Bird Call

Today is brought to you by the letter V

My first photo (that I'll admit to) was of a Brown Pelican.  The reason I bring it up is a friend who reads my blog (and you thought you were the only one) recently asked me about birds making the letter V when they fly.  Well actually he asked why the Olympic team-pursuit speed skaters stayed right behind each other.  Close enough. :)

It just so happened that a very big fan of Bird-Call (who also happens to be my aunt) had just sent a New York Times article on the subject the day before. It described a science experiment with some young birds which proved what everyone already knew: birds fly in a V because they can't make the letter R. :)

OK as you probably do know, birds mooch an updraft off their neighbor's wing tip to make their trip easier. Apparently it's not as easy as it looks though. Using a lot of expensive nano-technology to get it sorted out, scientists found these updrafts were not only very complex, but constantly changing.  That didn't keep these teenage birds, however, from learning very quickly how to adjust their flight to do absolutely the least work possible. :)

There was a catch though.  Sooner or later they had to take a turn at the front.  Not so easy up there!  So, kind of like speed skaters after all. :)

Distinguishing Marks: A very big brown bird; big beak with pouch. Glutinous. Really.

 What the heck is it?

 

Boring Fact: I've bored you with a lot of facts lately.  I'm giving you the night off. :)

 

P.S. I think my site email is on line again. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still working on Facebook.

My First Bird Photo-June 12, 2012

My wonderful kids banned together and set me up with a great camera and a lens.  I don't know a thing about photography, but was thrilled to find this inside that little black box after a trip to the beach.  It must have flown in front of the camera when I wasn't looking. : )

Boring Fact:  These birds were at one point declining at alarming rates.  Following the ddt ban, they began to recover and now are plentiful, approaching 3/4 million birds.

Bird-nerd-word of the day (and borderline Boring Fact): Iridescence

First things first: the hummingbird with the copper-red gorget was an Allen's Hummingbird  The look alike hummer is a Rufous Hummingbird.  I don't have a good enough photo to post yet, but trust me, they look almost identical. :)  You can see a Rufous here :)

Iridescence: in the case of hummingbirds, the color and shimmer is not caused by pigment but by an incredibly  complex system of specialized feathers that create (for want of a better term) a sort of transparent reflective bubble. The depth of this "bubble" exactly matches the wave length of a given color--in this case the beautiful copper-red. This causes the light to be reflected back twice--coming and going so to speak. The wavelengths of other colors, since they don't match the depth of the bubble, cancel themselves out. (And you thought you'd get something like shimmery and shiny.)

This explanation is way oversimplified, but I can't go into more detail here, because I don't really understand it.  :)

A Gorgeous Gorget: Allen's Hummingbird

Some of you have been asking about my binoculars on the introduction photo.  They are special "green" binos which use long-life curlycue fluorescent light technology. As a birder I want to do my part for the environment and lighten things up. :)

First a special ID note: there is another species so similar barely anyone can tell which is which. Well the birds can of course.  :)  But the rest of us have to use cunning and deductive reasoning. So what is my first clue? They hang out in coastal chapparal. This one was in some really scruffy brush less than a mile from the Cardiff Kook.  My second clue? There were about a dozen previous sightings right where I found it. That many birders couldn't all be wrong.  :)

So, speaking of lightening things up, I took this first shot a couple of days ago on a very gray, overcast afternoon. I was pretty surprised by the result. Good thing I had my special binos. :)

Distinguishing marks: Coppery/reddish-orange gorget ; green back and nape; long, slightly curved beak.  Pretty grumpy.

 

 

Boring Fact: You may know hummingbirds are the only bird that can truly hover.  But did you know that to do that, their wings have to beat 50 or even 80 times a second? If that doesn't astonish you think of this: their hearts, while doing that, have to beat up to 1,200 times a minute. Can you imagine our hearts beating that fast?  True, we'd probably do some impressive feats ourselves, but of course it would make it almost impossible to get life insurance.  :)

  What the heck is it?

 

 

 

Bird-nerd-word of the day: Gorget [GORE-jit]

A patch of color at the throat of some birds, most famously hummingbirds, which is often iridescent.  It has a French origin but we pronounce it "GORE-jit" because...well, because we're not French. :)

Am I Blue? I'm a Little Blue Heron

But not all blue.  This time of year breeding plumage includes a plunging neckline of reddish purple accessorized with long thin plumes. :)

 

 

NEW! [Click here to see the ebird interactive location page to find a Little Blue Heron near you] :)

 

 

 

 

 

Click here to enlarge

 

Cardiff Kook update:  With near summer weather in SoCal over the weekend the Cardiff Kook couldn't resist sporting some accessories himself.  :)

Am I Blue?

Kinda? While it is a little unusual to see one of these in some parts of the country, they aren't rare.  That doesn't keep me from taking too many photos of them. I have hundreds. But don't worry; I won't show you all of them today. :)  If you live on either coast or even just east of Colorado keep your eye out--they're worth it. (They look bluer in the lagoon, honest.)

