It's time to play everyone's favorite game...."Where'd THAT Bone Come From??"

Two posts in a month?  Can you keep up?  Can ya?

I went on a trip recently to southern Kentucky, and I surprised myself by getting up before dawn and going on a bird hike.  Those of you who have birded with me can vouch for the incredulity of that statement.

Bird action was quietly promising....some circling red-tailed hawks, a phoebe, sparrows out the wazoo.

As a Junior Science Chimp, I felt that it was my duty to entertain with my scat-chimping and poking around in the weeds for fun and gross secrets.

Okay, fellow Learning Lemurs.  Let's play "Where'd THAT Bone Come From??"








A few shots of a removed tooth (Yes, I yanked one out of the socket)






So.  What do you think, my Chimps?

Yummy, ooey-gooey post ahead

A year ago, Lucy made me very proud by being trusting (and hungry) enough to eat during a program. My program today was at that same place...the City of Hamilton Water Fest at Miami University Hamilton campus. Inspiring and teaching hundreds of kids about the importance of clean water. (Plenty of bird of prey tie-ins...DDT, pollution)
Lucy sucked down three mice over the course of four programs, once again making me very proud.




I love Miami's mascot: A Harrier. And their signs are tres cool:

See. Folks who think raptors are awesome are awesome themselves.

It's funny that I mentioned this little thing in response to Liza's suggestion in the comments for a cargo area liner. Our bird carriers are NOT leak-proof...if a bird gets car-sick or needs to poop, if the carrier's are tilted at all....well, look for yourself:

ACK! BIRD POOP IN MY NEW CAR! But thankfully, the liner cleans up easily. We don't want Susan to have a conniption or anything.


This dead mouse greeted me at the barn door at RAPTOR today....

Hmm. A mouse hanging out at a bird of prey rescue facility? Must have died of fright.

Dedication, posers, sweet new faces, and finally a bird walk

Training on the barn owl continues. He is officially on the RAPTOR permit as an education bird, so continued training on the glove and into and out of a carrier. We have made jokes about it, but a "padded" carrier would benefit him. The LAST thing we want is to open that wound again.

Volunteers are the life-blood of non-profit organizations. People are here to help. And help they do. They donate their time, their energy, their love.
Dan is a long-time volunteer at RAPTOR. He's been there forever. I walked over to Earl's cage and peeked in. Dan was wearing a face mask.
"What in the Hell is that on your face, Dan? Is Earl extra stinky today or something?"
Turns out that Dan is allergic to something at RAPTOR.
And yet, there he was.

Posed for me and everything.

A new volunteer is learning to handle the birds.

This is Bob....with my Lucy. And he did very well, and she responded to him very well. Good. Maybe I will get help with programs soon. Don't get me wrong, I love doing programs. But the hard work before and after them (jessing up the birds, loading the birds into their carriers, loading the carriers into the car, unloading the carriers at the program, and then reversing the whole process afterwards)...well, it's tiring. The gravy is the actual program.
Speaking of programs: If you are in the Bethel, Ohio area tomorrow, come and see me at the Bethel Founder's Day festival at Burke Park. I'm going to be on the "Pioneer Stage" at 2 pm.

We haven't had the baby ratlettes on a post in a whole day, so here's four of them in a row:

Oh, they are so perfect against that pink blanket.

And look out. Baby rat ears, eyes and lips:



And let's not forget those perfect, claw-tipped feets.

After sending a pitiful email to Kathi, she magnanimously agreed to go birding with me today, so we hit the CNC.
Why dead things are attracted to me, I'll never know. Crossing the road to get to the meadow, we found a piece of dead stuff.
We thought it was a snake and I of course picked it up.
But then I saw hair:

A possum tail, no longer attached to the possum.



And it went downhill from there.

Only at Magee Marsh can I see birds with Kathi. Everywhere else, it's a crap shoot.

*Okay, I am totally kidding here, so please don't think I hate the woman or that we really don't see birds. It's just become our thing to taunt each other about who jinxes us on bird walks. Since I post more than she does, I get to point the finger at her.*

And speaking of pointing fingers, here's Kathi, pointing at nothing:

At least she is a good sport about being a total poser.
The last bird we got for the day was a Great Crested Flycatcher. And I found it. SEE?
Told you it wasn't me.


