Dinosaur Dig (part 2)

Here's post number 2 about my dinosaur hunting trip. I present, Tuesday.

Tuesday we headed out to the Triceratops site. This was very neat to see, though a bit confusing as the skeleton was not complete. I know what a sacrum and ilium are but I'm guessing the kids didn't. I would include a photo but unless you know what you are looking at it just looks like a shot of the ground.

The previous day, a group had made a plaster field jacket for the triceratops femur so we helped haul that out. It was very heavy. That's me on the back right getting ready to lower it down a small hill. I think the dark blotch on the horizon might be the truck we're carrying it to. The field jacket consists of a 2x4 for support, some foil and a lot of plaster strips.



While waiting to carry out the femur I did a little prospecting and located a rich trail of bone fragments coming down the hillside maybe 100 feet from the triceratops. I called the rest of the group over and we followed the pieces up to the top of the hill where they stopped. We dug a little but didn't find anything. The two experts with us looked at some of the pieces we found and could tell that they were triceratops frill. It was really cool to follow the trail and start looking for more even though we didn't turn up anything. They hadn't found the head of the triceratops they were excavating 100 feet away so perhaps it disassociated when it died and we were finding pieces of the head of the one they were digging up. Who knows.

Here I am doing a little cleaning up on a different piece of frill. You can see the lines from where the blood vessels were. If you think that triceratops were cold blooded then you think the blood vessels were there to help heat up the dinosaurs via passive solar collection. If you think they were warm blooded then the blood vessels may have helped it cool down. I'll leave that debate to the experts.

FYI: The stylish latex gloves are actually to keep paint and chemicals off my hands as we were making plastic casts of dinosaur pieces on the table in the background.


Later that day we climbed to the top of a butte and felt one of the strongest winds I've ever felt in my life. I took this clip of video but it doesn't do the force of the wind justice. You can get a good view of the basin we are about to descend into as I pan across the landscape. This is my first ever video in a blog post. I'll have better ones in the future!

Click To Play

Atop this bluff we collected some of the K-T boundary. This is the geologic boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. This layer of ash comes from the meteorite impact that slammed into the Yucatan peninsula 65 million years ago and almost ended all life on earth. The actual K-T boundary here is very visible, one of the best spots on earth to see it. You can even see yellow ribbons of iridium in the black. Iridium in this concentration generally only comes from meteors.

For reference, check out this satellite photo.


View Larger Map
The marker marks the exact spot we collected the KT boundary. Can you see why they call this the Hell Creek formation? It isn't a real hospitable location. The basin to the south of the butte is where we spent the day hiking and looking for fossils.

We headed down into the basin and scouted out several cool sites. We found many pieces of turtle shell. Most pieces were about the size of a quarter.

The pieces I found are from trionychid turtles such as this one. The complete one in the photo is a replica in the Warner Nature Center collection. For size reference, that is a standard countertop it is sitting on and the fossil takes up the entire depth of the counter. These large turtles are related to the soft shelled turtles that inhabit rivers today. The basic turtle design is evolutionarily very robust and has changed little over time.

At one particularly interesting site after lunch I picked up some broken pieces of fossil that had washed into a small wash coming off a hillside. Since the pieces were found close together (within a five foot stretch) and all appeared similar I put them into their own bag and asked our leader about them. He said they were from a turtle and that I could keep them as they were just broken scrap type pieces. I took them home and to my delight two of the pieces fit together. As I played with them a second piece fell into place and then a third, then a fourth. All in all there were 18 pieces and 9 of them fit together. That's pretty impressive.

What I can tell is that it is a portion of the anterior right plastron of a turtle. I have one piece of carapace as well. You can see the curved up portion where the plastron would have connected to the carapace of the turtle. It seems about twice as thick as the trionychid shell pieces we found so I need to do some digging to get and idea of what species I'm dealing with. My impression is that trionychid turtles did not have such solid plastrons. I'll post pictures at some point.

I had a great time putting all the pieces together. I just wish I had a whole turtle to work with! It was a like a fantastic challenging jigsaw puzzle but in the end, instead of a photo of a basket full of puppies or kittens, you end up with a fossil of an animal that lived 65 million years ago. Pretty damn cool.

