Birdchick Podcast

Warning, this podcast has a joke that's a little blue.  If you listen with kids you may have to explain some metaphors/similes of human anatomy.  I blogged earlier that there's an interesting trend this winter of birders taking photos and videos of people ignoring signgs and getting way too close to snowy owls this winter and posting them online.  Is this the best way to police ourselves? Speaking of getting too close too close to snowy owls, NA Birding has an AMAZEBALLS blog post about a peregrine falcon and snowy owl encounter. If you do nothing else today, go to that blog, read it and be wowed by the great photos.  One of the photos is begging to be part of the meme Come At Me, Bro. And since we're showing photos, here's one everyone sent me last week: Oh and for those who wondered what happened to the Hey Girl I made for American Birding Association president, it was taken down for being to racy so I'll post it here. And finally, The Birdest doesn't want any of these emails to show up on his birding listserve...because it's too hard to hit a delete key.      

I've heard this story in rumor but here's an official report: The first Snowy Owl recorded in ever in Hawaii was shot at the Honolulu Airport by a USDA official.  From the article: Dan Meisenzahl told Civil Beat, "USDA officials “really are the unsung heros. Nobody hears about those guys until something like this happens. It’s just a real shame. They do an outstanding job and unfortunately they were put in a position where there were no easy answers. I can’t tell you with what a heavy heart this happened.” Apparently, using Google for info on how to deal with snowy owls was too much of an effort for the USDA to go through. In other news, we've had a snowy owl hanging out at the Minnesota Twins stadium and remarkably...no one has shot it yet.  It's a pretty cool video staff got from the various cams around the stadium. If you are interested in owls that are not snowy owls...there are great horned owls in New York! OMG! In non owl news the Whooping Cranes have had a rough migration and will finish it via truck rather than ultra light.

Whoa! Scott's Wild Bird Food was fined $4.5 MILLION for 2 incidents that go back to 2008.  One is for selling bird seed contaminated with pesticides that their own staff ornithologist warned was toxic to birds and wildlife, the other was for selling lawn and garden products with falsified U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pesticide registration numbers. This got my attention because the nature blogosphere was taking the National Wildlife Federation to task for partnering up with Scott's as a sponsor. The NWF works to promote protecting the environment and protecting wildlife and you know, creating that whole Certified Backyard Habitat...partnering up with a major pesticide producer is a dangerous business.  As a result of public outcry, NWF announced they were ending their partnership with Scott's. In other news, are you ready for the Great Backyard Bird Count?  Mark your February 17 - 20 on your calendars! Woman get's kinglet caught in her hair. Slow mo video of a goose flying upside down. WildBird Magazine has a really great contest going.  All you have to do is make them chuckle with your most amusing birding adventure... The murmuration video we were talking about.  Watch how the starlings use those crazy aerial moves to evade an aerial predator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=b8eZJnbDHIg

Goshawks are being studied for unmanned aerial vehicles.  I love me some accipiters but they do have a tendency to fly into windows... Audubon is the most expensive field guide ever?  Speaking of field guides, David Sibley now has an official Facebook Page. A really cool photo of snowy owls...is it doctored? Or is that a full on parliament of owls? Oh BBC you give us David Attenborough, Bill Oddie and...this guy?  Really BBC?  A new age philosopher and jazz musician on why birds sing?  The upside is the oh so awesome Don Kroodsma giving our artistic dude a scientific smack down.  Man, our sensitive new age guy is sure adding a new argument to the whole playing taped calls around birds debate. If you can make it longer than 2 minutes in without throwing up a little bit in your mouth...you're a stronger person than me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UN0-Z_OzfbA

You were warned by the title. First up, James Currie the host of Birding Adventures got a show on National Geographic. Rather than playing it safe, he went with falconry for a topic.  I admire his balls on this and as someone who enjoys falconry (and went just this past Tuesday) I applaud him.  You should check it out, falconry is generally misunderstood in the birding community and it's a wonderful way to learn raptor id (if a falconer ever invites you out, say yes).  You can get a taste of Mr. Currie below...is he the hottest birding tv host we've ever seen: discuss! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=s1EJ5cXlvoM#! Aerial Assassins premieres Friday, January 20th at 10pm EST. It will re-air Saturday, January 21st at 1am EST and Friday, January 27th at 3pm EST Now for the hilarity: A piece of advice.  If you have an iPhone...maybe don't use it to send your birding report to your local birding listserv as some poor woman learned with a roadrunner report to Colorado's list. Crows start more stuff than Exlaxx. Bird Watching Magazine (the UK version not the formerly named Birder's World) is offering a contest for a luxury birding trip to Scotland...can one have luxury and Scotland at the same time? Busch Garden's has a new animal care facility.  Watch a flamingo get laser surgery! Canopy Tower is having a last minute special for February, it's well worth it if you are looking for a mid winter break.  I've been there and if I didn't have other plans for New York, I'd be going.  

The last several days have included links to a rather amusing video of a hooded crow that looks like it's tubing.  Info has included "smart crows" to "crow tubing" to my personal favorite headline: "Science Can Neither Explain Nor Deny The Awesomeness Of This Sledding Crow." Psst, Alexis Madrigal, yes science can. Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP9RnDp_tms Explanation: Crow eating something round + peaked roof = sliding crow.  The fact that the bird can't seem to figure this out really doesn't do much for me in the whole, "crows are so smart" theory.  But if you want to pretend the crow is sledding, you'll get minimal judgement from me. In other news... West Virginia man hopes to break bird feeder record. Birds fly faster due to Climate Change.  