A video of us not seeing birds:

CSI Miamiville (Or, Things that make you go Hmmm....)

At the risk of everyone telling me that I should change the name of my blog to "Susan Gets Dead Stuff"...
I went on a walk today at Kelley's Nature Preserve. Today was Lorelei's last day of school, so I wanted to get out and make this last day count (Geoff said I made it out to be the "Last Supper")

I seem to have the knack (or is it misfortune?) to always find crime scenes. They are everywhere.
I can't help it...and thanks to Julie, aka The Science Chimp, I try to puzzle out what happened and to who.

*Graphic ickies ahead....tread at your own peril*



This was strewn across the path:

Remains. Guts. Innards. Pick your word, that's what it was. Intestines, maybe a stomach?



That ain't worms, y'all.
Small pieces of fresh meat, a slug, green flies...



Here's what I think is the stomach...full of veggie matter. And split open. Ew.
So this is a mammal of some kind. (It didn't look like a bird's digestive system)


There was a beautiful orange/black fly tasting the deli selection.

I didn't find any bones. That might have been helpful in this CSI case.


Macro of the hair stuck to some of the remains. Course, black with pale tips.
Is this from the eater or the eatee?

Tracks around the scene were canine, but that could be either coyote or regular old pet dog.
Things that make you go "hmmmmm...."

******************************
I don't know about you, but I need some cleansing photos.
How about young salamanders?


My Mom's pond is almost a vernal pool...but it usually stays wet most of the year.
(Unless there's a horrible drought) The water never gets more that 2 or 3 feet deep.
I thought this guy was a frog, until it showed us it's profile. I am a newbie at salamanders. What kind is this?


And here's a slightly younger one...still sporting crazy gills. Whenever I see these guys, they remind me of Oriental dragons. (You know the paintings you see of ancient dragons, with all that crazy stuff behind their heads?
And what is up with the dandruffy water there?

These last two are for Nina, our resident Salamander-phile.

Three Fourths

So much to post, so little time.
*The correct answer to Friday Feathers was a Great horned owl. Laura got it right first!*

Saturday was a jam-packed day. First, I went to RAPTOR to put new jesses on our screech owl, and to also begin my own training with No-No the Barn Owl. The Barn Owl has been jessed up and a few of our members have been training him on the glove. This is a fairly hyper bird, and his wound (amputation at the wrist on one wing) requires that we be gentle and take it slow.
I have been so looking forward to handling him, and at the same time nervous about it.
Cindy, our wonderful Bird Care Director, filled me in, thankfully. No-No will lunge at your face while you try to grab his jesses.

Man, that bird can jump high. And it's not the beak you have to worry about...it's the talons. Barn Owls are all leg and he was able to jump about two feet up, trying to kick at my shins.
I remained calm and confident and after about 5 minutes, was able to grab his jesses. Then the screaming began. Oh. My. God. Barn Owls are very, very good at doing an impression of a woman screaming...or a tea kettle hissing.

We walked around the property for about 20 minutes. When he began to show signs of tiring, I put him back. He was much better than I though he would be. He is not an official education bird yet...he has to be put on our education permit, he needs more training, etc. But the process has begun finally.
After RAPTOR, I met Kathi at Armleder Park. It was officially closed, but we decided to flaunt the rules and go in anyway. (Well, to be honest, Kathi made me. It was her idea.)
We had heard about black terns and bobolinks, so we were panting to get in there and see them.
The first bird we found was not what we expected....
*WARNING: GROSS OUT ALERT. DON'T LOOK IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH*


We came across a wing and a leg.


Surgical-precision cutting...the blood was fresh and still wet. It was some kind of buteo. Could we find the tail, to ascertain what kind?

Yep. About 30 feet away, the tail...and the other leg.



Kathi was good enough to pull aside the tail feathers to show the one, rufus-colored feather.
A second-year red-tailed hawk.

Again, clean-cut but twisted limbs.

About 20 feet further, we found the head and the other wing:

Eyes were still open, showing their sunny yellow color.
The body was twisted but the principal pieces were intact and looked as if they had be cut from the body.

The Chimp would be proud...Kathi immediately realized that this hawk had been hit by a low-flying plane over Armleder Park (which sits just next door to Lunken Airport, a small airport that brings in many planes with propellers.