We continued on our hike through the basin learning about geology and fossils until our water ran out and we needed to head back. We spotted a badly crumbled hadrosaur femur on the ground and noted it with GPS before turning for home. Maybe another group can look longer at this area next season.

That's all for Tuesday. More to come later!

~Kirk

Laser Magician

I used to be a magician so I enjoy seeing how the art progresses. This one was new to me. I like lasers too so what's not to like. I get how he does this, it isn't anything too overly complex as but he does it so well! Enjoy the video.

~Kirk

Dinosaur Dig (Part 1)

Last summer I taught my regular Fossils to Feathers summer camp and fellow Warner naturalist Bekah Dalen brought in some fossils to show me. She said she got them on a dinosaur dig while working at the Children's Museum. Hmm, we thought, why don't we lead a dinosaur dig though Warner?

Here were the two selling points.

1. Digging up dinosaurs
and
2. Getting paid to do it

Need I say more?

We offered the summer camp this summer and a little over a week ago we took seven kids on a 10 hour van ride to the far nether regions of North Dakota to root around in the famous Hell Creek Formation. (Okay, famous to other geeks, geologists and paleo-types.)

We worked with Marmarth Research Foundation and the week was tons of fun. Fossil wise we found many pieces of trionychid turtles and parts of another species of turtle I need to identify. We found champsosaur bones, a hadrosaur femur, a triceratops femur, a triceratops tooth, a dromeosaur tooth, fossil trees, crocodile teeth, freshwater ray teeth, triceratops frill and more. The pictures tell a good story so let's start there.

We set out on Sunday for the 10 hour ride to Marmarth, ND. The highlight of the trip was of course stopping at the Middle Spunk rest stop in Minnesota (purely because of the name) and stopping to gawk at Salem Sue the world's largest holstein cow statue in New Salem, ND. That's six tons of reinforced fiberglass in the shape of a cow up there on that butte. She's actually the world's largest fiberglass animal. Okay so the picture is awful. Follow the link for up close giant cow bliss.

We arrived in Marmarth just in time for some Tater Tot hotdish. We found this quite hilarious as we were joking with the kids that dinner would be tater tot hotdish and there it was like culinary destiny. Little did we suspect at the time (how foolish) that hotdish would grace our lips at several dinners. The only one that was vile was the chow mein hotdish, the rest were edible. Oh I now wish I had a photo of the tater tot hotdish! There were some folks there from the east coast who were completely perplexed by the hotdish phenomenon. The term casserole was only slightly less alien.

That night we got our room assignments in the Marmarth Bunkhouse. The bunkhouse was built for railway workers back in the old days. As far accommodations for a dinosaur dig this was posh. Most digs involve sleeping in tents so this was nice. There was a phone, showers, private rooms and satellite TV. Weirdly, the kids all wanted to watch shows about serial killers while I preferred spongebob. Go figure.

Monday morning we headed out to a site where kids a few years ago uncovered a hadrosaur femur. There is still probably more of the dino inside the hillside but a LOT of rock would have to be removed to get at it. Maybe someday, but for now there are easier quarry. I found one of my first cool things here. It was a little piece of a trionychid turtle. It was thrilling but little did I know I would be seeing thousands of such parts in the next few days. This site was also home to many many modern rodent bones as a large owl roosted in the area and the ground was littered with bones and owl pellets. Our leader, Doug Hanks, showed us a profile of the rock in the area and taught us how to read the record of what had happened there.

Monday afternoon we headed out to another area to work on a site rich in turtles. It is apparently one of the richest turtle sites in the world. We didn't see any. I used an exacto knife to slowly carve out a one foot square area. In an hour our so I went down about four inches. This is the very unglamourous part of field work. Carefully looking for nothing. The area I worked in was where they had just removed six complete turtles so it was important to keep searching. It was too bad we didn't uncover anything but that's part of the job too.