There's a meme surrounding actor Ryan Gosling which sort of centers on him being the best boyfriend ever.  It started as a general thing and then each hobby took the Hey Girl theme...and so it has come to birding.  Here is the Tumblr blog and of course, you can like it on Facebook.  Here's a sample: In other news there's a crazy story and photos going around the internet surrounding a hawk stuck with a snake found in the water. The location and snake id are sketchy but the hawk is a young red-tailed (look at how thick those those are) and not a falcon as the website describes.  Also snake people are saying it's Texas Rat Snake.  Not being HerpChick (yikes, bummer of a name) I'll defer to them. Also if you really dig weird looking cardinals, Jim McCormac has them in spades, it started with the yellow cardinal in Ohio and there all sorts of them being posted lacking pigment.  Although, this is not a gynandromorph (half male, half female, it's just lacking pigment). Also, if you think squirrels are bad, be grateful you're not Mary and have a heron raiding the pet fish in your pond.    

I saw on Facebook today that the FAA has decided to allow the Operation Migration Whooping Cranes to continue their southward migration: "The FAA has granted an exemption to Operation Migration that will allow pilots to continue to aid the whooping crane migration. Normally, the FAA limits light sport aircraft and pilots to personal flights without compensation. Because the operation is in “mid-migration,” the FAA is granting a one-time exemption so the migration can be completed. The FAA will work with Operation Migration to develop a more comprehensive, long-term solution." Bird Watching has more here. A Falcated Teal in California is making the news--even in the Huffington Post! Puffin found wandering the streets of Montreal is sent back to the wild.  That poor bird is way off course from the Grand Banks to Montreal! What kind of jobs can I expect as an ornithologist? Some of NBB's friends created this fan version of The Hobbit trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMbL3oLUMoc

The news EXPLODED this week! We talked about the minor birdmaggedon in the last podcast and how local police tried to put a ban on fireworks.  Turns out someone may have been trying to intentionally kill them.  Jerks. Another whooping crane has been shot in Indiana.  It is as though the state government is working really hard to say that they don't want birders to ever visit. At all. Speaking of whooping cranes, something fishy is up with Operation Migration.  They've been grounded for several days because a former pilot filed a complaint with the FAA. Is this a legit concern about birds or someone who has sour grapes with an organization he no longer works with?  It seems unlikely that the whooping cranes will complete their migration this year. I mentioned this before but now it's getting some serious attention in the bird world.  US Fish and Wildlife is offering a "take permit" for eagles. How do tiger sharks end up with songbirds in their stomachs? Because migrating birds get distracted by oil rig lights, fly around them, get exhausted and fall in the water.   Also, we started the podcast with different music.  How awesome are our friends?  They do things like translate the Flintstone's Theme into Yiddish and then sing it...and put it on YouTube:

Only 200 birds were found dead in Arkansas this New Year's as opposed to the thousands found last year. Really cool snowy owl video from Cornell:

OMG, we can all finally relax, someone claims to have solved the mystery behind The Birds (the Hitchcock movie and the Daphne du Maurier story). A black-capped chickadee banded in Minnesota is the oldest on record...by four months. Pigeons (aka flying rats) can do math and are smart like monkeys. That wacky North Korean media claims that roosting magpies are really hanging out to mourn the death of Kim Jong-il.

This podcast is mostly NBB and I talking about birding apps and NBB giving advice on what to do first if you get a Droid or iPhone for Christmas.  These are apps that tickle my fancy, if you would like to add your favorite and why, feel free to do so. Apps mentioned in the podcast: Sibley App BirdsEye bird finding app Audubon Guides apps iBird apps I didn't mention it in the podcast, but there's a company called Bird Guides that has some excellent European birding guides too.  The have a Birds of Brazil and I'm hoping they'll be adding other countries.  How awesome to not have to pack a giant field guide when traveling abroad.

Thousands of eared grebes crash landed in Utah winding up on football fields, a Walmart parking lot and highways in Utah.  At least 3000 live grebes were collected but a low estimate of 1500 grebes died on impact.  You can listen to Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Kevin McGowen talk about it on NPR. An article about song sparrows and how taped predator calls affect them.  An interesting article, but how often is a bird like a song sparrow going to be exposed to predator calls 24 hours a day, four days in a row by birders? A huge discussion was started on the American Birding Association's group page about birders and why the uniform appears to be ill fitting khaki pants, vests and floppy hats.  Why is this our uniform?  Why the vest? Remember the mystery hummingbird in Chicago (they one they tried to ID based on poop)? Well, they got a feather and they now know exactly what species it is based on DNA testing.  Find out the id here (or listen to the podcast). A hooded crane has been reported in Tennessee.  Now the question is if this bird is truly a vagrant from another country or an escapee from a private collection.    

This week's news! Has 2011 been the year of the bird penis? I feel like it's been in the news a lot...at least with ducks.  This time, it's about how ostrich penises reveal that the evolution of a lymphatic erection mechanism likely occurred in the ancestor of all birds rather than within birds. Have you heard of Birds Be Safe before? It's a collar for people who insist on letting their cats roam outdoors and is supposed to reduce the invasive species ability to kill native birds.  Does it actually work or is it just feline humiliation? Remember the mystery hummingbird in Chicago? They tried to id it based on poop but that failed, but don't worry they have a feather! An uber rare bird called a red-flanked was found...and then eaten by a shrike.  

Have you heard of Larkwire?  It's an interactive website that helps you learn bird songs via a game.  It beats the heck out of trying to memorize them.  You can check it out here and we have a contest going for Master Birder song pack.  And what we're going to do is have a bird call and you have to misidentify it: Click here to listen to the bird call you need to misidentify. All the people to misidentify the bird between now and this Sunday at noon Central Time will be entered into a drawing for the code to win the Master Birder song pack! The Raven publicist has been working over time this week: Ravens vandalize cars parked in a commuter lot. Ravens use gestures? Wind farm project is scrapped thanks to preliminary surveys on nesting marbled murrelets.