorologist. So much of what we do depends upon weather (and the red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.)

I have two favorite weather sites. The first is www.weatherunderground.com which offers live Doppler radar access including animated loops with storm tracks that give you live data on how high thunderstorms are, predicted hail size, wind speed, etc. It is both fascinating and useful.

The second site I like is the National Mosaic Enhanced Radar Image Full Resolution Loop. It shows a live loop of all the combined weather radars in the country and is really interesting when major storms develop across the country. It is very large and won't fit on my whole screen. There is a smaller version also available. This system can also be used to track bird migration via radar in the spring.

The photo below has been making the rounds on the internet in the last month. It was taken by Atmospheric scientist Oscar van der Velde of Sant Vicenç de Castellet, Spain on June 5th. It is a photo of an atmospheric phenomenon called a sprite.


Researchers at the University of Minnesota first photographed sprites in 1989 and now amateurs are doing it from home. Sprites are sometimes called lightening but unlike the lightening we are familiar with, sprites occur very high in the upper atmosphere, about 50 miles up, and are not hot. They are cold plasma phenomenon similar to what happens in a fluorescent light. They are triggered by cloud to ground lightening strikes in thunderstorms far below. Sprites are only triggered by positive lightening strikes which are rarer and higher energy than the standard negative strikes.

You too can watch for sprites. You need to be in the dark countryside and have a large mesoscale thunderstorm about 60 miles away. There needs to be clear skies between you and the storm. Shield your eyes from the flashes of in-cloud lightening and look above the distant cloud tops for the flashes of sprites. They are very short flashes but they can be captured with cameras.

You can see more interesting photos here.

~Kirk

Read More

The Second Clutch

Looks like I was a day late on this. Paul pointed out today that there are two new eggs in the phoebe nest. Since they lay one a day that means the first egg of the second clutch of the year was laid on Sunday morning. I'm holding out hope that Cowbirds won't lay eggs in the nest again but only time will tell on that.




~Kirk

Read More

Why is your name not on this list?

I'm sure you're asking the same question I am.

Why is your name not on this list yet?

You know who you are.

There are still a lot of unclaimed blocks that need owners for the Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas survey.

Why not claim your block?

~Kirk

Read More

Cigarette Butts Kill Fish

I'm worn out from a long day of fossil hunting but I thought this was worthy of passing on. For all those morons who think cigarette butts biodegrade, read on. Not only do they not biodegrade, it turns out they are really good at killing fish.



Why not help out the cause and support one of the coolest companies on Earth, Northern Sun. Your car can sport the following bumper sticker just like my co-worker Julie.Enough said.

~Kirk

Read More

FLEDGED!

When I came into work this morning there were still little Eastern Phoebes in the nest. An hour later, I clicked on the site again and they were all gone. Now the question is, will the phoebe lay a second clutch of eggs?

My previous question has been answered. According to the Cornell site, the bird's hatch date was May 22. That was 20 days ago which means having the Cowbird in the nest did indeed slow down the development of the phoebes. They usually fledge in 15 to 16 days.

~Kirk

Read More

Funky Nest Contest

Cornell is now taking entries for the Funky Nests in Funky Places Challenge. There are lots of ways to enter. You can take photos, do a painting, write a story, or shoot a video showing a bird’s nest built in some out-of-the-way or out-of-this-world place.

Prizes include a Leica C-LUX 3 compact camera, bird feeders, shrubs for planting, and more. The first 50 entrants will receive a copy of the "Doves and Pigeons" poster by Julie Zickefoose and they will post selected images and videos on the Celebrate Urban Birds website.

Here's how to enter:
1. Email your entry to urbanbirds@cornell.edu. Links are acceptable for videos.
2. Write “Funky Nests” in the subject line.
3. Include your name and mailing address.
4. Explain why you submitted your entry--what's the story behind it?
5. One entry per person, please.

Deadline for entries is July 31, 2009

Read More

One Month of Atlasing

As mentioned previously, I've taken on the task of coordinating the atlasing of section T31R20a for the Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas. So far, it has been really interesting. As a participant, you try to identify which birds are breeding in a specified area of land (approximately 9 square miles.) Birds are classified into confirmed breeders, probable breeders or possible breeders. The goal is to get as many birds as possible into as high a category as possible.

There are still many available blocks around the state that need people to take them on so if you're interested in birds be sure to sign up. Many metro locations are still up for grabs as well. Out in ye ol' block T31R20a we've confirmed 16 species. Most of these involve either seeing eggs in a nest or parents sitting on a nest. The confirmed category is the hardest since you usually have to find the actual nests. My co-worker Paul just spotted a warbling vireo nest last week which was a great find. The other way to confirm breeding is to catch a female with a brood patch. That's how we added Black0capped Chickadee, Song Sparrow and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

Confirmed:
Canada Goose
Wild Turkey
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Blue Jay
Eastern Phoebe
Tree Swallow
Bald Eagle (Eaglet's visible in nest!)
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
Warbling Vireo
Black-capped Chickadee
Song sparrow

The probable list are those birds that we have not found nests for but they are numerous, singing, defending territory, etc. There are 14 species on this list right now.

Probable:
Mallard
Red-tailed Hawk
American Woodcock
Barred Owl
Red-eyed Vireo
Yellow Warbler
Ovenbird
Chipping Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Eastern Meadowlark
Common Grackle
House Wren

The possible list is the most frustrating for me because it includes many species I know breed here but in order to say for sure that they are breeding I need better data. There are 15 birds on this list. Basically, if they are on the possible list it means I've seen them here and they are within the dates they are known to breed but I haven't found actual breeding evidence. I can probably move a bunch of these onto the probable list with a little work.

Possible:
Great Egret
Wood Duck
Ring-necked Pheasant
American Kestrel
Turkey Vulture
Sandhill Crane
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
American Crow
Common Raven
White-breasted Nuthatch
Gray Catbird

~Kirk

Read More

Leucistic American Robin

Fellow twin cities naturalist Timothy Boyle had an eye out for wildlife even while sipping on a coffee at a coffeehouse last week. While walking down the street with his camera he spotted this odd looking American Robin in a yard. The bird he photographed is a great example of partial leucism. I've blogged about this condition before. It can give us American Goldfinches with white patches or even make a female purple finch look like a newly discovered species. Collard finch anyone?

As always happens with a photo like this, when he posted it online there was some of the discussion about the terms partial albino versus partially leucistic. While the term partial albino is bandied about a lot, it isn't really correct. Albinism is a genetic condition that wipes out the body's ability to create the pigment melanin. Using the above robin as an example, if it was truly an alboino, it would also have white legs, white beak, white head, white breast, etc. It would also have those famous pink albino eyes. The reason they look pink is that you can see the red from the blood in the retina. The reason you cannot have a partial albino is that since albinism is genetic it is always systemic, i.e. affecting all of the animal.

How do we get a partially white animal then? Enter Leucism. Leucism results from defects in pigment cells. It can affect just one cell or all of the cells. This means we can get a bird with just one odd white feather or lots of white feathers. We can even get a bird with all white feathers but normal colored eyes, beak and legs. This is still not an albino.

For more reading on color aberrations in birds you can download the excellent journal article, Not Every White Bird is an Albino: Sense and Nonsense About Color Aberrations in Birds by Hein van Grouw .

~Kirk

Read More

Bye Bye Cowbird

Sometime a little before 4:00 today, the young cowbird fledged from the Eastern Phoebe nest. Now there are just three little phoebes resting in the nest.

Paul watched the live feed around 4:15 and the adult phoebe was still feeding the baby phoebes. Hopefully they will get a chance to grow faster now. It will be interesting to see if having a food hogging cowbird in the nest will affect fledge time for the phoebes. Were the parents able to keep up the caloric needs of the three phoebes and the cowbird? They should fledge around June 7th but I don't really see that happening. Cornell is listing the hatch date as May 22 but I wonder if that was the day the cowbird hatched. I don't think the phoebes hatched the same day.

No sign of the second cowbird egg. There were two. Either it is still in there under all those birds or it was kicked out as well.

~Kirk

Read More

Phoebe Video Updates

Here's some video updates for all of you following the saga of the parasitized Eastern Phoebe nest. The Brown Headed cowbird continues to grow at an amazing rate. This probably has to do with the fact that it gets a lot of the food brought to the nest. There was some speculation on the Cornell site that perhaps the phoebe chick were dead as they are hard to see. They are not dead. They are just overshadowed by the huge cowbird. In this first video, you can clearly see two of the chicks. The third is partially visible at the bottom of the screen under the cowbird.

In this next video you can watch the Phoebe come back and bring food to the nest. She brings back what appears to be a beetle. It barely fits down the cowbirds mouth. I don't think the phoebe chicks could have eaten it with their smaller mouth.

This next video shows that the phoebe chicks are indeed getting food. An adult comes back with food and the video starts with the food already in the cowbird's mouth. The phoebe then takes it out and decides to give it one of the other chicks instead. When the cowbird gets up on the edge of the nest you can really see how big it is. It is the same size, if not larger, than the adult phoebe.

Here's another video of the adult feeding a phoebe chick instead of the cowbird. They are still getting food! I think the cowbird was just full. It doesn't even try to get the food in this one.

That's it for videos today. I missed capturing video of the cowbird flapping its wings and stretching. According to The Birder's Handbook, Brown headed cowbirds fledge at 11 days. We're at 11 days today so hopefully the cowbird will leave the nest any time now. In the past I have noticed the phoebe young fledge in the morning so maybe that is the same with cowbirds. If so, hopefully the cowbird will be gone tomorrow and the parents can start focusing on raising the phoebe chicks.

~Kirk

Read More