June 2009 Archives

Yesterday I shot about 16 minutes of video, which was mostly just a nest cavity with little spurts of activity. This has been edited down to the video linked below, which is a little over 1.5 minutes. The Mountain Bluebird chicks are being fed by mom in the first segment (brief glimpse of a chick just before she arrives at about 5 seconds), then dad in the third. In the middle segment (which begins at about 35 seconds and ends at 1:20) it looks like one of the chicks is exercising its wings, the end of the wing visible fluttering about in the cavity. Things to listen for include a Grace's Warbler shortly after the beginning, then off and on throughout the clips (there's also a couple of occasional faint buzzes from a Western Wood-pewee in this segment). At about 27 seconds a Mountain Chickadee can be heard, faint Pygmy Nuthatches at about 48 seconds, Common Raven (clearly!) at about 1:07, and a Western Tanager just before the male shows up in the 3rd clip.

The audio file is about 3 minutes long, also starts with a Grace's Warbler, then some faint chirps from a Red Crossbill that are followed soon after by the same type of chirp, though much louder (at about 19 or 20 seconds). Beginning at around 1 minute the cacophony begins, with constant bantering among the crossbills for the next 2 minutes, increasing at about the 2 minute mark. This actually goes on for nearly 6 minutes total in my raw file, but I think you'll more than get the picture in 3 minutes. There are other bird sounds mixed in, especially the Grace's.

For the Mountain Bluebird video (Flash, 11 megs) click here . . .

To listen to the Red Crossbills (.mp3, 3 megs) click here . . .

So Wednesday, after shooting video of the bluebirds, Roxy and I set out for the south end of the Paunsaugant Plateau in the Dixie National Forest. I took both the still and video cameras, but really enjoy video and did that for the most part. I've edited things down, but still have over 6 minutes, so decided it was best to split things up into separate clips. You'll find a couple of birds (and lots of bird song in the background), butterflies, a certain dog we know, and more. Enjoy!


For Part 1 click here . . .


For Part 2 click here . . .

(Pt. 1 is a little over 11 megs, Pt. 2 just over 14 megs - Flash Video format.)

Last week we had a juvenile Tricolored Heron (Egretta tricolor). This week we're going north to test your skills. Good luck and great birding.

Spent some time before heading out into the forest this morning shooting video of the Mountain Bluebirds feeding their chicks at the nest cavity in a snag 100 feet or so from my little home here. Had to turn up the audio levels to be able to here them begging so, unfortunately, there's some unwanted ambient noise in the background. Just a little over two minutes, including a little segment of the female flying away in slow motion - she's carrying a fecal sac, too.

(Requires the Adobe Flash Player on your computer; file size is about 14 megs.)

The Astronomy Festival last week created a little havoc with my work schedule and I went seven straight days without a day off. By the end of all that, I was tired. The fact that 4 of those 7 days were during the festival and I never hit the sack before 1:30 or 2:00 a.m. - way past my normal bedtime - helped with wearing me out. I can take those late nights here and there, but 4 in a row was tough and then we had small post-festival night sky party on Sunday night for a few members of staff only. Skies were mixed during the festival: Two were pretty cloudy, the other two were clear but with a lot of moisture in the air (especially Saturday).

Sunday the air was dry without a single cloud. Just above the southern horizon we used binoculars to look at Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest of the globular clusters that orbit the Milky Way Galaxy. We looked at a lot of different objects once the evening twilight disappeared, but the real highlight for me was peering into a portion of the Virgo (galaxy) Cluster. The section we were looking at contained two Messier objects, galaxies M84 and M86, the two brightest in that particular region of the cluster. But there were another SIX in the same field of view. M86 is about 52 million light years away, while M84 is about 60 million. All in all it was a fantastic evening, seeing galaxies and nebulae with far greater detail than I have ever seen before (it doesn't hurt that some of the staff and volunteers have huge telescopes I can only dream of owning . . . ).

Today I'm packing a lunch, loading up Roxy, and going to roam out in the forest looking for birds, butterflies, and wildflowers. I'll let you know if we find anything of interest.

It all started yesterday morning when I thought I heard a noise that I didn't really want to hear. My suspicions were confirmed when I arrived home for my dinner break: Just across the fence separating the park from the national forest I was greeted by about 40 head of cattle. Just peachy. Though they cleared the area fairly quickly, this morning I knew they were still in the neighborhood since I had to listen to their obnoxious freakin' mooing interspersed among the bird songs.

And of course it will be some time before walking in the area they were in yesterday will be safe, since it is now almost certainly filled with "land mines". What's really sad is I don't think I've found a spot in the forest here on the plateau that didn't have "signs left behind" by cattle.

The crossbills were really chatty this morning, too. Would have been nice to record that, but, just as I decided to to get out the recording equipment, a very noisy ultralight began buzzing the park. Which is totally legal as long as they maintain a minimum altitude, but even at 500 feet they are extremely annoying.

And for Saturday morning it's an idiot out there ravaging the forest landscape with a 2-wheeled, unmuffled and drowning out the birds "off-highway vehicle". Oh well.


On a more positive note, even though the weather hasn't exactly been the best, I made a few images this week.

Last week's bird, usually seen darting about catching insects and rarely seen perched was a Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor). This week's bird may  be challenging as the plumage is transitional from juvenile to adult and not seen in any of the field guides I own. Good luck and great birding!

This morning I took a few minutes before my busy day gets started (Bryce Canyon's Astronomy Festival begins) to record some more bird song. I had a Plumbeous Vireo nearby that got me going and a few more birds soon joined in the party. The recording begins with the vireo then, at about 19 seconds are some very faint "metallic" chips from a Grace's Warbler. It isn't long before he begins to sing and will be heard almost all the way through. At 59 seconds he lands in a tree about 30 feet from the microphone and gets quite loud in comparison to the previous calls. Some Red Crossbills fly into the area and can be heard shortly afterwards. At 1:27 the Grace's is chipping again, then at 2:05 a Broad-tailed Hummingbird is heard buzzing around, and at 2:20 some Pygmy Nuthatches are faintly heard. The constant chatter through the last portion of the recording is the crossbills bantering back and forth. Total time is about three minutes and the mp3 file is about 3.5 megs.


Plumbeous Vireo & More

Our duck in last week's quiz was a drake (or male) Lesser Scaup, Aythya affinis. Both the Greater Scaup and Ring-necked Duck can be easily confused with this species. First thing I look for when deciding between Lesser or Greater is head shape while, with the Ring-necked, I look for the white edges on the bill and (to a lesser extent) the coloration of the flanks or sides of the body. Most field guides point out these important differences. Good luck with this week's bird and have a great week birding!

Red Crossbills have been hanging around the area a lot of late and one thing I've learned is they seem to be able to make a number of different noises. I managed to capture a couple of them this morning, the first just a series of chirps, while the second is 3 chirps followed by a series of alternating "buzzes" (best description I can think of). They've got some other sounds as well - one pretty odd that I can't begin to describe - but need to work a little more to capture them.

This recording is edited down to about 1:17 and more prominent than the crossbill is the repeated trilling of a Chipping Sparrow, with some occasional chirps from one of the local robins. It starts with a crossbill chirping followed immediately by the sparrow. At about 37 or 38 seconds the crossbill's chirps will be noticeably louder and quickly fade - it left its perch and was flying right overhead. Beginning at 54 seconds, the crossbill's call is 3 short chirps followed by alternating buzzes until the end of the recording. Click on the link below to listen, file is mp3 format and about 1.5 megabytes.

Red Crossbill Sounds

Last week's quiz bird was an immature (or, sometimes, "juvenile") male Vermilion Flycatcher, Pyrocephalus rubinus (Gotta love that scientific name - not sure about "rubinus", but the first part would be "fire head"). We're back on the water this week and, as always, good luck and great birding!

While the morons gave me the opportunity for my earlier rant, the trip to the reservoir, in addition to being a fun time for Roxy (a full hour in the water!), I also had a chance to do some macro photography. This time of year damselflies are pretty common on the shores of Tropic Reservoir, especially Northern Bluets. Beside the fact they are wary, the shore is pretty rocky and getting down to their level involves a little pain to the knees and elbows.

There were also a few butterflies around, though this Western Pine Elfin was about the only one cooperative long enough to get a photo. Seems like Florida and Texas were easier places to shoot butterflies than here. Why they tend to be more skittish is unknown to me, so I take what I can get when the opportunities present themselves. Of course the real challenge is trying to identify them . . .

I shot a few images of one of these Variable Checkerspots over near the reservoir, too, though on the way home I found this one in a much better location, sipping nectar from some flowers.I have no idea what kind of flowers, figuring out the butterflies was all I could handle - they're some kind of "LYF's", Little Yellow Flowers (smile).

It's the time of year when public lands in the area become infested with "people" (I use the term very loosely) who have absolutely no regard for the environment or toward other, more responsible, users of said lands. Between the burned cans, water bottles, bait containers, cigarette butts, and fishing line left on the ground and in the water (last week Roxy came ashore with some line that still had a hook attached), I sometimes wish they would just close the place off to fishing (and ATV'ing, too, since trash lines the roadsides anywhere you go back in that forest). But then realize that it is only a few irresponsible slugs who taint my view of things, and those who actually have brains shouldn't be penalized for the actions of the mindless few.