Dinner Monday was meatloaf hotdish. When I say meatloaf I mean many many pounds of ground beef tossed into a pan, covered in ketchup and baked. I think there may have been a can of "cream of something" soup mixed in. Welcome to flavor country. Why didn't I take any pictures of the food?

That's it for the first installment. I'll post up the rest of the week soon.

~Kirk

Improve Blogger

Here's an excellent script that makes your blogger edit box much bigger. The box used to edit posts in Blogger is way too small but this Greasemonkey script fixes that.

Get Firefox, Install Greasemonkey, Install this script, be happy.

Rinse lather, repeat.

~Kirk

Birds while I Blog

I've got some cool blog posts I am working on but they will take a while to finish up. The big post is about the dinosaur dig I was on two weeks ago. I promise to post something soon. It will have video and clickable satellite photos and be worth the wait.

In the mean time it is time for a simple bird count update. I saw five new species in North Dakota and two new species since I returned home. That means I have broken my personal best record for number of birds spotted in one year. Of course, this is my second year so one would expect that.

I wasn't in North Dakota to bird so all sightings were almost accidental. For example, two of the birds I spotted and identified for sure only when the van we were in stopped to open a cattle gate as we crossed through the Little Missouri National Grasslands. Here's the North Dakota list.

121 Western Meadowlark
122 Lark Bunting
123 Lazuli Bunting
124 Red Breasted Nuthatch
125 Swainson's Hawk

Yesterday while I was locking up the building at work I head a barred owl in the distance. I called to it only to be surprised when an owl answered from les then 100 feet away. These two birds called back and forth until the jays came and chased to owl away. I was surprised how rapid a call the owl in the distance used. I've never head the "who cooks for you, who cooks for you-all" spit out in three seconds like that.

Today I arrived at work and Paul told me there were Tennessee Warblers in the bog. I grabbed my binoculars and headed down. Sure enough they were dripping off the trees. The warbler migration has begun. I also spotted a beautiful great crested flycatcher and a catbird. The flycatcher was hunting close to the ground as the entire bog was etheiral nad filled with fog this morning.

So, for the numbers game that's:

126 Barred Owl
127 Tennessee Warbler

The Baby Blog

So I can't believe I haven't posted this yet.

If you want to follow my adventures into fatherhood you can read up on my other blog, Adventures in DNA Mixing.

~Kirk

Would you believe birds?

It seems like it has been a long time since I posted about birds. Such is the middle of summer. It gets hard to find new birds for my list. I did finally manage to creep up to 120 birds this week.

On June 20th I added two birds. I added the clay-colored sparrow and a blue-winged warbler. I was one of the few people at work that day and no one had gotten the mail yet so I hiked out to the mailbox. I spotted a blue-winged warbler along the driveway on the way to the mailbox. Rule number one. Always bring binoculars, everywhere.

On the way back I cut through the prairie/savanna restoration and could hear the distinctive call of the clay colored sparrow. Paul had taught it to me earlier in the month and while I had heard it everywhere the actual birds had eluded me. Sitting on top of a big slash pile was a little brown bird. With my binoculars I thought I could tell it was the one singing. I crept closer and sure enough it was the clay-colored sparrow.

The nest week was the first week of summer camp and I lead a trip of kids down the St. Croix river. The first night we heard but didn't see a whip-poor-will. The second night we camped out at Goose Creek and a pair of sandhill cranes flew right over our heads. They landed on the opposite shore to eat. We got a great view. As I remembered, the goose creek campsite is thick with American redstarts and the wood thrushes were singing beautifully from the woods. The second morning (June 29th) I arose early and birded along the quiet shore as mist lifted off the water. I saw another blue-winged warbler but there was another bird hanging out with it. I finally got a good luck and to my delight it was a golden-winged warbler. There was another misc. vireo about that morning. It looked like it was probably a red-eyed vireo but I'm going to hold off on counting it since I didn't get a great look.