Now. What do you think the raptor-phile in the group, with a permit to take such beautiful pieces, would do then?
Yep. I took 'em and put them in Kathi's car and take them after our birding walk. I have lots of different pieces of many different species in my education box...but I don't have any RTHA wings. So the pieces were gently, respectfully and quietly put in Kathi's cooler, along with some dead HOSP, starlings and a window-strike cardinal. Her car was the Bird Hearse.

And so the bird walk continued:

We found the Bobolinks immediately.

Not the best picture, but it was windy. Lifer!

And calling on the powers of the Chimp to ID these tracks:


We found indigo bunting males giving chase to each other, tree swallows, red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows, killdeer, etc...etc...
As we were starting to head back, Kathi spotted a small flock (6-8 birds) over head. She yelled out, "BLACK SKIMMERS!!!!!" I thought she had gone off her nut, but she corrected herself and yelled, "BLACK TERNS!" Lifer!
Dickcissels were singing in the grass, and we were able to see a few as they popped up.

It's a dickcissel, I swear.
So two lifers, a bunch of neat local nesters and three fourths of a hawk.

Bird stories

Here's my list of birds seen and/or heard this weekend (Thanks to Kathi, this list is way longer than it would have been if I had been alone):
Bold = LIFER
(there are only seven lifers...I must have miscounted. But still....)
***
Canada goose
Tundra swan (yes, I saw a live one)
Wood duck (In a TREE, no less)
Mallard
Northern shoveler

Double-crested cormorant
Great blue heron (100's)
Great egret (100's)

Turkey vulture
Bald eagle
Red-shouldered hawk
Red-tailed hawk
GOLDEN EAGLE (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
American kestrel
Peregrine falcon

American coot

SEMIPALMATED PLOVER
Killdeer
Greater yellowlegs
Lesser yellowlegs
Spotted sandpiper
Ruddy turnstone
Dunlin (500 +)

Ring-billed gull
Herring gull
COMMON TERN

Mourning dove

Northern flicker

Eastern phoebe

Purple martin
Tree swallow
Barn swallow

Black-capped chickadee
HOUSE WREN
Golden-crowned kinglet
Blue-gray gnatcatcher
Veery
SWAINSON'S THRUSH
Wood thrush
American robin
Gray catbird
Brown thrasher
European starling

WARBLERS:
NASHVILLE
Yellow
Chestnut-sided
Magnolia
Cape May
Black-throated blue
Yellow-rumped (Hey, Delia! I saw yellow-rumped warblers!!! Hee hee)
Palm
American redstart
Prothonotary
Ovenbird
Northern waterthrush
Yellow-breasted chat

SUMMER TANAGER

White-throated sparrow
White-crowned sparrow

Northern cardinal
Rose-breasted grosbeak
Indigo bunting

Red-winged blackbird (there were at least two RWBB's every five feet. And that's not an exaggeration)
Common grackle
Baltimore oriole

American goldfinch

House sparrow (very very sparse, thank goodness)

And now, some pictures:


I don't have an ID for this one yet. Anyone want to throw in? It's either some sort of empidonax or a female warbler of some kind.
UPDATE: Kathi can't comment (Blogger's acting like Frogger) but she agrees that this is some sort of empidonax)


Yep, another dead tundra swan. I Chimped, but the body was too torn up to figure anything out. I looked for bands, but this one is anonymous.


This one was alive, but looked bloody! I watched, and it seemed to preen most of this stuff off. I assume that it just had its head stuck in some mud underwater, and not injured in some way. I observed it for quite a few minutes, and it seemed just fine. Scared me, though.


Ovenbirds are just color-crazy. This one was stylin' with that brown-bordered orange head.



I would very much like this to be a gray-cheeked thrush. It's not outside the realm of possibility, since Kathi saw one the day before. Anyone?
UPDATE: A Swainson's. Crap.


Poor grackle. He got into a tussle with someone.


A muskrat and a lesser yellowlegs....an odd couple.
Feel free to sing "Muskrat Love" by Captain and Tennille. I'll wait.

Story:
It was getting late in the day, and I knew that I had to start for home soon.
I walked the lake trail that Kathi had pointed out to me earlier, and I am glad I did.

First, I saw the terns that we had glimpsed the day before, but couldn't ID.
Common terns, soaring and plunging into the very cold water for fish. They didn't even care that I was standing just beyond the water, snapping photos and giggling like a maniac.