 Distinguishing marks: Long reddish neck, yellow-green legs, blue/gray body and bill, couple of feet tall .  Likeable in person. :)

 

Click to enlarge

 Boring Fact: At about half the height of the Great Blue Heron you might think they would be half the weight, but they average a paltry twelve ounces. That's 12 oz. Compare that to the five to eight pounds of a Great Blue Heron. They're lightweights!  So...I like these birds a lot, but I'm not taking them out drinking. :)

  What the heck is it?

Bird-nerd-word of the day: Gullet [GUHL-it] (as in "Dawg Guhl-it") :)

Basically the gullet is the passage taken by food and drink through a bird's throat.  In the case of the Great Blue Heron that trip down the gullet is not only long, but not always a slam dunk. They've been known to choke to death trying to get too large a fish down the hatch.

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Now if you'll excuse me an aside:  :)

I don’t recall ever having been asked what I thought a bird was--I mean during the actual act of birding. Looking around the lagoon a bit Sunday morning though (apparently encouraged by my bird-nerd appearance) a man asked me if I could identify the big blue bird across the way. Indeed I could. :) As things often seem to go, it was none other than the star of this weekend's blog: a Great Blue Heron.

NEW! [Click here to see the ebird interactive location page for Great Blue Heron]

A Respectable Bird the Great Blue Heron is.

 A friend who walks her dog near the bay said she often sees a big gray bird like the one below. She wondered if I knew what it might be. Hmm. I was so pleased to get to tell her (and since she and the bird were on a first name basis) I promised to post one for her this weekend.  Now with only a little further ado.... :)

This respectable looking and very common bird can be found nearly anywhere there's water. In fact, I've seen them in many places from sea to shining sea: above purple mountains majestically, in amber waves of grain, and in spacious skies above the fruited plain. :) I've even seen them in the shallow, concrete lilly pond at my front door where I took this photo. :)

NEW! [Click here to see the ebird interactive location page]

Distinguishing Marks: tall; long thin neck; long thin beak; long thin legs; grayish blue; really tall.

Click to enlarge

Boring fact: These birds court using a little head dipping, some feather fluffing, and quite a bit of beak clattering. I guess not that different from us. :) 

 

What the heck is it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bird-nerd-word of the day: Granary [GREY-nuh-ree]

A wooden object, usually a tree, where woodpeckers store food.  Acorn woodpeckers have been known to store over 50,000 acorns in one granary.  Wow! That's almost as many nuts as at a Jimmy Buffet concert. :)

Bird-nerd-words of the day: Cooperative Breeding

When referring to birds, Cooperative Breeding means something akin to It Takes a Village. Acorn Woodpeckers, one of the few species who practice it, raise their young as a group. One nest, one brood, 6 to 20 (or more) non-breeding adults feeding and caring for them.  Although they've studied it, the behavior still puzzles scientists. Having helped raise four fledglings myself it seems obvious to me: those little woodpeckers must be holy terrors. : )

Send in the Clowns: Acorn Woodpecker

NOTICE: This message is at the top  just in case you don't make it all the way to the bottom.  : )  Starting today, at the bottom of each post there will be some text saying something like "What is it?" (Sometimes there will be a small photo with it.) If you hover over the text a few seconds, it will spill the beans. : )

Meanwhile back at the oak forest (or telephone pole forest in this case):

Distinguishing Marks: Black(ish); Red cap (both sexes); white wing patches; white cheeks and forehead.  Buggy eyes. : )

Click Here to Enlarge

Boring Fact: Woodpeckers use their claws to stick to the tree of course, but without their specially built tails they'd have system failure. They use their tails for balance and leverage when they hammer at a tree.  Without them they would recoil and wobble back and forth like... well, like this:

 

What is it?

Female American Kestrel

Thanks for checking back. And so you know--as a matter of policy--I do plan to post more often than once every year or two from now on.  : ) 

Though not blogging, I've continued to take photos and so have lots to share with you. Honestly, though, I don't know where to start.  My old system was to use completely random photos. It seemed to work well, so I guess I'll continue with that.  : )

Oh, here's one I like. 

If you liked it, there are more photos here:

American Kestrel

Distinguishing Marks: Gray cap; modest sideburns; striped chest and undertail. Cute.

 

Click here to Enlarge

 Boring fact: Many birds see a broader spectrum of light than we do.  For example, this species sees ultraviolet light.  "Why?" I'm glad you asked. It allows them to see rodent urine which the little critters have tracked all over their trails.  The bird then hovers over the fresh sign until a victim wanders by and "BAM" as John Madden used to say.  Hardly fair is it. : )

Bird-nerd-word of the day: Falcon

Everyone knows a falcon is a kind of hawk.  But did you know that "technically" the word applies only to the females in the family Falconidae.  The male is called a tiercel or tercel [TER-sell] (yes spelled like the Toyota). Now you know. : )