I and the Bird #125: North with the Spring

Welcome to the 125th edition of I and the Bird. I and the Bird is a bi-monthly roundup of bird writing and photography on the web. Each edition is hosted by a different website. I hosted edition #111 last autumn and called it "South with the Fall" Now that it is spring in the Northern Hemisphere, I can complete the journey by presenting North with the Spring. Admittedly, south of the equator the world is sliding toward autumn but humor me as we follow birds around the world.

In 1951, naturalist Edwin Way Teale wrote the book North With the Spring as he drove 17,000 miles north through North America following spring as it brought warmth back to the land. Teale wrote of the spring, "The seasons, like greater tides, ebb and flow across the continents. Spring advances up the United States at the average of about fifteen miles a day. It ascends mountainsides at a rate of about a hundred feet a day. It sweeps ahead like a flood of water, racing down the long valleys, creeping up hillsides in a rising tide. Most of us, like the man who lives on the bank of a river and watches the stream flow by, see only one phase of the movement of spring. Each year the season advances toward us out of the south, sweeps around us, goes flooding away into the north. We see all phases of a singe phase, all variations of the one chapter in the Odyssey of Spring."

In homage to his great journey, let us too travel North With the Spring.

• Gippsland, Australia: 37° South •
We start things off far in the south with the only entry this month from a person where it is Autumn and not Spring. Duncan of Ben Cruachan Blog gives us a peek into the beginning of Australian autumn.

• Near Chemor in Perak, Malaysia: 4° North •
Now we're north of the equator, but just barely. As an appropriately spring topic, Yeow Chin Wee of the Bird Ecology Study Group tells us all about the nesting of the chestnut headed bee eater.

• Panama City, Panama: 9° North •
Once again, Jan Axel makes me realize I absolutely MUST visit Panama.. We travel only 5° more north but we're on the other side of the world.

• Ranthambore Sanctuary, Rajasthan, India: 26° North •
Swinging around the globe again we find ourselves in India with Ambika Chandrasekar of Madras Ramblings. Does this peacock realize he's displaying in front of the ladies toilet?

•Big Springs, Texas: 29.8° North •
Inching northward with the spring, Tony Gallucci of the Milk River Blog gives us a nice roundup of what's being seen at Big Springs this spring.

• Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory, Texas, US: 30° North •
Just two tenths of a degree to the north of Tony, James Brush tells us that down around 30° North it is already seeming like summer with temperatures in the 90s Fahrenheit. Since it is 50° F with cold rain as I write this up in Minnesota that sounds pretty sweet. So does the lifer Painted Bunting that made his day.

• Carlsbad, California: 33° North •
Like a migrating bird we can't seem to sit still so we're off to California again but this time a little further north at Carlsbad where Wren of Wrenaissance Reflections found a cooperative and photogenic Heermans Gull.

• Fort Yargo State Park, Georgia, US:33° North •
At the same latitude but on the other side of the North American continent, Joan Knapp had an encounter with a Brown-headed Nuthatch at Fort Yargo State Park.

• Lake Köyceğiz in SW Turkey: 36° North •
Crossing the Atlantic Ocean, we find that Sarah Koschak and Andrew Skeoch of the Listening Earth Blog have been on the road for the last 2 months in Turkey. They captured a soundscape from the forest that includes the song of a Chaffinch.

• Opossum Creek Resort, West Virginia: US: 38° North •
Two degrees further north in West Virginia, Vickie Henderson attends her first birding festival and absolutely loves it.

• Broomfield, CO, US: 39° North •
One more degree north but further west, David Alcock starts his day out right with a fallout of migrating warblers in Colorado.

• Indianapolis, Indiana: 39° North •
Same latitude, different location, Rue Mapp of Outdoor Afro has a wonderful interview with Douglas "Birdman" Grey.

• Near Red Bluff, California, US: 40° North •
There seemed to be a lot of action at 40° North this month. Maybe something about this latitude just inspires writers. In California, Larry Johnson of The Birder's Report kicks things off at 40° by bringing a healthy dose of much needed sex (with photos) to I and the Bird. He has an excellent post on extra pair coupling in cliff swallows.