They reminded me of the black skimmers the Flock saw at Cape May.
Gorgeous, elegant, graceful birds.

I was preparing myself mentally for the actual removal of body and soul from MY Lake Erie ( I never want to come home after being there), when I noticed that the terns had disappeared before my eyes.
A medium-sized bird was flying parallel to the beach with strong, purposeful wing beats. Hmm. That looks like some kind of dark gull. No, wait. That looks falcon-ish.

A peregrine falcon. Just for me.


(This is the best I could do. My eyes were all teary and I was jumping up and down and struggling with my new birding bra and trying to get the camera up to my face)

Peregrines hold a sacred place in my heart. Lucy was the first one I ever laid eyes on, and her mixture of sweetness and nervousness, and yet that unabashed fierceness, has endeared the species to my soul forever.
So I stood there on a lonely beach on Lake Erie, buffeted by cold wind and freshwater spray, and cried because a peregrine falcon had just passed by. Yeah, I'm all crunchy on the outside, but there's a chewy, gooey center in there somewhere.

Tomorrow: The eagle that didn't get away!

Birding with KatDoc is really the Pits (or, If you are birding with OLDER people, remember to bring an ear trumpet)

*I have had a day for the books, y'all. First, I tried to capture the "cute" little orange kitten, and was rewarded by 14 puncture wounds in my right arm. After wrapping it in gauze, Lorelei went out to Stonelick Lake to wade in the water, feel the sand between our toes, and maybe see some birds. We were there 2 minutes, and my CAMERA broke. (The lens won't retract) So, instead of going through the horror of maybe seeing some great birds and NOT being able to take any pictures, we left and went to Best Buy, where I said goodbye to my camera for 2 to 3 WEEKS. (Tip: If you spend more than $200 on anything, GET the WARRANTY)
I am forced to use my very old, very slow camera that has a whole 2.8 X zoom, and 3 whopping megapixels.*


Word to the wise:
If you ever get to go birding with KatDoc, be prepared to see NO BIRDS WHATSOEVER. I have birded with her before, and really have yet to see anything interesting.
Of course, it might not be that there aren't any birds to be found, but instead that we spend so much time laughing hysterically, we are missing them all.
I bet Kathi will beat me to the post, since this camera was made by cavemen. And since I no longer have the software for this camera, I had to up load the pics through Picasa, and then I couldn't find where they had gone to.


We went to That Place. The one that is illegal unless you have a permit. Or, in Kathi's case, you know someone "on the inside".

The trip list, as far as I can remember:
Pied-billed grebes
4 Cardinals
4+ Carolina chickadees
2 Wood ducks
7 billion mallards
2 Least sandpipers
7 billion killdeer (or maybe it was just one, and it was following us)
Some American coots
1 million mourning doves (or MO-DO's, as Kathi calls them)
Black ducks, we think
A flock of Canada geese
Some kind of hawk, a tiny speck on the horizon
Gray catbirds
A whitetail deer (I saw this one, but Kathi missed it because she was too busy looking through her binoculars at a stick)
Rabbits
Frogs
A snake
Turtle heads (presumably attached to turtle bodies, but we weren't sure)


I was actually one up on Kathi here, because I had driven in to the place before, albeit illegally.
Isn't it pretty?

We found a really dead goose.
Since we haven't had any rain, the body was in very good shape (the naturalist said it had been there for a long time). So we pulled a "Julie" and poked and prodded it, puzzling out what might have happened to it. And took 127 pictures of it.
Chimpin'!! Eee! Eee! Eee!

This was our best moment of the evening...a fall warbler. After a lot of field guide digging, we are calling it a Prairie warbler. And Kathi saw a Nashville, but I missed it. I must have been straining to ID a clump of mud on the far shore.

The water is more than four feet below what it was this time last year. Makes for fun rock formations. (The white dot is the reflection of the moon)

God help me, but as I was trying to take a picture of the moon and its reflection, pulling another "Julie" by getting into a really strange pose, Kathi took a picture of me. Can't wait to see that one!
*Just checked Kathi's blog, and she must have gone to bed or something, so check out her version of our excursion tomorrow!
Edit: The Zick has chimed in, and the warbler is a Cape May, not a Prairie. Damn. Woulda been a lifer.