Pictures !!

Hurrah, I just picked up a few of the digitalized films and am actually able to put some relatively decent pictures up on my blog. What you are about to see is not from Germany back in 2006, it isn't even from Michigan or Ontario in May 2005, nope, it is amazingly recent for the scope of this blog: the following images are from November 2006, not even 3 months ago.
Can you believe it?
No you can't because most blog will usually contain pictures from the day the post was written, but hey, I told you I will improve and I am simply taking it step by step.
So, now for starters a few images of the Arb from early last November.


This (above) is one of the nicest views in the Arb. The Arb is basically a small park, well an Arboretum, surrounding a small and steep valley at the southern flank of the Huron River Valley. The bottom of the valley is an open meadow and the slopes surrounding this open space are filled with all kinds of trees. Here we are looking towards the north where the Huron river flows from left to right.
I called this fiery red tree "Old Faithful" because it was amongst the very last trees to lose its foliage, but of course by now it is just as completely stripped off its colours as the rest of the trees.
Here's another view at "Old Faithful":


This little ravine is usually one of the more productive areas of the Arb and here I have seen - amongst others - a few Hermit Thrushes, Carolina Wrens, a Sapsucker and as a real cracker a rather late Orange-crowned Warbler some day in November (if you want the precise date, leave a comment, I am not rushing for my note book now).


Well, Bell Tower Birding is always striving to provide new superlatives to its many, many readers and yet again, we have easily managed to produce something never seen before on the Internet. It really is a world record and we kindly ask you to not violate copyright regulations because I still haven't figured out just yet how to best make money out of this:

The worst ever picture of a Northern Cardinal!


I know what you are thinking: where's the ice, where the sparkling and the sun and all those great pictures we were promised recently.
Well, I have those tucked under my belt and will write up some more posts about the Arb in the next few days. I just got them late today and can't think of anything to do for the moment other than just posting them, for which I'd say they are too good (always having the usual quality of my photography in mind).
I therefore hope you were somewhat disappointed at these images and will be eager to return soon for much and many more.
Until then ... happy birding!

A New Link

I have added a new Link to my site, Dean Birders.

In the "about us" section, they write:

"This project was the result of two keen birdwatchers getting together and wanting to share their hobby with those that have difficulty getting out and about. We want to set up feeder stations and nesting boxes in the gardens of those people that are either elderly or have a disability and are limited to the house."

I think that is a very neat project and they have a great bird gallery, too!
Well worth checking out.

Birding Bits

Yesterday was a very enjoyable day because I went birding with a French guy named Laurent. We met through the local birders email forum and decided to team up yesterday for some birding through the Arb and along the Huron at Gallup Park.
It was great fun birding with Laurent and obviously the birds thought so, too because quite a few goodies showed up, like a lone Hermit Thrush at the Arb, a whole bunch of Hooded and Common Mergansers, 4 beautiful Eastern Bluebirds up close, a Sharp-shinned Hawk attacking a flock of Starlings in midair and as a real price a Great White Egret amongst at least 2 Great Blue Herons.
This is apparently the first Great White Egret ever to spend the winter here around Ann Arbor and it was reported by numerous observers in the weeks before.
Today there is a harsh horizontal movement of Snow again, some of it even hitting the ground (presumably after a collision of two snow flakes one snow flake crashes to the ground while the other one gains speed, this way causing the whole snow storm to accelerate even more until it reaches Florida, melts etc.). Well, maybe if we went to Gallup Park today there would be two Great White Herons with the Great White Egret?

"Rant and Response"

I regularly visit a few blogs related to the Ivory-billed Woodpecker because - regardless of my point of view on its current existence or former extirpation - quite a few of them are very exciting and I have always had a certain affectionate weakness for the lush forests of the southern US, at least from what I have read about them, having never been there myself.
Yes, I like those photos of big old trees and silent backwaters with all their suspiciously big woodpecker holes and barkscaling and I don't care if anyone gets a picture of a certain woodpecker now or never as long as those forest pictures keep coming (but any birder would of course love to look at a recent picture of an Ivory-billed).
Well, one of those blogs is not so much about the forests of the south, it is more about judging (or was that condemning, man I have to work on my English vocabulary) the way people are trying to prove the woodpecker is still extant. And to be honest, if I am in the mood for sarcasm and nasty comments I visit this certain blog, just like watching an action movie after a really nice day at work. In one of the recent comments, I found this statement by Patrick Coin:
He rants a bit on his blog, but heck, that is what blogs are for! The format of a blog is basically "rant and response".

I disagree. But I had an interesting revelation today ("now to something completely different").
My job, writing environmental impact assessments, has much to do with predicting animal behaviour. If I am for example to estimate the impact of a road construction project on roosting geese, I ask myself "According to my own observations and the scientific data that's been published: If I was a goose roosting there and they'd build that highway, how would I feel, how would I react?"