• New York City, US: 40° North •
Winging all the way across the continent we find Melissa Cooper pondering bird neck appreciation day from her home in New York City.

• Blue Lake, California: 40° North •
Time for another cross-country journey. Also at the same latitude, Jill Wussow of the blog Count Your Chicken! We're taking Over! ventured to Blue Lake in California and tracked down spotted Owls.

• Farmington, Connecticut, US: 41° North •
Creeping North with the spring we find Diane Tucker, Estate Naturalist for the Hill-Stead Museum who writes the Hill-stead Blog. She tells us that hope is a thing with feathers as she writes about the American Kestrel.

• Magee Marsh, Ohio, US: 41° North •
A little to the west, Mike Bergin of 10,000 Birds is hanging out at the same latitude and enjoying the spring migrants at The Biggest Week in American Birding. I've been wondering where all the warblers are this spring and clearly they are all over in Ohio.

• Near Menomonie, Wisconsin: 44° North •
Minnesota Birdnerd, Roger Everhart makes his long overdue debut on I and the Bird by defecting to Wisconsin to band both spring migrants and local birds.

• Minneapolis, Minnesota, US: 45° North •
Just a tick to the northwest, Greg Laden writes about the popular American Kestrel that has taken to hunting moths in the bright lights of the new Twins baseball stadium much to the delight of fans.

• Bozeman, Montana, US: 45° North •
Continuing our westward track we find Radd Icenoggle experienced a great fallout day of birding while showing another birder around his stomping grounds.

• Point Roberts, Washington, US, 49° North •
At exactly 49° North, Susannah a.k.a. Wandering Weeta also crosses a border for birds. She crosses from Canada to the US to bird at Point Roberts. It is a piece of land included in the US mostly due to poor map making. Luckily, the birds don't use maps and she spots a Black Oystercatcher.

• Frankfurt, Germany: 50° North •
Back across the ocean again, GrrlScientist asks, "How will You Celebrate International Migratory Bird Day?" and she provides plenty of great suggestions.

Thanks so much for stopping by. If you enjoyed this installment of I and the Bird please consider becoming a follower of the Twin Cities Naturalist through one of the free subscription services. You can click the follow me tab on the left hand side of the page to subscribe to the Twitter feed or you can choose to follow though either Google Reader or Networked Blogs both of which have widgets on the left as well. If you prefer email, you can subscribe to get posts in your mailbox by entering your email address in the field at the top of the page.

Submissions for the 126th edition of I and the Bird need to be to Coyote Mercury by May 25th.

~Kirk

(Edwin Way Teale photo credit: Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE)

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Get Those Hummingbird Feeders Up!

I posted this morning about the Chimney Swift migration updates available online and figured I'd mention the fact that you can track the Ruby-throated Hummingbird migration online next week some time. I checked the website to see how the hummer migration is coming and to my surprise they are trucking north at a rapid clip. Check out the most recent map! There are none in Minnesota yet but one right across the river in Wisconsin. It looks to be almost directly across the river from the nature center! I'm guessing what we're seeing here is hummingbirds using the St. Croix River as a flyway. Time to get those feeders out.

~Kirk

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Radar shows large migration in Minnesota, Wisconsin and N. Dakota last night

This is a capture from all of the midwest radars from about 5:00 am this morning when migration was winding down for the night. Many birds migrate at night for several reasons. It is colder so they don't overheat as easily, they are less likely to be preyed upon and under clear night skies the stars can be use as navigational aids.

The circles on the map represent large flocks of birds migrating past doppler radar sites. There are a couple of interesting things to note. First off, the migration last night seemed to be heaviest in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota. At first I was thinking that this could be good news for bird watchers looking for new migrants. However, that explanation doesn't make sense. We haven't seen many of the migrants yet as they are still further south. I think what we are seeing on the radar is primarily migratory waterfowl heading further north out of the states and up into Canada.
it is also interesting to take a close look at the the Green Bay and Duluth radar returns. They show that the birds do not like to travel over the open water of the great lakes but rather prefer to follow the shoreline.

This all stands in contrast to tonight's current radar composite which as of 9:15 pm CDT shows massive migration movements in the South Eastern US and very little in the upper midwest.

~Kirk

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19 More birds for the year list...

