American Goldfinches

I saw my first American goldfinch of the year on Martha's Vineyard last week. I was so charmed by this little fellow's attitude that I did a painting:

Rare African Heron in Brooklyn!

On Sunday at Jamaica Bay, a fellow birder told me that a western reef heron, which is an African species, was sighted last week off the Belt Parkway between Coney Island and the Verazzano Bridge.

He kind of dissed me by asking if Amy, Eric and I were looking the swans, which is kind of like asking if you like Andy Warhol. We had our tripod set up and were looking out over the pond at Jamaica Bay. "No," I informed him, "there's a yellow-crowned night heron." Then he asked if I had seen the reef heron. I asked what a reef heron was. He laughed and made like I was crazy. "How could you have not heard of the reef heron?!" He then explained that it's from Africa. Sorry I'm not up to snuff on my middle eastern waterfowl, bro.

Actually, I guess he was assuming that I had seen any bird alerts that past week, as there had a lot of messageboard posts and rare bird alerts out about it. Apparently a lot of people had come to see it at the Coney Island Creek near the Home Depot Parking lot. Here are some pics from 10o00Birds.com:






Unfortunately, Eric and I went down the Monday afternoon, and the bird had not been sighted all day. We didn't have any luck either. Well, back to cutting for me, eh?

Magpie

Apparently magpies are as common as pigeons in Sweden. In honor of my favorite Swedish pal, Magnus coming to visit today, here's some pictures of magpies:

My lunch date

On nice days, I like to enjoy my lunch at a spot in Central Park right where 6th Ave hits the park, and there's a narrow strip of the pond that is opposite the nature preserve. I hadn't been there for a while, but this week I saw a green heron, only about 4 yards away, perched out on a branch over the water. I hadn't seen anything interesting that day, and I was just giving up and walking back, when I passed him. It was so nice to have that wonderful feeling of getting totally surprised by a new bird you didn't expect to see.

He was there when I came back the next day. I sat on a bench eating my lunch and watching him catch his. He kept trying to creep out onto branches hanging over the water that were a little too thin for him, and was falling and slipping all over. It was pretty adorable.

Here's a link to a really good site of a high school art class's paintings of birds:

Birds at
the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park

Weekend birds

Friday: Central Park
nothing interesting.

Saturday: Prospect Park
a few hermit thrushes. Best thing I saw was an adorable bunny rabbit!

Sunday: Central Park
A loon in the Resovoir, which was embarrassingly enough the first time I have seen a loon. Ever. Anywhere. Also some ruby-crowned kinglets, which embarrassingly I couldn't ID and had to ask a fellow birder.


Keeping it real:

Van Cortland Park

I've been meaning to go to Van Cortland Park in the Bronx for a while, and when I finally did, it was even better than I expected. I didn't see a single person the entire time; it's a real wilderness. Perhaps a little scary. TONS of used condoms and drug baggies in the parts closer to the entrance. I have a feeling it's a pretty cool late night party scene, right?

Birds:

Mallard Duck
Red Tailed Hawk (70% sure)
Downy Woodpecker
Red Bellied Woodpecker
Blue Jay
Rusty Blackbird
American Robin
Dark Eyed Junco
Tufted Titmouse - my new favorite lil guy
Field Sparrow

Tufted Titmouse


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Intrepid birding:

Argentina

I saw 52 species of birds in Buenos Aires. My fantastic guide, Alex Earnshaw helped me identify them. Unfortunately, not many of my pictures came out very well.

Here's me:

Guess where I'll be next week?

I just found out today that I'll be going on a business trip to Buenos Aires next week for 8 days. As soon as I heard I'd be going, all I could think about was all the birds I could see. I really never thought I'd ever go to South America. I have a lot of mixed feelings about travel - I kind of hate it a lot. And not in the "I hate airplanes and packing" kind of dislike of travel. More that I don't enjoy being far away from home, and though I enjoy the idea of learning about new places and seeing new things, it doesn't always offset the feeling of isolation and confusion I feel in a foreign country, especially where I don't speak the language.