I have been a birder for a quarter of a century and I should think I have a rather profound accumulation of experiences regarding bird behaviour towards human presence or interference. However, sometimes I have to take invertebrates into account as well, like bees and grasshoppers or butterflies. And that of course was always much harder to do.
Until today!
I looked at the pile of work on my desk, the time schedules for many of those studies and reports and with the emerging panic and headaches came a sudden comprehension:

"Man, the way I am feeling now, this must be just like a small bug feels when he's wiped off a leaf by a urinating cow!"

I actually think this break-through should earn me a raise.

OK, if you couldn't follow me on my way to understanding bug behaviour and feelings, leave a comment and I'll rephrase it.

Goodies from Back Home Courtesy of...

The sun came out yesterday, the sky was bright and blue and the ice everywhere was sparkling and shining as if Christmas had returned. And I went to the Arb!
Surely one of the most magnificent days out ever! I took many pictures (not of birds though, too few around, but a Sapsucker was a good find) and will write about the last two days on this blog later when I've had them digitalized, probably next week. Right now I am simply deprived of words at the sheer thought of yesterday's walk through the Arb, beyond beautiful.

Talking about beauty...
Just after I got here (Ann Arbor) from back home (German Baltic Coast) an email with a picture arrived through the local back-home-birders email forum.
There had been a Red-breasted Goose on the island of Hiddensee, found by Mr. Wollmerstädt and digiscoped beyond beautiful by Silke Fregin and Annett Kocum. The pictures were so great that I later asked them if I could use them for my blog, and I know it is hard to comprehend the beauty of icy rain when the sun is shining and to not lose your sense of gravity when watching the beauty of a Red-breasted Goose but can you believe this: they said yes, I could!
Wow, maybe they never looked at my blog?

Anyway, I am very happy that I can show these images here, so if you don't mind respect copyright regulations, these pictures are the property of Silke and Annett. You may look at them here, even repeatedly so, but that's it unless you ask!

Well, well, the Red-breasted Goose. Did you know why Poe never wrote a poem about the Red-breasted Goose? He wanted to but then realized he was such a gloomy old mess that there was no way he could have done that species justice in poetry. Yes, it is true, the Red-breasted Goose is one of the real Eurasian birding fire crackers.
Sure, it is rare in western Europe but so is Blyth's Reed Warbler, and frankly, looking for that species amongst these isn't a fraction of the fun you have scanning your ordinary goose assembly for the cuties.
The Red-breasted Goose is also a very birder-friendly species because a few decades ago it had decided to shift its wintering grounds from the rather difficult to access Caspian sea to the west coast of the Black Sea, namely Romania and Bulgaria. But one doesn't need to go there as well, and it is not really recommend because I know of no birder who has actually survived the sight of a flock of several thousand Red-breasted Geese. Those photos you may find on the Internet were achieved by applying remote cameras, you know, the Cornell trick, these guys had to learn it from somewhere... Gosh, I am being distracted yet again.
With this shift towards the west came a more frequent appearance in western Europe by single birds mixed in the goose masses migrating to the Netherlands and the lower Rhine valley and now one might consider the Red-breasted Goose a rare but rather regular migrant along the Baltic and North Sea shores, with maybe 5 to 10 records in Germany per year.
Here are a few great links, links and links for those interested in a bit of a background about this species. Those of you who now finally want to get over this written crap and move on to the pictures:
Go ahead, scroll down a bit!

As the following image demonstrates, it is often remarkably difficult to spot a cutie in a flock of other geese (in this case Barnacle Geese with a few Eurasian Wigeons and a Lapwing).


Haven't found it yet?
It's the white horizontal stripe on the upper left in front of two or three clustered Barnacles at the edge of the group.
Still can't see it?
Well, never mind, here's a close-up!

Yepp, the bird behind it is a male Eurasian Wigeon. Would this be a neat group of birds to see at Lake Erie Metro Park or not? Some distraction from the raptors I would think?
See, good they are not there because one shouldn't interfere with science in progress.
Just take a look at this bird, can you believe it?!


Speechless?
That's why I chose to publish these images today, the common theme between the Arb after icy rain and Red-breasted Geese:

Silenced by Nature's Wonders

Après-Birding

I just got back from a wonderful afternoon lunch break at the Arb.
The birding was not particularly different from what it was when I went there the 20 or so times before (as I said, wonderful) but a flock of 7 Eastern Bluebirds up close or 19 American Tree Sparrows were real treats.
Something was different though, and that was the landscape. The weather has been crazy here lately and as one of the results of last night's follies everything in and around Ann Arbor today was - and in fact still is - covered in ice and icicles, the magic of icy rain.
Yes I know, icy rain is pure horror for those who have to live in the outdoors permanently, like wild birds, and I do feel worried about them, but the trees and the forest and tall grass prairies are just wonderful when they are covered in ice and have a Northern Cardinal perched on them somewhere. I have to admit that things were not perfect because the sun wasn't out, the sky was of a monotonous but bright grey, almost white and blending with the landscape below it. But the atmosphere was just beyond description, so I'll stop and post some pictures soon.
How without a digital camera?
Well, I did take my ordinary old and trusty analog camera with me (for the youngsters: this is something where the light falls onto gelatin and some silver stuff that's pasted to a stiff plastic foil and then you have to send light through this to produce pictures on paper) and as soon as the film is used up I'll have it developed and the images digitalized for the blog.

But what inspired me to today's blog entry was not directly what happened outside but what happened inside once I was back at my apartment:
I was cold and wet (there was a constant slight drizzle of sleet or rain), my hands and feet were stiff and when I looked outside my apartment window I noticed it had started to snow and the wind had picked up.

[Now that I mention it: I now know why we still don't have a decent snow cover in Ann Arbor. Snow fall here is always associated with high winds and I have never seen snow actually fall, I only saw it rushing past in a horizontal line. So we do get lots of snow here but it just doesn't hit the ground, it gets blown all the way down south until it finally turns into rain and troubles the 'pecker searchers in Florida.]

Anyway, I got distracted there. I was cold and so on and now here's what I simply had to do to recover:

some Après-Birding.

Never heard of it and clueless how to do it in a decent yet proper way?
I thought so, so here is the remedy:


This is what you need:
- a few cinnamon sticks (don't worry, Sharon, not the furry one)
- roughly half a litre of water
- a cup of milk
- a teaspoon of honey (or a bit more)
- a teaspoon of instant coffee
- half a teaspoon of cocoa powder
- an armchair
- a window with a view towards a tower that's got some Peregrines on it.

Cooking directions:
- Place cinnamon sticks in pot with water and boil/simmer for a good hour or so (this can be done in advance and the concentrate kept in the fridge for a few days).
- Heat milk.
- Put honey, instant coffee and cocoa powder in cup.
- Add a shot of the cinnamon-concentrate according to taste.
- Add hot milk.

Serving Suggestion:
- Return from a bird trip through a magnificent winter landscape having seen a flock of 7 Eastern Bluebirds and 19 American Tree Sparrows.
- Feel cold and stiff and in need to warm up.
- Move an armchair or anything comfortable to sit in with a thick blanket in front of a window.
- Get your binoculars and the birder's winter drink as described above and have a seat.
- Look out of your window onto the snow and storm and feel happy to be inside.
- Watch a Peregrine Falcon watching the city life from its perch on top of a downtown Bell Tower.
- Enjoy life, it's great to be a birder.

Time Flies...

"Time flies when you're having fun!"
I am sure we have all heard that saying of old or even used it ourselves once in a while, casually in a shallow conversation and never really reflecting upon its meaning.
But look at it: it's not all there is to it, nope, yet again, let me repeat this: again, we are left there standing with a half-true, purely deceptive, lame and pretty much useless chunk of words that leaves us feeling as if we were putting on a trouser with only one leg or had just watched the Luneau video.
Surely time flies when you're out there enjoying yourself but it also flies when you are up to your neck in work!! And I don't mean this kind of work.
See, that's what happened: no post since last Tuesday because of work!

Lame excuse?

Well maybe, but I tried really hard to distract from this dumb excuse by writing about a lame saying.
I know it didn't work out too well, but like in birdwatching: it's the effort that counts, not the observation (yeah, right).

I like being a birder. And as a matter of fact, my work sometimes even includes birding of some sort. Now, I wouldn't go as far as saying I sometimes like my work, but it isn't all black and gloomy all of the time.

You see I was so busy because I had to finish a report on a Breeding Bird Survey I did last summer in this kind of landscape...

...where amongst many others I saw this kind of bird:

... a beautiful male Whinchat,
or saw numerous birds of this kind, the much-loved Yellowhammer:


Analysing numbers on density and relative abundance never matches the excitement out in the field, but the memories of Great Grey Shrikes, Ortolan Buntings, breeding Cranes, 5 species of Sylvia-Warblers, Red-backed Shrikes, Partridges and Quails all help to make it through a rainy Michigan day in front of your computer in January.

Well I wasn't being entirely honest here, I must confess: Wednesday was still rather pleasant weather-wise and as I had promised myself the day before, I went to the Arb, and from the Arb through Fuller Park back home.
Nice stuff.
Life can't be bad if you come home from a short walk, having seen
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker,
Hairy Woodpeckers,
Red-tailed Hawks,
Northern Cardinals,
Tufted Titmice,
Eastern Bluebirds,
White-breasted Nuthatches,
Blue Jays and
White-throated Sparrows
and basically can say to yourself that you haven't seen anything special.

Oh, and apart from Bluebirds, Sapsuckers and Sparrows, I also thought this was really a more than excellent find in the last few days (I can't link to it directly, stupid MySpace, but here's how to get there):
go here, scroll down to his "friends", visit "Bird Girl" and click on "You might be a birder if..."

OK, this was it for today. Not very thought-provoking but hopefully your time flew because you were having fun - somehow. If not, please come back later, I promise to write something more entertaining and possibly even - gasp - remotely intelligent soon.
Cheers and good birding over the Weekend!