Birdchick Podcast

Elders of the Internet, save us all.  The American Birding Association opened up a debate about using taped calls of birds to find them in the field. Also, we can see how people voted about what areas could be included in the ABA listing field. Study muses that some species of birds use cigarette butts to deter parasites in the nest. For the birder who has everything... For some reason, Non Birding Bill will talk about this sketch from SNL.  

Really awesome birding bumper stickers and mugs at BirdNerdz. There's a petition to create a "duck stamp" for birders so the money will go to more non game species and not lump birders into hunters on wildlife surveys. Check out SciStarter. Kind of like Kickstarter but instead of looking for funding, they're looking for people to participate in research projects.  They have a section just on BIRDS! Hmmmm...energy companies are not in favor of the lesser prairie chicken being put on the Threatened List.  That's not suspicious at all... A crane in New Mexico is debatable for some, clearly a sandhill crane for others. Should birds have an expiration date on your list?  Whatever.

Warning...links to potentially gross photos. If you click on a link and are disturbed, I don't want to know about it. Really gross photo of a bald eagle and a mallard (gross but AWESOME). 'Merica! Sam Galick got some amazeballs photos of a northern goshawk taking out a Cooper's hawk. Sparrowhawk nails rare wayward cliff swallow in Sweden. Birders are gaining in popularity.  Another birder movie might be coming if it gets the rest of its funding on Kickstarter (c'mon, it's got Fred Willard) and...a birder reality show in the works??? California restaurant owners build restaurants near the sea where there are birds and sea lions...and get upset about the smell.  

City birds adapt in different ways to urban predators than their country counterparts. Kenn Kaufman talks about Hurricane Sandy's effect of migrant birds. Woman finds a cormorant with a camera and is now trying to find the owner of the camera. What the WHAT? 14 surprising turkey facts. My beat for 10000 Birds on winter finch feeding.

Please don't read the comments under this photo cause it's just gonna make you angry. But here's an intriguing photo captured on a Minnesota trail cam that appears to have captured a barred owl going after a cat.  This is posted on Facebook, so you may have to be logged in to Facebook to see it. Sexy bird costumes. Hmm. Birding Is Fun has generated a list of "Birding Power Couples." Why are we on it? eBird's Brian Sullivan talks about what can happen when a hurricane like Sandy hits during mirgration. Here's a good article detailing what birds can and will do when a hurricane hits. And here's an interview with ABA president Jeff Gordon. There's already a Facebook gallery of Sandy birds. I'm on another podcast called Obsessed with Joseph Scrimshaw. If you like profanity...you'll love this. Do not listen to on speakers at work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2V_cXDlwDWw This is a video for the American Birding Association multimedia contest for their Bird of the Year. Honestly, you can try and enter this, but I'm not sure you can top this video. You can try. But I'm not sure it can be done. I've watched it five times already. Things get heated at an election for the Madison Audubon Society...to the point that the election resulted in a court case. Dude with food poisoning refinds finch that hasn't been seen in 80 years! Guy sees over 9000 birds and decides to let the listing go... A weird form of bird photography...birds in mist nets and if that weirds you out, here are some gorgeous traditional portraits. Hat tip to Bill Todd.

I'm wrong. It's the 2012-2013 Winter Finch Forecast!! Come to the Focus on Diversity Conference! The Big Sit is coming up October 13, 2012! Bird book writing tips. Cool shot from BadBirdz Migration RADAR. Where have the birds gone? Read Tiny Little Love Stories. (not for kids)

Everybody be safe. A very unfortunate story about a bird watcher attacked in Central Park. Alarmist story about how your bird feeder could be affecting birds. Car hits a flock of starlings.

Scott's Wild Bird Food aka Miracle Grow fined $12.5 million in criminal and civil penalties that regulators say are the heftiest ever issued under federal pesticide law. Weirdest survey about birders and birding...ever. Warning, it takes awhile. Are you a member of the American Birding Association? Be sure to cast your vote on whether or not to expand the listing area!    

Should the American Birding Association add Hawaii to its listing area? (um, yes) 12 year old Canadian boy (or should I say Canada Boy) enters the 100 millionth observation to eBird. Boy hit by bird on a roller coaster. Birding is Fun personality graph.

OK, so we kind of got in an argument with the last podcast (certainly not the first time and certainly not the last) so we took it down.  We didn't realize it would still show up in the feeds. So we redid it. Yes, we are still married. Things we talked about: Crazy Pants in Duluth, MN wants to shoot hawks...cause they're what's wrong with the ecosystem. Like Omar on The Wire, changes to the American Ornithologists Union taxonomy a' comin'. You should listen to Joseph Scrimshaw's Obsessed Podcast. You can also buy his book here. Pledge to Fledge

"Sexual Habits of Adélie Penguins" in 1915. What color car attracts the most bird poop? Turkeys running amok in South Jersey.  

Bird stowaway on a plane goes all the way across the Pacific. Can't wait til US Fish and Wildlife and ABC's Cat's Indoors! Campaign sees this: woman raising baby robin with her cats...I suspect she's not a licensed wildlife rehabber. (This is a terrible idea, if this bird ever gets released, it will not associate cats as predators...not all cats are so relaxed with birds, this story will not end well). Guy taking pictures of eagles manages to get all the numbers on an eagle band and id where the bird came from--cool follow up story. As if bird names weren't confusing enough, birders and ornithologists like to argue about whether or not to capitalize bird names. Oh and for those trying to follow Non Birding Bill's squirrel/bubonic plague story...um...it was actually either a cat or a mouse that infected the man as he was trying to save a mouse from a stray cat...yeah, I know, it's weird.  Read the full story here.

A European government agency wants to trap hawks to allow more non native pheasants to breed so people can shoot them (and no, this story isn't from Florida). An interesting discussion about reporting rare ducks and how some hunters use bird listservs, bird blogs and rare bird hotlines to look for rare ducks to shoot. OMG the most pretentious article/field guide review I've ever read...well, except maybe for that one time a bird book author totally dissed a competitors book and then in the same article touted how awesome his own book was.

It's tough to be a banded bird in the Middle East. A dead bee-eater found in Turkey has been accused of being an Israeli spy.  Apparently this is not the first time. Griffin vultures with satellite packs were detained for similar reasons in Saudi Arabia in the past. Mute swan eggs are being stolen from nests in an Orlando, FL park.  One man was arrested for one particular theft (he ate a couple of the eggs) but the others remain a mystery.  What baffles me is that mute swans are non native so you can't prosecute people for stealing the eggs...unless these are "pet swans" owned by the city. Here's a short video from Birds and Beans about why you should look for shade-grown coffee. http://youtu.be/wirnRx-zlNk And this made me laugh (and you will too if you are familiar with this meme):