However, there are some additional factors for this trip I am weighing in - for one, it will be summer in Argentina, which is great. On the other hand, I remember the only other business trip I've been on to Miami a few years ago, where I was very lonely had nothing to do myself in the evening after work. I ended up eating dinner in a restaurant at a table for one and then Harry Potter by myself in the theatre. I remember actually thinking how I now understood why businessmen get hookers - they're just lonely.

Of course, the thing that I immediately thought about was how I would be able to see South American birds that I never dreamed that I would ever see. PARROTS. Would I really see parrots? I realized I actually knew nothing at all about South American birds, or Argentina.

I bought a book on Amazon.com - Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica. I think this'll help.

Overly ambitious

In Alaska, an eagle carrying a deer head flew into powerlines and blew out the power for 10,000 people in Juneau. I really like that the headline of this article is "Overly ambitious eagle knocks out power."

Ambitious! Like the eagle was thinking to himself, "I know I can do it - I just have to put my mind to it! If I believe it, I can achieve it!!!!!!"

New friend

So I know this is off topic, but lately I've been thinking a lot about how much I like raccoons. I think I may elevate them to Very Liked Animal status, along with sea lions, cats, and black crowned night-herons.

I really like that Wendy's commercial where the raccoons steal a car and take it through the drive-thru. Also the part in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle where the animatronic raccoon gets in the car and bites Harold. Animatronic raccoons are AMAZING.

Thoughts?

South Island Kokako.... EXTINCT!!!

Aw, sorry, lil' buddy.

I saw this article on StrangeArk.com- South Island kokako declared extinct.

Call me a pollyanna, but it seems a little soon to ring the death knell. Maybe that's a little wishful thinking, but I mean, it's happened before.

Here's an article from a few years ago on the NZ Nature Co site:

"Searchers, Ornithologists and volunteers spend more than 100 days in the field each spring and summer, visiting a range of promising locations throughout the South Island and Stewart Island. Although no unequivocal evidence was recorded, a number of clues were gathered which combine to build up a picture of a species that remains elusive but alive:

• A number of kokako-like calls were heard, many of which were noted at places where reliable reports of kokako had already been received.
• A distinctive, unidentified moss grubbing was found in several places where kokako had been reported previously.
• At one site, a kokako-like bird was briefly glimpsed, although it was not positively identified.
• A large number of new reports were received – many of which are very promising and require further investigation.

"It is becoming progressively more difficult to offer alternative explanations for our findings", said search leader Rhys Buckingham. "While the South Island Kokako is clearly a secretive and unpredictable bird, we consistently find signs of their presence."

"What is most interesting is that we keep uncovering evidence at those sites where reliable reports of Kokako have already been received. There is a very strong correlation between our findings and known historical information."

The site also lists all the places where evidence of the kokakos was most recently found. It seems to be from around 2000. List of evidence.

There aren't many photos of the kokako on google image search, and apparently that's because the bird is so elusive that it's barely been photographed. The first image that comes up is of a man with binoculars, looking for the bird. It's from a website for a radio show where this guy is interview.

The guy is named Rhys Buckingham, and after googling his name, I learned that he has some Buddist books on his Amazon.com wishlist and also made a review of a Bright Eyes album he bought on Amazon. According to Amazon, his birthday is in two days. Do you think I should buy him one of his books? What a nice treat that would be for him.

Here is a link to the radio show he is interviewed on: Looking for the Grey Ghost - .mp3".

I'm kind of hoping that Micky especially will enjoy this podcast.


South Island Kokako

Jamaica Bay

Amy Hunt and I made a trip to Jamaica Bay on Sunday to impress the other birders with my new scope. Unfortunately, we showed up on a day where there seemed to be some sort of club meeting for bird photographer, and they all had HUGE photo lenses on tripod.

A lot of northern shovelers, hooded mergansers, northern pintails, black ducks, american coots, etc...

More importantly, Amy bought an adorable stuffed mourning dove at the gift shop:

Amy's new soft friend:



Check out the big camera in the background:


Ducks in the background:

Xmas Birds

On December 23rd, my father reported that he had seen a great blue heron while jogging around Claypit Pond in front of my high school. My mother and I came to check it out. Sure enough, standing on a submerged stone near the stream that feeds it, there was a great blue heron, just relaxing and looking so sweet.

