Monday, October 30, 2006

Well, for what it's worth...

...someone sent us a link showing that our old pal Senor Guppy has been updating his web site.

http://billismad.tripod.com/id11.html

Check it out before he hacks himself again.

Time for another rant...

Speaking of female Minnesota bird bloggers...we are due for a good rant, and here it is:

A well-known blogger posted the following to her site today:

***
I identified a Nashville, Pine, and Palm and then suddenly, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a pretty big warbler with a dark blue-gray and black back, no apparent wingbars but also not that clean, solid coloration of a Canada Warbler, bright yellow throat and breast, black streaks along the sides (and limited to the sides), a dark face with a broken white eye ring, and white crissum. And danged if the little guy didn't constantly wag its tail! I didn't have my field guide with me--that was back in the car--but I was virtually certain of what I was seeing, and of its significance, so called out the field marks (even though no one with me really knew what I was talking about) to keep them clear in my head until I could write them down. The bird was in view only about 30 or 40 seconds, and then not only did it disappear but so did the whole flock.I rushed to the car, wrote down the field marks, looked it up in the field guide I'd brought (Kaufman's) and was so certain this was a male Kirtland's Warbler that I went to the entrance office to report it. The guy on duty wrote down what I said, though I have a feeling he wasn't a birder because he asked me how to spell "Kirtland's" and repeated it back as "Kirtland's Sparrow" until I corrected him. Oh, dear--this is probably the rarest bird I've ever found on my own, and I don't even know who to tell! If you do, please email me!
***
Who do you tell? Well, if you think you've seen a Kirtland's Warbler in Florida, you tell fucking Florida birders, that's who! I mean, how hard is that? There are not one...not two... not three...but at least *four* different Florida e-mail birding lists that have wide coverage. It's not that hard to figure that out on your own. Or you could google "Florida RBA" and find out that there is still a way to report birds by telephone in Florida. C'mon, is it really that hard? Are there actually people out there that have been birding for years and years, are sophisticated enough to have their own birding blog, and don't know where to report a rare bird???

Whither Birdchick?

Hey, what hapened to the Birdchick site?

Sharon, where are ye? Is there some virus killing off Minnesota birding blogs, or what?

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Nocturnal Hermit Thrush???

For the first time in almost two months, all four of the computers we use to post to the blog are working at the same time. Rejoice! Keep letting us know about those late fall rarities, there seems to be a bit of a push by Mountain Bluebirds into the Midwest this year, and one of the Midwest hawkwatch sites had a Gull-billed Tern a few days ago.

Today we observed something very unusual: a Hermit Thrush hunting, at night, by the light of the Chicago streetlamps. One other person has previously reported to us seeing this nocturnal hunting technique being used by a Hermit Thrush is the very same neighborhoood. There are plenty of sparrows around but we've never seen them hunting at night.

So, has anyone else seen this before? Are we witnessing the early steps in the evolution of the Chicago Hermit ThrushOwl?

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Yellow-browed Warbler in Wisconsin???

This is shaping up to be a spectacular month of October for Midwest birders. Green-tailed Towhee and Rock Wren in Michigan, a grebe explosion here in Illinois in the Palos area (Western Grebe + multiple Red-necked grebes for a start), and we haven't even paid much attention to other states to see what else is around.

Now, to top things off, there has been a report of a Yellow-browed Warbler (!) at Bradford Beach just north of Milwaukee. We've heard that searchers have failed to re-find this bird today, but if the report is legit, this bird may be headed south along the Lake Michigan lakefront. We've gotten multiple reports that there was a very nice movement of passerines along the lakefront today, so who knows what other rarities may have moved into Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana today.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Unplanned Twitch of the Year

We sure didn't know what birds we'd be seeing when we woke up this morning. An early work obligation (complicated by some extra security due to a terrorism trial) was followed by a quick cab ride out to O'Hare.

50 minutes after taking off, we're in Green Bay headed back to the U.P of Michigan. About four hours later we pull into our hotel, check in, and get a tip that there is some "rare bird" in the local newspaper. We hop online and check the UP Birders site...the bird is in a yard on Ridge Road. Can we make it there before dark? We ask the front desk, and they tell us that our hotel is *on* Ridge Road...the yard is only a few blocks away! We hop into the car and head over...the incredibly nice and gracious family that is hosting the bird lets us in...without even raising our binoculars, we immediately see our target, scratching away under a feeder, just four feet from the picture window...yes, it's a GREEN-TAILED TOWHEE!!!! Who-eeee. Sure, they're common as dirt in Colorado, but a pretty damn good bird for the Midwest...when are we gonna see a chaseable GT Towhee in Illinois?

Now, if we can only figure out a way to see that Rock Wren that showed up a few days ago...

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Lost and Found

Just got back from Florida. The large blackbird flocks have arrived in Florida, along with the wintering Palm Warblers, but no big flocks of Robins yet. Lots of the usual southern species, Pileateds, NOMOs, Wild Turkey, Carolina Wrens, an impossibly tame Sandhill Crane in the middle of a Target parking lot (didn't even move when cars pulled up right next to it), all of the expected herons, a couple of Wood Storks, and a Barred Owl that nearly decapitated BINAC. (Look, he started it. Hooting away in *our* territory day after day. We had to respond. And did. We're still not sure how he snuck up on us, we never saw him, but we did hear his wings as he took a swipe at us. Suppose we deserved it, though.)