Wow time for a birds year-list update again. I last wrote about my year-list on March 24. Now, 19 days later I've added 16 more birds to my list. Migration anyone?

March 28
With a spare hour in my day I headed out to Reservoir Woods in Roseville. In a quiet pond I discovered my first Wood Duck of the year. There were also mallards and hooded mergansers in the same pond.

March 29
The 29th was a fun day a work. We took a little hike down to the lake and saw the first Golden-crowned Kinglet of the year. I also saw my first of the year Sandhill Crane which was fun as I'd been hearing them for weeks. It looks like they are going to nest on site again this year.

March 30
The next day saw the return of the Eastern Phoebe to Warner Nature Center which is always a sure sign that spring migration is beginning to pick up. The same day while taking our volunteers on a training hike I saw the first of the year Turkey Vulture fly overhead.

March 31
On my way home I saw the first of the year Great Blue Heron dropping into a wetland.

April 1
I'd been keeping my eyes open and finally one morning spotted the first of the year Fox Sparrow scratching around under the birds feeders.
That same evening I happened to drive past the Colonnade Building on hwy 394 and could make out a Peregrine Falcon hanging out on a ledge. My drive happened to take me through the 169 & 62 overpass and I was sure to check out the Osprey nest on top of the highway lights there. Sure enough, there was an Osprey on the nest.

April 4
While at my aunt and uncle's house in Eagan on the weekend I saw a migrating raptor land in a tree in their back yard. When it flew off it was below us and we could clearly see the white where the tail meets the rump that signaled we'd just seen the first of the year Harrier.

April 5
Always a good day when you can add three birds to your year list. I saw Tree Swallows on the way to work and an American Kestrel on the way home. Both were hunting from rural power lines. While on a hike in the middle of the day I found a Winter Wren sulking around under some brush.

April 7
Not exactly my favorite bird but still fascinating in the evolutionary adaptations, Brown-headed Cowbirds showed up on the 7th.

April 10
Surprising but true, I didn't see my first Purple Finch of the year until April 10. I also saw a Common Goldeneye while showing kids how to use a spotting scope on a hike.

April 12
We headed down to the lake today at work to put our solar powered pontoon boat into the water. While we were down there four fighter jets came over the nature center very low. They circled around four or five times and we realized they were getting into formation for the fly-over of the Twins season opener in the new stadium. After the jets left we saw the first of the year Northern Shoveler on the lake. There was a small group of them. They were the first ones we've seen in many years. There were also a couple of Killdeer which is a species I hadn't see yet. On the way back to the building I also saw my first of the year Yellow Bellied Sapsucker.

All told for the year that brings me up to 62 species of birds within the state of Minnesota and a good chunk of migration is still to come.

~Kirk

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Midwest Migration on Radar

Time for another migration update. I took a screen capture of migration last night around sunset. Most of the action seemed to be in the upper-midwest. The east coast was mostly quiet because of a large storm system. I didn't have time to animate the radar loop so I could show it here but you can watch a large version of the loop by following this link. (It will take a while to compile the data when you click that link.)

What we're looking at here in theory is radar returns from birds flying over doppler weather radar stations. The patterns that shows up are circular because the radars are based near major cities and do not cover the entire country. Activity seemed to be very heavy last night in Nebraska and this could be the snow geese moving though.

Are all those doughnut shapes around cities really birds? One way to get an idea is to look at a different radar product. The radar can also show us the relative velocity of the objects being tracked. In other words, are they coming toward the radar or away. If these are migrating birds we should see them all heading north. Check out what was visible last night on the radar in North Platte NE. Everything in blue is moving toward the center and everything in red is moving away. in other words, everything is heading north.


Of particular interest to local Twin Cities readers is that we seem to have not had much migrating in last night. Perhaps tonight that will change. There was a very strong wind out of the south today. I saw my first Trumpeter Swans on the lakes at the nature center. Wood ducks showed up today as well.