Now, as far as I could remember, I had never seen anything other than mallards and Canadian geese at this pond. It's right in front of my high school, so I spent a lot of time looking at it. To be fair, I wasn't as interested in identifying birds in high school, but I would've been able to spot a heron. My mother and father often jog or walk around the pond (exactly .6 miles in circumference, it was carefully measured for track practice), and this was the first time they had seen one too. My mother reported that she had been seeing a cormorant in the past 2 weeks, but only recently.

I went back the next morning with my brother, Jamie, and we saw the cormorant was sitting right on a pipe that stuck above the water, about 10 feet out from the shore. Just then, I saw a belted kingfisher fly from one tree to another. This was the first time I have ever seen and identified a kingfisher, so I was very excited.

Belted Kingfisher:

Just as I was riding high on my kingfisher sighting, my brother remarked, "Don't you remember the time on Martha's Vineyard I caught a kingfisher that had swallowed a fish hook and took it to the Audubon society to save it? Oh, I guess you weren't there." My brother is friend to all creatures.

We walked around the pond, looking for the heron, and instead stumbled up my favorite lil' guy in the whole world - a black-crowned night-heron! This was a juvenile, mostly brown with white flecks. He was on this tiny island that's about 5 feet from the shore, just sitting on a fallen branch that hung out over the water.

My brother agreed with me that these night herons were like the bunny rabbits of the bird world. Extremely huggable.

Oh yeah, there were also hooded mergansers. Those have definitely never been in the pond before this year.

Hooded Merganser:


For Christmas, my father gave me a high-powered scope and tripod, so I feel like a real bonafide birder now. I can't wait to impress other birders with my high-tech equipment.

On Christmas day, I went back to the pond with my parents to test out the scope. I tried taking some pictures by "digi-scoping" (sticking my digital camera up to the eyepiece of the scope), which I had heard worked quite well. I didn't have great results, but I think it might take patience and a better camera.

After the pond, my parents and I traveled to another pond in Belmont, where we saw a bunch of mallards and one long domestic white duck. The domestic white duck was being followed by two male mallards that had very pale green heads. I am pretty sure that the domestic duck must've mated with a mallard and produced a hybrid offspring.

I need to look into this more to see if this is a common phenomenon.

Also, near the mallard pond, we saw two huge red-tailed hawks.

Christmas was huge.

Turkey Day

I was apart from my family this Thanksgiving, as they celebrated in the typical somber traditional New England Thanksgiving fashion: they went to a French restaurant on Martha's Vineyard.

My mother called me on Thursday, and mentioned that my brother, who has a true and profound gift for hunting/capturing wildlife (let me be clear - he has never "hunted" a day in his life with a real gun or killed anything. But he can track and catch almost anything. At age 8, he caught a wild rabbit in a net, which if you know how fast rabbits run, is very impressive) was out looking for turkey to photograph.

I've always known there are wild turkeys in Martha's Vineyard, but they always seem up just pop up when you're not looking for them, especially in Felix's Neck, the Audubon reserve there. I doubted Jamie would have any luck if he went out specifically looking for turkeys.

But I can't doubt Jamie Notopoulos's skill. And blind luck, I suppose - he found turkeys blocking traffic by crossing the road in a busy intersection.

My uncle has a song he'd sing every Thanksgiving that goes "Oh, the turkey ran away... before Thanksgiving Day... GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!!!"

According to another bird watching blogger, there has been a turkey camping out at Battery Park City last week. A DC Birding Blog - "Turkey at the Battery"


Lucky turkeys on Turkey Day. photo by Jamie Notopoulos

Downy Woodpecker Sighting

I still think it always feels like a special day on your birthday. Yesterday was Eric's birthday, and it was unseasonably warm. We were eating lunch outside in Madison Square Park, and I noticed a bird in one of the trees which was pecking at the branch. I haven't seen anything other than a house sparrow or pigeon in that park, even in summer, but this was definitely a tiny female downy woodpecker.