Bird 120 was a pleasant surprise. I don't get to add many birds to my list from my treeless suburban back yard. I've done a lot to encourage birds including feeders and a new pond. The improvements have brought in cardinals, robins, house sparrows, chickadees, goldfinches, and chipping sparrows but I kept on saying where the hell are the house wrens! I have two next boxes up that would be suitable but I don't so much as see a single sign of the wrens. Then, just the other day (July 15th)there were two of them hanging out on my back porch and playing around in the mulberry bush. Believe it or not they were the first ones I had seen all year. I really hope they see what a nice place my yard is and decide to stick around.

Woo hoo, 120 birds. I'm going to beat last year.

117 Clay-colored sparrow,
118 Blue winged warbler
119 Golden-winged warbler
120 House Wren

~Kirk

Something Skinky

While out in the bog with the kids in the photography class I'm teaching we found a skink at the last minute. We didn't have much time before we had to be back to the building but I managed to snap a quick picture of this elusive creature. Most people don't realize that we have lizards in Minnesota and might mistake a skink for a small snake. We actually have three species. We have the five-lined skink, the northern prairie skink and the six-lined racerunner. I am pretty sure this is a northern prairie skink.

~Kirk

Open Letter Calling for Impeachment, Conviction

This is the full text of the letter I just sent to my representative in the House of Representatives, Betty McCollum.

Dear Representative McCollum.

This evening I learned that President Bush commuted the jail sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. In doing so he insults the Congress and circumvents the independence of the judiciary. While he has the right to pardon as President, he must also answer for the actions he chooses to take.

While I have not called for it in the past, I now request as my representative that you draft articles of impeachment for George W. Bush as he is not fit to be President of the United States and has certainly committed "high crimes and misdemeanors". I ask that you do so in a timely manor so that the Senate can vote to convict. I believe you would be able to secure a simple majority of representatives to support this effort.

The President and his staff intentionally misled and defrauded Congress with regard to invading Iraq in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371. He also conspired to commit torture of prisoners in violation of the "Federal Torture Act" Title 18 United States Code, Section 113C. He has also openly admitted to ordering the NSA to illegally wiretap American citizens in violation of Title 50 United States Code, Section 1805.

These are all impeachable offenses, in fact, violation of Title 18 United States Code, Section 113C is actually punishable by death so it surely qualifies as a "high crime."

Your predecessors in the House impeached President Clinton for far lesser charges and I ask that you do your duty to begin the removal of an unfit, criminal president who flaunts the laws of our country and believes he and his friends are immune from the law.

That's my letter. Where's yours?

Next up, a letter to my Senator asking to convict when the articles of impeachment are sent to the senate.

~Kirk

How can I not be called Cute?

Someone recently tried to convince me that opossums are not cute. In fact, I believe they said they were ugly. Here's a picture I took of an opossum in February of 2004. How can anyone say this isn't a totally adorable animal?

~Kirk

End of an Era

I was really saddened this weekend to hear that Don Herbert passed away. For those not as geeky as me, that's Mr. Wizard. I used to watch Mr. Wizard's World on Nickelodeon as a child and he seemed old then! Don Herbert taught science to so many people and got so many kids excited about science it boggles the mind. I remember so many things I learned from that show. He taught concepts in such fun ways. Here are a few highlights I remember off the top of my head.

I remember he taught how flour mills explode by putting a birthday candle in a paint can, feeding a tube into the side of the can, putting a small pile of flour just inside the hole, lighting the candle and then putting on the lid. When he blew into the tube it filled the air in the can with tiny particles of flour which caused the top of the can to explosively blow off when the candle lit them on fire.

I remember him demonstrating air pressure by filling a large can with hot air and then submerging it in cold water. The change in air pressure as the air inside cooled crushed the can.

I remember him picking up a bolt off the bottom of a fish tank and not getting his hand wet because he dusted the surface of the water with yellow powder (I think from a butterfly's wings.)

I remember him seeing how large a column of water could be sucked up a tube strung up the side of an apartment building(again to demonstrate air pressure.)

I remember him cutting a banana without peeling it.

I remember him showing how to play a record with a foam cup and a straight pin.

I remember him showing how to measure the height of a tree with a pie tin and water. (and algebra)

I remember him drawing the space shuttle on a computer with very early computer graphics.

I remember him teaching about fiber optics by putting a flashlight into a black paint can and punching a hole in the side. The water arched out and acted like fiber optics bending the light from the flashlight onto the spot where the water hit.

I remember him showing air flow from cold to warm with some dry ice, regular ice, a lamp and an aquarium.

I remember him calculating the speed of sound with a starter pistol, a stop watch and a walkie talkie.

I remember him teaching about nerves with pins taped to a meter stick.

I remember him making a come-back can.

I remember him cutting a small piece of paper so that you could walk through it.

I remember him challenging someone to fold a piece of paper in half eight times. ( I can't be done, go ahead and try it.)

I remember him breaking a meter stick by putting a piece of newspaper on top and hitting the end, the air pressure on the paper is so great the stick snaps.

I remember the challenge to blow over a little folded piece of paper.

I remember the turning window optical illusion.

I remember him playing music on the rim of glasses.

I remember him getting an egg or ball or something into a cup by knocking a block out between them with a broom.

I remember him keeping water in an inverted glass with a playing card.

i remember him making a mobius strip.

I remember him lighting steel wool on fire.

I remember him showing how a siren works.

I remember him making secret writing with lemon juice.

I remember him showing how to tell if an egg is raw or hard boiled by spinning it.

I remember him showing how to flip a spoon into a glass.

I remember him teaching about adhesion and cohesion in water by pouring water along a string.

Most of all I remember him as a man who was always willing to teach kids about science and make it fun. He explained it in a way that everyone could understand and he didn't have to resort to fancy computer graphics and the like. He used simple language, simple drawings and everyday objects. It is a lesson that sticks with me to this day and I try to teach like him every chance I get.

When I was in elementary school, a teacher asked me to write about a hero of mine. I didn't have any hero's then and I don't now. I think the concept is silly. I do have role models though that I respect greatly and Don Herbert is one of the greatest of my life. I never gave it much thought but I'm sure he was one of the people responsible for making me the hands-on teacher I am today.

He will be sorely missed but he his influence will never be gone.

~Kirk

2007 Birds 111-116

I'm slowing adding birds at this point. They are getting harder and harder to find. The trees are thick with leaves and I've spotted many of the common birds already. On Memorial Day I walked around Lake Como with Chelsey and Odin. Near the spit of land that juts out into the lake I heard a warbling call and soon spotted a little bird flitting around in the bushes. the call sounded familiar and as I tried to match it up to a mnemonic it suddenly hit me. "I'll hug you and squish you and squeeze you till you squirt." Who could forget that one! It was a warbling vireo. Not a flashy bird but the call makes up for that. Coincidence?

On Saturday, June 9th I started the day out teaching a fossil hunting class at Lilydale Regional Park in St. Paul. While I waited for participants in the dirt patch that passes for a parking lot I heard a call and grabbed my small binocs out of the trunk. It was a first year male American redstart. I wish it was a mature male as then it would have been red instead of yellow. I'm going to count this as my first sighting of they year. I saw one from really far away in the bog at work earlier in the season but this was a much better sighting. Later that same day I went out on a hike with Paul over to the farmstead across the road from the nature center to look for birds during a BioBlitz at work. We spotted warbling vireos there too and we could even see that they had been banded.

June 11th, Paul and I ate lunch quickly and then headed out for a quick drive to look for a bobolink where he had spotted one earlier. We didn't see any there but did see a bunch of Eastern meadowlarks. We did finally catch a glimpse of a bobolink and hear the call near the corner of Norell and co rd. 4. That's a rich corner!

June 13th Paul, Julia and I headed out to the bog at Warner for a short hike. We actually wanted to see if there were any northern waterthrushs but we heard something else instead. We soon found a bird up in a tree at the south end that from behind we thought might be a red-eyed vireo. When it turned around though we caught a spectacular view of a yellow-throated vireo. It was simply beautiful.

Later in the day on June 13th we went canoing on Lake Terrapin to train in some staff on procedures and up at the top of the lake we spotted a pair of loons with two babies. Great stuff. The babies were riding on their parents backs. I had heard loons all spring but this was weirdly my first sighting.

Finally, rounding out the list is the simple and beautiful blue-grey gnatcatcher. Today, June 14th, Paul pointed them out at the very beginning of the work day as a bunch of them were hanging out right by the parking area at work.

REVISION
I listed Fox Sparrow Twice so I started re-numbering down by 1 with this post.

111 Warbling vireo
112 American redstart
113 Bobolink
114 Yellow-throated vireo
115 Common loon
116 Blue-grey gnatcatcher

Are you Cool?

All the cool kids are getting tattoos of me. Isn't it about time you joined in?

~Kirk

Abandoning Google

I'm pretty much ready to abandon Google at this point. Their search functionality is almost gone as advertisers and spammers are getting better at figuring out how to get higher and higher ranking. Search results are littered with junk sites that have no relevance to your search. They are simply generic sites with your keyword thrown in and then links to junk articles.

Same story over a yahoo. Are there any actual search engines that work out there anymore?

~Kirk

Pewee, Bunting and a Swamp Bandit.

Monday, May 21st I went into the kitchen at work and since the window was open I could hear the Eastern Wood Pewee taunting me. I grabbed some binoculars out of my cubicle and within a few minutes I located him perched at the top of an old oak tree on some bare branches.

Tuesday, May 22nd I heard a loud bird call in the same area as the Pewee. The call was quite loud and vaguely familiar. I saw a small bird flitting around in the top of the large oak tree by the garage. I took some binoculars out of the van and peered upwards. Sure enough, it was the Indigo Bunting! I missed them all last year so I was very excited to add one to my list for 2007.

Friday, May 25th I helped Paul set up mist nets for birds class and then hiked back to the building via the meadow. I trained my binoculars on the piles of box elder we cut to create a bur oak savanna. I saw a small bird right away on a pile far away. I had to get closer to be sure but it was indeed a common yellow throat. I expected to see the "swamp bandit" closer to water. I hiked back to the building noting kildeer in the newly plowed field and pulled three deer ticks off my pants. Good times.

In the afternoon I stopped out as Paul took down nets and the bog was quite quiet. A lone bird flew along the tree tops and when it landed we got a great view of a Great Crested Flycatcher with a beautiful creamy yellow belly.

108 Eastern Wood Pewee
109 Indigo Bunting
110 Common Yellowthroat
111 Great Crested Flycatcher

Birds and Bugs

I taught a bug class out at Lake Elmo Park reserve today. That was at 1:00 and it went until about 1:45. I didn't actually leave the park until about 3:45 as I did two hours of birding after the program. I really hadn't eaten anything but a lot of milk and half a bag of goldfish crackers so I was really hungry by the time I left.

I drove all over the park looking for birds. I started at the amphitheater where I did my program. I spotted a yellow warbler. The first one of the year in Minnesota but I had seen them in Arizona in March. There were red-winged blackbirds everywhere and some common grackles as well as robins, belted kingfishers and a northern cardinal who landed on both sides of my car to inspect my mirrors. In the water was a great blue heron, Canada geese, mallards and some kind of merganser. I heard a common yellow-throat but couldn't find it. I also spotted a little bird that drove me crazy. I think it may have been a vireo. Who knows. It was grey on the back and a little yellow on the belly with a eye ring but no distinct wing bars. I had the national geographic book with me and the more I use it the less I like it.

From there I headed out of the modern campground but quickly pulled over when a flash of yellow flew past my car. I thought it was another yellow warbler, maybe it was but all I saw was an American goldfinch. I poked around that area a bit and spotted a grey catbird on the ground under some bushes. Tally ho!

I next headed to the swimming beach which was closed but a small wetland between the beach and the playground was full of birds. I tried not to look creepy hanging out near a playground with binoculars. I got some more good views of many yellow warblers and barn swallows before there was a flash of orange. Baltimore Orioles! A male and female were working over a large grapevine. Tally ho! (yes I know I'm a dork for using that term but hey, it was good enough for Peterson.)

I next tried the fishing dock and on the way down I spotted a rose breasted grosbeak. Next stop was the primitive campground. As I hiked in I noticed that I had hit my sandaled feet on a fallen branch earlier and my foot was bleeding badly and about of the bottom of my right foot was covered in blood. Hmm. How did I miss that? A band aid to the rescue and I was back birding for a beautiful view of a field sparrow. Gorgeous in a subtle way.

I pushed off into the woods toward the first campsite and watched an egret in breeding plumage for a while. I could hear an eastern wood pewee taunting from nearby so I tried to investigate. A solid wall of buckthorn blocked my path.

I scanned a large oak in the direction of the pewee in a vain attempt to spot him. No luck but a lump on the branch caught my eye. It was either a whip-or-will or a nighthawk. Arhhh! Which one? I slowly worked my way twenty feet though a buckthorn thicket until I could just make out a white spot on the fank of the bird. Nighthawk for sure.

I poked around near eagle point lake but I was getting tired and a close call with poison ivy while trying again in vain to spot a common yellow throat told me to call it a day and get some food.

Here be the yearly bird list additions:
(I had spotted a rose breasted grosbeak at work a week ago but somehow it never made it on the list so I'm adding it now)

104 Rose Breasted Grosbeak
105 Gray Catbird
106 Baltimore Oriole
107 Common nighthawk

Birds and Orchids

Today I hiked down to the lake with fellow naturalist Paul Smithson. The day was cool and the birds weren't too active. The fully leafed out trees didn't help either. We did spot a Swainson's Thrush and earlier I had seen a Ruby-throated hummingbird. I spotted the bird at the feeders we put out. I watched from Warner's new cafe seating bird watching area in the new exhibit hall. It was fantastic to chomp down lunch and watch birds. The ready supply of binoculars in slots under the counter was wonderful as well. I had seen a hummer caught in a mist net while bird banding earlier in the week which doesn't count for my list so it was nice to see one that I can count.

On out way back from the lake we discovered that the yellow lady slippers are blooming. The photo at the top of the post is actually from last year as I haven't gotten a chance to photograph them this year yet.

As far as birds go I need to find myself my old nemesis the indigo bunting. I never did see one last year and now I see these great photos over on the birdchick blog. Okay, show yourselves!

Bird Count to Date:
102 Ruby-throated hummingbird
103 Swainson's Thrush

101 birds of 2007

Here we are. Take in a big deep breath. I have passed 100 birds for 2007. I know any serious Birder is thinking right now, "it took you till May to get 100 birds? Slacker." Ya well, I'm new to the whole bird thing and other things like having a sick dog kind of consumes all my time. This sure is a lot earlier than I got 100 birds last year though!

Bird 96 was a brown headed cowbird. Two points to make here. First off, why isn't it called a brown headed bison bird? Second, why does everyone hate this bird? I know people who kill them if they see them. Keep in mind, this isn't an exotic species like a house sparrow. Brown headed cow birds are nest parasitizers. Okay, well redhead ducks parasitize mallard nests. Should we kill the redheads ducks too? The problem is that cow birds are an edge species and humans love creating edge everywhere so we're increasing the cow bird population.

Monday night was the MNA board meeting and we met at Lebanon Hills. The meeting went long and the sun had set by the time we left the building. The fun thing about hanging out with a bunch of naturalists is that everyone is pretty keyed into their surroundings. Within a few steps of leaving the building, one word was on everyone's minds.

Woodcocks.

We could hear "peents" coming from the foggy netherworld around us. Where was the bird? It seemed to come from all directions. Soon we could hear the chirpy wing beats of the rotund little bird zooming around overhead. As we strained to see it we heard more peenting and realized there were multiple birds out doing the sky dance. I'm going to conservatively say three birds but four is probably safe and I would not be surprised to find more. This is in contrast to my experience out at Warner where I work. When we have woodcocks it tends to be just one. My guess is that in a more rural setting where there is more land, the woodcocks are more likely to back down in response to challenges from other males. There are plenty of other places to go. Closer to the city, the woodcocks are less likely to back down as there are no other suitable sites and thus the makes defend a smaller dancing ground. This is just wild speculation on my part.