~Kirk

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Spring Migration on Radar

Saturday's Birds and Beers was a ton of fun and there were some great conversations. I spent some time talking with Minnesota Birdnerd about tracking spring migration via radar. We brought up live radar images of Texas on a laptop and you could clearly see that migration was on. In particular, you could see the clear doughnut shape on the radar indicative of flocks of birds taking off at sunset. I wish I had captured the radar loop right then and there to share it because the archived radar data is not available until about a week later. I went into the radar archives this weekend and pulled up the most recent data I could which was for March 5th. It turns out the night of March4-5 was a good night for migration. Check out this animated loop I put together from the data. The loop starts at 1:00 UTC and ends at 17:00 UTC so that corresponds to 7:00 pm on the 4th to noon on the 5th. The doughnut circles start in Texas and then push north.





If you are interested in this sort of thing check this loop of a simply massive migration last April. You can really see what a difference a month makes. We're only seeing the beginning of this.

~Kirk

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Twin Cities Naturalist Podcast: October 2009

Here's the October episode of the Twin Cities Naturalist Podcast. We recorded on Halloween and demons seemed to be possessing Paul's microphone. You can hear it start to drop out and by the end of the episode it died completely. Time to upgrade.

We hope you enjoy this episode.



Last Month's Trivia Answer:
Two people answered last month's trivia answer correctly. The winners were Jamie McBride and Mary Beth Pottratz. The only endemic plant species in the state of Minnesota is the Dwarf Trout Lily. Great job with your answers.

Calendar of Events
These are the events listed on the podcast. If you would like your natural history based event advertised on the Podcast or Blog you can send an email with details to kirkmona (at) yahoo.com.
Minnesota Naturalists' Association Fall Conference: People and the Prairie will be held November 6-8

The November podcast will come up quickly as we'll be recording at the Minnesota Naturalists' Association annual fall conference in southern Minnesota.

~Kirk & Paul

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I and the Bird #111: South With the Fall

In 1951, naturalist Edwin Way Teale wrote North With the Spring as he drove north following spring as it brought warmth to the land. In 1953 he wrote Autumn Across America as he drove from coast to coast. For the fifty five years since that book came out, Autumn has continued to descend from the north until it reaches south where its presence is known only by the changing birds. In this, the fifty-sixth autumn since Autumn Across America, I present South With the Fall, the one hundred and eleventh edition of I and the Bird. This is a collection of bird related writings from around the world in the past two weeks. Like autumn descending from the north we too shall head southward on our journey. Let's begin our migration shall we?

• White Rock Beach, British Columbia: 49.0° North •

To start things off, Susannah, a.k.a. the Wanderin' Weeta took a trip down to White Rock Beach to photograph gulls and lure them into a life of high cholesterol by feeding them cheese.

• Point Pelee, Ontario: 47.97° North •
Just a few degrees to the south, Bob blogs about the 2009 Ontario Field Ornithologists annual convention. He gives an exhaustive report and don't worry, there are plenty of photos of people looking at birds. You know the ones.

• Carpenter Nature Center, Hastings, Minnesota: 44.8° North •
Half-way across the continent, and a little further south, Sharon Stiteler a.k.a. Birdchick captures the last hurrah of fall with flickers and bluebirds at Carpenter Nature Center.

• Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge: 39.41° North •
Jumping back to the East coast of north America, Larry Jordan of The Birder's Report gives us a gorgeous overview of the avifauna of the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge.

• Brigantine Division of the Edward B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, New Jersey 39.41° North •
Curious what migration is like over at the exact same latitude on the East Coast, we join up with Corey of 10,000 Birds who spins a highly caffeinated yarn about a legendary birding spot.

• Knoxville Tennessee: 38.98° North •
In our strange yet ever southward migration, we wing our way back east to Tennesee where Vickey Henderson takes a break for a red-bellied woodpecker and marvels at the enormous fruit one wolfs down.

• Cape May New Jersey: 38.92° North •
Skipping back to the east coast again we join John Beetham who's doing a little raptor banging in Cape May.

• Cape Hatteras National Seashore, North Carolina: 35.25° North •
Newly banded and heading south down the Atlantic Flyway, we stop to talk with Nate of the Drinking Bird as he takes on the contentious issue of Off Road Vehicles. We also learn that Piping Plover tastes like chicken.

• Santa Fe Dam, California: 35.17° North •
Bob Kaufman revels in the schadenfreude of birding (as we engage in a sadistic migratory trek back to the Pacific flyway) but in the end, Two Wrens Make it Right.

• Akrotiri Salt Flats, Cyrpus: 35.00° North •
We can of course can justify a 7349 mile detour to Cyprus since we're still technically traveling south. While there, Dan spots some black storks in Cyprus, which is not to be confused with seeing black storks in a Cypress which would just be strange.

• Dallas Texas; 32.78 North •
We head on back to Texas where Jason M Hogle has been keeping an eye on a set of cooper hawk triplets and we learn about one aptly named Trouble.

• Port Aransas, Texas: 27.83° North •
Amber Coakley over at birders lounge took a trip to Port Aransas and took some wonderful shots of animals. Seriously though, which one of you was feeding the Egret single malt scotch?

And so it is we finally cross the Tropic of Cancer at 23.5° North. We continue on south. Though the lush green tricks us into thinking that it is not fall, the migrating birds tell us otherwise.

• Xalapa, Mexico: 19.53° North •
Rick Wright takes a stroll though Xalapa’s Parque Natura on his last day at the 2009 ABA River of Raptors Conference and revels in being the only human out for a stroll with the morning birds.

• Veracruz, Mexico 19.2° North •
Alison Beringer takes pause looking at her husband's photos from the ABA River of Raptors Conference and at first doesn't recognize an old friend in shabby clothes.

• Panama: 9.00° North •
Jan Axel birds the Pipeline Road in Panama and spots fantastic birds that never see their way to the north. (Note to self, must go back to Panama.)

• Singapore: 1.36° North •
Meanwhile on the other side of the world, Jason Cho & Wang Luan Keng of the Bird Ecology Study Group discuss feather condition of a White-rumped Shama. It reminds me a lot of my How old's that Thrasher? post from last spring. Two birds, different sides of the earth, same idea.

• Tanzania: 3.23° South •
We're already heading south so why not keep going? Birdman decides he needs to tackle a light subject like The History of Birding.

• Gippsland, Australia: 37° South •
Meanwhile, Duncan of Ben Chuachan-Natural History, gets herded by a female duck while on a stroll.

• Bird Island, South Georgia: 54.00° South •
Finally, we end our journey appropriately at the other end of the world from where we started and talking about one of the great long-distance flyers. Greg Laden gives us a nice review of black-browed albatross research using tiny cameras strapped to the birds.

Thanks so much for stopping by everyone. If you enjoyed this installment of I and the Bird please consider becoming a follower of the Twin Cities Naturalist through Google Reader, Networked Blogs, Email or simply by bookmarking the site and coming back. I'll leave you with some thoughts from Edwin Way Teale's Autumn Across America. ""Driving with infinite regret, away from the cony heights that night we seemed to be very close to one of the pioneer naturalists who had followed the westward trail more than a century before. No one but a naturalist, he had observed, can know the joy of a new discovery in the wild. And no one but a naturalist can know the sadness of having to leave so soon the thing so much enjoyed."

~Kirk

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Swainson's Thrush Migration

I taught a fall migration class today at work and wanted to look up some information about migrating Swainson's Thrushes for the class. I stumbled upon this interesting scientific paper from 2002 about the genetic connection between migration patterns in Swainson's Thrushes and the expansion of their range in the late pleistocene. Not as the crow flies: a historical explanation for circuitous migration in Swainson's thrush (Catharus ustulatus) is thankfully available as a free pdf.

Be forewarned, the paper contains bodice ripping passages such as, "To survey the distribution of these clades in migrating and overwintering birds, we amplified the 800 bp fragment of control region using the primers described above and used restriction enzyme Sfc I to assay a variable site in which cleavage is diagnostic of the coastal clade. Five microlitres of the digest reaction were electrophoresed on an 6% polyacrylamide gel and restriction fragments were stained with thidium bromide and visualized under ultraviolet light." Try to control yourselves people, I know this is exciting stuff.