I also saw some small perching bird that had a forked tail, definitely not a field sparrow, but it was getting dark and I was unable to make out any other details than the silhouette.

Sadly, I didn't see this website until today, or else Eric would've been getting some choice extinct mammal models. Xmas, anyone? www.Paleocraft.com

Birthday Surprise:

I'm just trying to impress Micky Hervitz

I made my first Wikipedia edit this week. My contribution (in bold) is the second from last paragraph, about Konrad Gesner.

"A Jenny Haniver is a ray or a skate which have been modified and subsequently dried, resulting in a grotesque preserved specimen unlike anything else.

One suggestion for the term was "jeune de Antwerp" (the French call Antwerp, Anvers), that is "young girl of Antwerp." British sailors "cockneyed" this description into the personal name "Jenny Hanvers."

For centuries, sailors sat on the Antwerp docks and carved these "mermaids" out of dried cuttlefish. They then preserved them further with a coat of varnish. They supported themselves by selling their artistic creations to working sailors as well as to tourists visiting the docks.

Jenny Hanivers have been created to look like devils, angels and dragons. Some writers have suggested the sea monk may have been a Jenny Haniver.

The earliest known picture of a Jenny Haniver appeared in Konrad Gesner's Historia Animalium vol. IV in 1558. Gesner and warned these were merely disfigured rays, and should not be believed to be minature dragons or monsters, which was a popular misconception at the time. It is possible that Jenny Hanivers were the source of some tales of dragons during the Middle Ages, and they affirmed people's belief in dragons.

Haniver is Monster in My Pocket #22."

Wikipedia - "Jenny Haniver"

I am really curious about who mentioned the "Monster in My Pocket" toy series. BTW, there's a super extensive Wikipedia about those toys. That's the problem with Wikipedia - only the things that total nerds care about have really extensive pages. Like some dumb toy monsters.

Reunion Petrel

I've been looking into some information on shearwaters and petrels on the internet. I've never seen either of these kinds of birds; I think they tend to stay farther out to sea, so they are harder to spot.

I'm getting a little stuck on finding out information about one species, the reunion petrel. I can't actually seem to find out if it's extinct or just endangered. I found one site that listed several species of endangered petrels, and it listed the reunion petrel as having only 3 specimens left. Suspiciously, it listed several other species as having less than 10 existing birds. Then I found it listed on some lists of extinct birds.

Further research is required on this. I think I am getting some bad information from dubious sources.

Kouprey News

I've been pretty interested in the story of whether or not the kouprey - an elusive Cambodian wild ox - has been determined to be a true species, or just a hybrid of other ox species. The Journal of Zoology just put out an article about the recent findings, which are still inconclusive. It's looking like it's leaning to the fact that they're just hybrids, which is an embarrassment for the Cambodians, who have named the kouprey their national animal. As if things aren't hard enough over there.

National Geographic News - Cambodia's National Animal Never Existed, Scientists Say

A New Life Bird for Katie

I forgot to mention that last week I went on a pleasant birdwatching stroll in the Stoneham Fells. I kind of got lost and then scared that I would get murdered out in the woods, but then I just re-traced my steps back to the entrance to the hiking path. The weirdest part when I saw about 9 dogs off the leash being walked by a girl about my age. I just couldn't figure out how she could've gotten all those dogs into a car, or even how she could walk them on a leash on the street all at once. The other creepy thing I saw was that when I was walking across the nearly empty parking lot, a guy in a parked S.U.V. climbed from his backseat to his front seat when he saw me coming. WHAT WAS HE DOING IN HIS BACKSEAT??? I was pretty sure he was going to follow me into the woods and kill me.

Again, I saw some birds I couldn't positively i.d. I got really hungry and wanted to go home, and plus I was still scared about getting murdered where no one could hear me scream.

The birds I did see (all of them first-time identifications for me) were:

Hermit Thrush



White Breastead Nuthatch

New Old Bird

New fossils of a 10ft tall, carnivourous prehistoric bird was found in Argentina. Hugo Hervitz probably already knew about it.

NY Times - Fossil Found of a Big Bird That Kermit Wouldn't Like

As yet unnamed bird: