Learning bird calls by ear

This is one of the most informative videos about birding by ear that I've ever seen:

Marathon sunset

From 7 January, a few months in hindsight:

















And a few minutes later:

BirdTape and why it should be on your windows.

The American Bird Conservancy has produced a fantastic new product: BirdTape.

Ultimately, windows kill more birds in the US than all other forms of human-related bird deaths (cats, cars, wind turbines, etc), combined. Indeed, it is speculated that many cat kills were stunned from hitting windows first. Many stunned birds who are lucky enough to escape cats still fly away and many die later of internal injuries.

Here's their instructional video:



Be sure to check out the video at the bottom of their collisions page!!

Considering that the Germans have been working on this for years because their sound barriers along highways tend to be glass, it has taken quite a while for the idea to spread. Here are a few pictures from my 2008 trip, starting with a shelter at a train station that was built before the idea caught on - but still has falcon silhouette stickers!



Apologies for the quality of these, they're both taken from inside moving trains. This second design would have been more bird friendly if the stripes were vertical instead of horizontal, but the aesthetic appeal would probably have been decreased. For all practical purposes, though, it will do its job far better than the few stickers on the shelter above!



For a reminder: most buildings have this problem to one degree or another. Here's a kindergarten/elementary school that uses bird stickers and big, bright paper cutouts to prevent bird/people window strikes.



And for grown-ups, here's the airport in Koln: the main building is huge glass panels without any visible sign of stickers or fritting or bird-friendly modifications. Yet the air vents near the parking lot are surrounded by glass panels as well, and they have designs that are about as effective as bird stickers (read: better than nothing, but not by much).



So if you have issues with your windows, don't waste your effort on band-aid fixes like one or two stickers per window - you will have bird prints between the stickers:



Related links:
Problems with Windows
10 Things You Can Do To Reduce Bird vs. Window Collisions
A window into the perils of migration
Seetrail links:
Tis the season; a bird is trying to get into my house
When birds hit windows

Another option: shade structures. A bit more expensive than tape.



Conclusion? My name is Heidi, and I am a window tourist.



(x-posted at Big Bend Birds & Nature)

just links

For folks who are seeking wildlife rehab, here's a directory link that also has some useful tips.

For an eloquent write-up on the scientific value of dead birds, "So You Found a Dead Bird" says things a bit better than I generally do. I would say that in some cases, there is such a thing as too common (but probably not for under-studied counties), and there is such a thing as "too far gone" for roadkill/decay/etc - but that also depends on the bird. Snow Bunting roadkill in TX? Only a wing or leg still 3D? Bring it in!

It's not silence, just productivity!

Folks may have noticed that our other blog, Big Bend Birds & Nature, is getting all of the love. Not so! Well, mostly, but along with the quiet over here and a bit of a slow down in posting over there (it's all relative, right?) is continued adventure with Sul Ross State University and a pile of brain-crunching for a summer birding event in Marathon. The Sul Ross madness now involves a Dean's List and an actual 4.0 GPA for 35 hours there so far with 9 more in the works. English/reading/writing tutoring still exists on the side as well.

So what about that summer birding event? Keep the latter half of July bookmarked and we'll have details as soon as possible!

And a consolation Nutting's Flycatcher from last month, for folks who missed it:

about that yard list

Our yard list was last updated on the blog in... May.

So here's the next batch!

Varied Bunting 6/1/11
Say's Phoebe 6/12/11
Cooper's Hawk 7/17/11
Upland Sandpiper 8/14/11
Long-billed Curlew 8/15/11
Clay-colored Sparrow 9/12/11
Baltimore Oriole 9/18/11
Townsend's Warbler 9/19/11
Black-throated Blue Warbler 9/23/11
Black-crested Titmouse 10/5/11
Double-crested Cormorant 10/29/11
Killdeer 11/18/11
Brewer's Sparrow 11/30/11
American Crow 12/10/11
Dickcissel 12/ 11/11
Gray Catbird 12/11/11
Brown Creeper 12/11/11
Brown Thrasher 12/14/11
Sage Thrasher 12/25/11
Common Ground Dove 1/8/12

...this puts us at 88 species for the yard since 9/1/10 - not too bad!

Annual Family Update

Dear Family and Friends,

We find ourselves in the midst of the holiday madness yet again, unprepared for the seasonal festivities and up to our ears in life. This year has been another one of transition, though we're still in Marathon and we're still juggling employment - that much remains the same. Thankfully our town was spared the wildfires that so much of our region was scorched with, but we're all in this drought together. If you feel the urge, y'all can even hear our local NPR segment on how the drought impacted birds (or our own blog entry about it).

Here's a boquet of Scarlet Musk Flower (Nyctaginia capitata, also called Devil's Boquet!) in the yard:















New in our life this year is a nearly hairless mammal who has brought an immense amount of joy to our lives... Anakin isn't always so sure about her, but he's the Original Puppy and she steals his toys. Nauga (naw-gah) was matched to us via Grand Companions shelter in Fort Davis* - she's half Chinese hairless, half Mexican hairless, and looks entirely Chupacabra (mythological goat-sucker vampire dog-lizard beast thing).

See?



* Quick note about Grand Companions:
They are AMAZING. They don't have
rows of kennels so much as rows of offices
and each office houses a person and some
pups so the critters (and people) are well
socialized, people and house friendly, and
generally quite pleasant to be around!




In honor of Kindli's candid family photos, we bring you a few of the attempts made in the last few weeks to get the pups looking cooperative:















Anakin generally likes the camera, but Nauga's photogenic side is sneaky.



















Also new to this year's update - our porch is now a *real* porch!



















While we're at it, we should mention our fantastic pup-watchers, without whom we'd never have made it down to south Texas for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival or up to Missouri for Thanksgiving. Dione and Gerald and their flock of 2 kids, 2 cats, 1 dog and 1 turtle are to thank for keeping Anakin well entertained in our absence - he LOVES staying with them! As for Nauga, she gets pampered by our friend Kathy and her daughter (our blacklighting companion!) and their flock of poodle and people and much fun is had by all. Below is Anakin playing with Star, photo by Miracle Tedrick (sorry, no pictures of Nauga's escapades!)
















Finally, as this year winds down, there's a bit of schooling to report: 32 hours at Sul Ross Sate University means that in 12 more hours there will be a BA of "General Studies" on the wall. (Three schools and 170 hours later...) Highlights thus far have been two summer sessions at slight overload - Entomology being the Most Amazing Experience Ever, in spite of a drought year, and a fall schedule that included tutoring English, reading and writing. Work gems included a 7 hr shift in which over 30 papers were edited. Students still don't understand deadlines!

The Sul Ross longhorn, all dressed up for homecoming:















Also included in 2011 adventures: learning to crochet, turning t-shirts into dresses, trying our hand at raising Hubbard's Small Silkmoth caterpillars (conclusion: don't) and a lot of really, really good local birding. For that, we've been maintaining a second blog: Big Bend Birds & Nature.

Orange Palps of Doom

Because Coleoptera need blog time, too...
2 Dec, 2011 - 10 miles north of Hwy 385/Hwy 90 junction. ID pending.