While the section on methodology may not be your cup of tea, the conclusions are fascinating. The authors conclude that in the late pleistocene the Swainson's Thrush population was divided into two refugia as glaciation wiped out habitat in the center of the continent. These two populations remain relatively distinct today as the coastal (western) population and the continental (eastern) population The eastern population eventually spread north-westward as suitable boreal forest habitat emerged post-glaciation. When it comes time to migrate south, the continental population, which has spread as far wet as Alaska, follows their genetic heritage and first flies thousands of miles east to get back to their ancestral grounds before turning and heading south. The birds essentially re-trace their ancestral expansion route. This points to a strong genetic component to migration.

Many similar findings are discussed in Scott Weidensaul's excellent book on migration, Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere With Migratory Birds.

~Kirk

(photo credit: US NPS)

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Unnatural Migration

What do you do if you're an inspector at Los Angeles International Airport and you spot a middle-aged man stepping off an airplane with bird droppings on his socks, and bird tail feather's sticking out from the bottom of his pants? Apparently, if this is the same guy who in December abandoned a suitcase at the airport with 18 exotic smuggled birds in it (five of them having died in transit) you arrest him on the spot.

46 year old Sony Dong was charged on Tuesday with smuggling birds from Vietnam into the United States in a most unnatural migration. In March, Dong devised a pair of leggings to hold three red-whiskered bulbuls, four magpie robins and six shama thrush and boarded a plane to the US.

"Magpie robin" is a fairly generic name for several species of birds so I 'm not sure which he had. The Shama Thrush is also known as the White-rumped Shama. Shama's are no longer considered part of the turdidae (thrush) family.

According to U.S. attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek, the birds sell for approximately $400 in the US.

His "business associate," Duc Le, was also arrested when they found 51 songbirds at his house. Now I don't know which birds he had at his house but if we assume about $400 per bird we're looking at $26,400 worth of birds.

Red-whiskered bulbuls are listed as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red list. They are popular as cage birds as they are fairly easily caught and can be taught to sit on the hand. In the wild they feed on fruit, nectar and insects and prefer to live in lightly wooded areas or open country. They are naturalized in several parts of the US, likely from escaped pets. They can be found in Los Angeles, Hawaii and Florida.

photo by J.M.Garg

	Shama Thrush aka white-rumped shama listed as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red list. They are native to South and Southeast Asia though they were purposefully released on the Hawaiian islands of Kaua'i and O'ahu. They are popular cage birds because of their song.
photo by K. W. Bridges

I've flown with a toddler and I know how difficult and noisy a process that can be. How uncomfortable was it to fly from Vietnam to Los Angeles with 13 birds strapped to your legs? Didn't they make any sound? What a strange world.

~Kirk

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Migrants arrive

On the last podcast Paul and I lamented the lack of spring migrants at the nature center. Today, we spotted or heard the first Ovenbird, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Clay-colored Sparrow, Northern Waterthrush and the Baltimore Oriole photographed above. Not too shabby for one day's arrivals. Winter wrens, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Western Palm Warblers, Field Sparrows, Bluebirds, Golden-crowned Kinglets, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, White-crowned Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows and Eastern Phoebes are also putting in appearances.

Spring is really here though I noticed for the first time today that the leaves are really starting to fill in which makes spotting the new migrants more challenging by the day.

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Friday Night Migration

I noticed over on the Minnesota Birdnerd blog that Roger captured a great still image of migration picked up by NEXTRAD radar on Friday night. It was such an impressive display that I knew I needed to create another radar loop of the migration. It took about an hour to build this loop by hand.

(Please allow a little time for it to load. The animation image is very large)

There is a little bit of a shake to the image because of the process I used. It would take a long time to get rid of it and would involve going through the 90 or so images that make up the animation by hand and modifying them.

There are some fascinating things to see in the loop. Click on it to open in a new window and view in a slightly larger size.


(sometimes the image does not appear here or fails to animate. Follow this link to see it in motion.

1) The most obvious thing to see is that most birds choose to migrate at night. The loop starts at 0002 UTC which corresponds to 7:00 Central Daylight Time. The loop ends about midnight CDT. You can see the birds take off after sunset and you can watch he wave of take-offs start in the east and move west. They start first down by Georgia.

2) Look at the explosion of birds taking off from Louisiana at sunset.

3) Notice the birds tend to stick to land. One exception is that migration has now reached the Great Lakes. Look at Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Lake Erie. Some migrants seem to be making crossings there. Birds don't seem too keen about crossing Lake Superior except for near Duluth where the crossing is short.

4) Look carefully at the coast of Texas. It is thick with birds early in the evening but by the end of the loop all the birds have pushed north and the coast seems pretty quiet.


~Kirk

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Migration Updates and Eastern Phoebe Webcam

The chimney swift migration pushes ever onward and upwards. Chimney Swifts have now been reported in Missouri and Illinois. You can track the migration at the Driftwood Wildlife Association Chimney Swift Migration website.

Another migration website to keep an eye on is the Ruby-throated hummingbird migration over at migration.net. I was pretty shocked to see that there are reports already of hummingbirds in Minnesota and up into Canada! Clearly though, the mass of birds is keeping to the south and east. Follow the migration here.

The 2009 Phoebe Cam is now officially up and running and the feed is available to the public. The Lee & Rose Warner Nature Center where Paul and I both work is a partner with the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology on the Nest Camera project. Live images from our Eastern Phoebe nest are sent out around the world via the Cornell Nest Cam website.

Here is a live image from the nest. The blog automatically uploads the most recent image when you land here so to see the next image taken you'll have to refresh the browser window or go directly to our bird's page at Cornell. New photos are uploaded every 20 seconds on that page and you can leave comments in the forum about what you are seeing. You can also show the camera in self-refreshing Pop-up that you can leave on your desktop.



This is the same nest site used last year. A tornado came though last memorial day with 110 mph straight line winds and while the web feed went down because of a power failure, when it came back up in the morning all the birds on the nest were safe so this is a proven good location to build a nest. We keep the nest up each year and the birds re-use it. Enjoy!

~Kirk

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Chimney Swift Migration

Migration is really starting to heat up. There are Ring-necked ducks, Bufflehead, Hooded Mergansers, Red-winged Blackbirds, Rusty Blackbirds, Bluebirds, American Robins, Fox Sparrows, Canada Geese and an assortment of gulls around. More species are on the way. I'm eagerly awaiting the return of the Eastern Phoebe.

One sure sign that spring is really here in full force is the return of the Chimney Swifts. I love these little guys. You can monitory their northward movement and contribute sightings of your own at the Driftwood Wildlife Association Chimney Swift Migration website.

Latest report has them still down in Texas but very slowly creeping north.

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Massive Migration

Roger Everhart, a.k.a. Minnesota Birdnerd has been posting some fantastic static shots of bird migration picked up with doppler radar. I've read some about this phenomenon in the past and it has always fascinated me. Basically, the millions of migrating birds show up as clutter on the radar and you can see bloom of birds taking off in the evening as they begin migrating at night. They migrate at night as it is cooler out and they can avoid predators. Also, many birds use stars and the moon as navigational aids.

I checked out the live national radar loop tonight and there was an incredible bloom of migrating birds taking off just after sunset. I knew a static image just wouldn't capture it so I spent some time making an animation of the radar images. Unfortunately, I had to do this by hand as there is no way to download the radar loops.

The time on this is from UTC 0048 to 0158. Every frame is 10 minutes and this covers 70 minutes of elapsed time. Local time in the twin cities this was from 7:45 to 8:45 p.m. Sunset was at 7:21 and twilight was at 7:50. It looks like the birds start taking off at twilight. Ignore the green storm on the east coast and the stuff moving in a band though Montana and North Dakota. The blue in the middle blooming and heading north is millions of birds migrating.

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Signs of Spring

Spring is really springing up all around town. Friday we heard the first Sandhill Cranes out at the Lee & Rose Warner Nature Center and Red-shouldered Hawks have arrived as well. The sap is running in the maple trees and snow is melting at an incredible rate. The woods have turned to mud.

There's another sign of spring however. I'm holding it in my hand.


This is an Advanced Telemetry Systems R2020 transmitter. It weighs 12 grams and is designed to be glued to the carapace of a Blanding's Turtle. We have a special permit from the Minnesota DNR to capture and radio track the threatened Blanding's turtle's that live at the nature center. The new transmitter just arrived today and that is a sure sign of spring as well. The turtles won't start basking for another month but when they do we'll be ready. I've gotten better at catching them over the years. I'm excited for the challenge.

~Kirk

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