We spotted several birds flying overhead and eventually ran into the field in the dark to get a good hiding spot to try to see him on the ground. It was too dark already but one time he did hand very close. We could hear him do his little hiccup inhale before the really loud PEENT!.

On Tuesday May 8th I opened my window at work and heard a familiar call I hadn't heard since last year. What is that? Oh course, the eastern wood pewee. I also heard ovenbirds so I needed to head outside to spot them. I had a few things to check on outside at various times during the day and I took my binoculars which ensured that I never say any birds. I did also hear a wood thrush and a great crested flycatcher.

Thursday, May 10th I finally saw chimney swifts. I had heard them earlier so it was nice to finally spot them. I saw them while eating lunch on the deck at work.

I took Friday, May 11th of from work and I was pretty much homebound taking care of the dog. I did spend some time in the yard and spotted a sole goldfinch on my goldfinch feeder. I put this feeder up in December so it is about time someone found it! Hopefully more will be back. There are also regular house and fox sparrows visiting the yard and chimney swifts flying over the house.

On Saturday I heard my first swamp bandits of the year a.k.a. common yellow throats. As I was with a girl scout troop teaching canoing I couldn't break away to spot the bird. I also heard some sort of vireo and yellow warblers. Ahhh, all this hearing and no seeing make Kirk a grumpy boy.

Sunday, May 13th was Mothers Day and I spotted Barn Swallows in the parking lot of Interlachen Country Club.

Monday May 14th was a wild day. It started off when four of us from work, Me, Julie, Julia and Bekah carpooled. On the overpass from Hwy 36 to 35E northbound some idiot came out of nowhere going way too fast and sideswiped Julie's car. We pulled over, called the police and waited. It took a long time for the hwy patrol to fill out the paperwork and I joked that Julie should have gotten in an accident in better bird habitat. Just after I said that Julia spotted a bird sitting on some long grass in the middle of the cloverleaf interchange. She grabbed her binoculars and sure enough, it was an Eastern kingbird. We all passed the binos around and I realized it was bird number 100 for me for the year. So I guess at least one positive thing came out of a bad situation.

Once at work we set out bird banding. We caught a yellow-bellied flycatcher, a catbird, a ruby-throated hummingbird, a common yellowthroat, and two female American redstarts. We didn't have many nets set and they weren't up long as it was just a training session. I don't count any birds from the nets for my bird count as that seems like cheating. I did, however, see a beautiful scarlet tanager up at the top of the trees behind the building. That's 101 birds. We had to call it early to head home so Julie could go to the doctor to make sure her baby was alright after the accident so we didn't go down to the lake for lunch as planned. I'm sure I would have added a handful more birds. Maybe later in the week. It feels good to be over 100 though!

96 Brown Headed Cowbird
97 American Woodcock
98 Chimney Swift
99 Barn Swallow
100 Eastern Kingbird
101 Scarlet Tanager

Thar She Blows!

This is the best clip of video I've seen in a long time. I'm so happy to have stumbled upon it and so happy to share it with you. Behold the power of nature. Ahh let's hear it for storm surges and under-sized storm sewers.

It is actually two clips put together, I love when the guy starts to run in the second half. I'd run like hell too. Apparently is this MN-DOT footage from a storm in July of 1999. The overpass is 35th street on Hwy 35W.

Phoebe Nest Camera

This is really exciting. Warner Nature Center is part of a birdhouse network program with Cornell Lab of Ornithology and last week we installed a nest camera on an Eastern Phoebe nest. The image above is a live image of the nest. If the phoebe is on it you can see her while if she is away feeding you can see there are five eggs. If you are viewing this later in the summer it may show the young as well. If you viewing this years down the road I have no idea what will show up. The camera uses infrared lights so we can keep track of the nest at night as well.

The image is refreshed every 30 seconds though you'll have to refresh your browser page to see it. The way I have it set up here it just grabs the current picture when you visit the blog.

This camera is unique as we have the only camera in the program that is on a "wild" nest. All the other cameras are in nest boxes.

You can visit the cornell website for captured highlights from the season.

~Kirk