Upon arriving back at Casa de BINAC, we noticed "Cty of For" on the caller ID. Hmmm, the County Forest Preserves are calling us. (No, we don't know where the stray "of" came from, either.) Maybe some naturalist is calling us with a critical question about preserving bird habitat? Nope. The nice folks at the forest preserves are calling because someone brought in a copy of Sibley to somewhere. Either the person bringing in the Sibley was named "James," or the name "James" was written somewhere in the Field Guide. The message was a little unclear on that point. We assume that this James character lost his Sibley Guide at one of the local county forest preserves, but the message was a little unclear on that, too. But the diligent folks at the forest preserves got our number from the Planetarium (WTF? Who the Hell at the Planetarium is giving out our phone number???) and just wanted to see if we knew who "James" was.

Now, while we appreciate the effort put forth by this diligent public official in trying to return this field guide to its rightful owner, we regrettably do not know every birder named James who might have bought a Sibley Guide in the last five years. We frankly don't know where all of our copies of the damn thing have disappeared to, so unless he's reading this, "James" is gonna be out of luck. And James, nice try, but you might want to think about putting your last name and phone number into your new Sibley Guide.

Friday, October 13, 2006

BINAC Beats Blizzard...

...well, not really, but close. And we've been itchin' to use that title since about August, anyway.

There is a lot we have wanted to write about lately (a timely comment even alerted us to the reappearance of Mr. Guppy!!!), but it's been busy. We just barely escaped from da UP before the predicted two feet of snow. The storm seemed to have disintegrated a bit, but was still a big enough threat for us to cancel some plans and cut the trip short. At least there were a few birds behind the hotel before the storm hit, including a nice little flock of Purple Finches. Yeah, those aren't uncommon birds for you North Woods types, but as far as we're concerned, any day we see a "winter finch" is a good day.

This weekend we're back to parts unknown in Florida and Internet access will again be sketchy until at least Monday. Maybe we'll be in da UP next week, or maybe at Hawk Ridge, who knows?

A couple people have asked us to spill the beans early on the Mike's Soap Box thing; Mike has asked us to not print a few things that he told us about in private, and we will respect his wishes and will not reprint what he told us here. However, Mike really only added some details to what we had already heard, there is plenty about the whole affair from other reliable sources (public and private), so we'll finesse this thing a bit to get our loyal readers (both of them) the scoop.

BINAC Beats Blizzard...

...well, not really, but close. And we've been itchin' to use that title since about August, anyway.

There is a lot we have wanted to write about lately (a timely comment even alerted us to the reappearance of Mr. Guppy!!!), but it's been busy. We just barely escaped from da UP before the predicted two feet of snow. The storm seemed to have disintegrated a bit, but was still a big enough threat for us to cancel some plans and cut the trip short. At least there were a few birds behind the hotel before the storm hit, including a nice little flock of Purple Finches. Yeah, those aren't uncommon birds for you North Woods types, but as far as we're concerned, any day we see a "winter finch" is a good day.

This weekend we're back to parts unknown in Florida and Internet access will again be sketchy until at least Monday. Maybe we'll be in da UP next week, or maybe at Hawk Ridge, who knows?

A couple people have asked us to spill the beans early on the Mike's Soap Box thing; Mike has asked us to not print a few things that he told us about in private, and we will respect his wishes and will not reprint what he told us here. However, Mike really only added some details to what we had already heard, there is plenty about the whole affair from other reliable sources (public and private), so we'll finesse this thing a bit to get our loyal readers (both of them) the scoop.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Mike's Soap Box R.I.P.

Well, part of the BINAC crew is headed up to Minnesota today, so we thought this would be a fitting moment to lament the demise of the Mike's Soap Box blog.

We didn't always agree with Mike (hell, we don't always agree with what's posted on this site!!!), but he was always entertaining, he spoke his mind, and we're sad to see him go.

Why did Mike's blog disappear? Well, that's the rest of the story, which we'll tell along with a very nice public service announcement in a subsequent post.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Three Cheers to the Brits...

...for this very funny spoof that was posted on BirdForum:

http://www.uea.ac.uk/~e039/BBC/IBW.htm

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Birders search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Florida

For those of you who are continually whining "Why aren't Fla. birders talking about and searching for the IBWO in the Panhandle?" here is a link to a nice trip report by well-known Florida birder Larry Manfredi:

Stop your whining and start searching

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Feather Weather is back!

We were working on adding/deleting a few links when we noticed that the Feather Weather blog (which we were about to delete) is back online. If you haven't done so already, click on the link and check it out, it's a pretty cool blog.

Monday, October 02, 2006

"We don't need your Civil War":BINAC declares IBWO cease fire

We just arrived back from Florida late this evening, and we've been thinking about this whole IBWO mess. While we have enjoyed all of the sniping and the insults and the back-stabbing, things have reached a new low.

Birders are attacking each other anonymously in forums, sending nasty private e-mails, are even threatening to sue one another over the whole fiasco, and then Hillary Clinton has to whine about it all. While this has been quite entertaining, it has also gotten a bit repetitive. Especially the whining part.

So we are hereby declaring a truce, a 72-hour unilateral cease-fire, on all IBWO-related issues. This means that we will not have any posts -- positive or negative -- about the freakin' Ivory-billed Woodpecker until Thursday morning. We will embargo a couple of posts we had ready to go. That means no bitching about Cornell or Auburn or anyone else for 72 hours. No responding to IBWO-related e-mails. And no surfing BirdForum. There are two exceptions to this cease-fire: First, we retain the right to defend ourselves if someone attacks in comments or on another site. Second (and you knew this was coming) the cease-fire is ended if Mr. Guppy reappears. (It's about time for him to surface again. Maybe he's figured out how to "un-hack" his web site? Or perhaps he just forgot his own password.)

Now, we don't expect anyone else to join us in this cease-fire. Hey, if you have a blog, you can write what the hell you want to. But therein lies the problem with unilatreal cease-fires: the disarming party usually gets killed! However, since this is merely a metaphorical disarmament (we're keeping all of our guns loaded!), we're willing to take that risk. For the children.