Mystery Sparrow in Florida--ID Help Needed!!!

A Florida birder has requested help in identifying this "unknown sparrow." We thought about sending the photo to ID-Frontiers, or maybe even to birderblog.com, but we're not sure those folks would be able to come up with an appropriate response.

Here's the unknown sparrow--can anyone id this species?:

Comments?

Mega-oops: Black-Headed Gull in Chicago?

Birders are, by nature, a skeptical lot. We're not just talking about woodpeckers here, but just about any rare or unusual bird is questioned until it is seen well by multiple observers, and even then, records commitees are still not always convinced. That's the way the game is played.

Sometimes, though, this innate skepticism can turn around and bite you on the ass.

Case in point: On Saturday, a Chicago-area birder posted that the thought he saw a Black-headed Gull being fed bread at Chicago's most famous birding spot, Montrose Harbor. It was a pretty decent but cautious description; even though the original observer noted a red bill (a pretty darn unusual characteristic for a winter gull in Chicago!), the first reaction of most birders was probably "C'mon, a Black-Headed Gull? Be serious!" And then, the reaction was silence. Nobody went to check out the bird, or if they did, they didn't say anything about it. (We have an excuse--we were in Germany!) Today, a full four days later, there is a post by another birder confirming the Black-headed Gull. Yikes!

How long has the bird been present? How long will it stay? Nobody knows, but there is one thing we know for certain: there will be a lot of BSDs (Birder Sick Days) today in Chicago.

UPDATE: Photos are here: http://www.chicagobirds.com/photos/thumbnails.php?album=70

Put the Orioles Back Into the Cage!

There have been some very interesting birds reported from a pretty small area in southern Indiana and northern Kentucky recently. Specifically, a Bullock's Oriole, a Scott's Oriole, and finally, an *Audubon's* Oriole. Here are some photos of the Scott's that was found in Kentucky:

http://www.biology.eku.edu/kos/Scotts_Oriole1.htm

People are already starting to grumble a bit about feather wear and a foot infection that the Audubon's supposedly has. So, what do you think? Did this unprecedented Oriole invasion happen naturally, or is someone in New Albany letting their caged birds loose? It seems like a pretty big coincidence, but then again, how many people are keeping Audubon's Orioles in Indiana? (According to ISIS, none, but that obviously only includes "legal" birds.)

BINAC Gets Busted!

Not since Panama has the BINAC crew been hassled by "The Man," but it happened again today, in the good ol' U.S. of A.! You see, after striking out on the Gyrfalcon, the BINACmobile was headed south towards Cheese Land (aka Wisconsin), when, all of a sudden, Smokey makes a U-turn and pulls us over for speeding. Smokey claimed that we were doing 25 mph over the limit, but we think his comment about our Florida (ie out-of-state rental car) license plate reveals the real story behind our detention. BTW, we're pretty sure that radar guns are not that precise from a moving vehicle, but hey, the County gotta eat, right?

In Illinois, members of the General Assembly cannot be arrested or detained on the way to or from a legislative session, and we propose the same rule for birders. If God wanted BINAC to obey the speed limit, he wouldn't have given us a V-8 engine in our rental car! If we wanted to drive slow, we would have rented one of those electric toy cars!

Anyway, as we were discussing the matter with Sheriff Hillbilly, we noticed two adult Bald Eagles overhead, locking their talons in flight! Deputy Doofus was not as interested in this majestic sight as we thought he should be. Probably didn't help our case much.

Here's the thing: Officer Frosty knew we were going to the airport, so he asked us to surrender our driver's license since we were from out-of-state. Fuck that---the last time someone asked us to do that was in, you guessed it, Panama! Anyway, to make a long story short, we had to fork over $150+ cash to bond out and keep our license.

Any locality that makes out-of-towners pay cash up-front is sketchy, at best. In fact, the cash "fine" we paid to Sergeant Goober was $50 more than the cash "bribe" we paid to Officer Panama. No wonder we hate government regulation--there is a very fine line between corruption and government regulation! Guess this means that things are just more expensive in the U.S.!

Holy Sibley, BirdMan--A GGO in Southern Illinois?

So, we ran into British Steve at the airport yesterday on our way to the UP. Literally, we ran him over, think we may have broken his leg or something. Steve's co-workers call him "Bird Man", which got us to wondering...how many of you have the same nickname from your co-workers or family???

Anyway, since most of the BINAC crew is out-of-town right now, you know something great would show up in Illinois--how about what may be Illinois' first confirmed Great Grey Owl!!! You heard us right...and not in Chicago or Rockford, but way down south in Southern Illinois, Randolph County to be exact. Apparently a photo has been taken.

Will this stunner bird be re-found? Stay tuned!!!

Smooth-billed Ani--Finally YES!!!! and our Hero of the Day!

Have you spent countless hours at the Ft. Lauderdale cell phone lot? Have you driven up and down Perimeter Road around the airport dozens of times in a single day? Well, we have, numerous times, and it finally paid off:

OK, so we know it's just a Smooth-billed Ani, but it's an American-born and raised SB Ani, and that's the key. The bird shown here was part of a group of four Anis seen near the Ft. Lauderdale airport yesterday at about 4:00. While this group of birds is probably not the only family group of SB Anis left in the U.S., it appears to be the only group that is re-findable, at least on an irregular basis.

We dipped on the Western Spindalis, but that particular bird may be around to chase for a while, and they do show up in Florida from time to time anyway.

Regular readers know that our pet peeve is out-of-town birders who travel to other places and don't timely report rare birds they claim to have seen. So it's time to give credit where credit is due: Three cheers to our Hero of the Day:

Birder Michael Smith from Gardiner Maine!

Hip-hip, Hooray!

Hip-hip, Hooray!!

Hip-hip, HOORAY!!!

Michael and his group posted their results from a short trip to Florida on the local listserve, and they the following directions to a slightly new spot for the Anis:

SMOOTH-BILLED ANI - 4 found along Old Griffon Rd near the Ft. Lauderdale Airport. There is a small scrubby "field" along this road where a power line comes through, with huge power poles in it. The anis were in this field, check in the shrubby growth and palms on the corners.

And that's exactly where we found them, right behind a large warehouse just off of Old Griffon (or is it Griffen?) Road.

And now, for something completely different.

You may be wondering what we do here when we're not birding. Well, it's six degrees below in Chicago right now, but it was 80 degrees in Miami today, so guess where we are.



We'll post some pictures from the Bears team hotel later.

Most interesting call of the weekend: a phone call that was interrupted when Matt Hasselback grabbed the phone and started babbling to us.

Most interesting sight: We're pretty sure we weren't having some of drug-induced seizure, but we actually passed by a bar on Ocean Drive and saw what appeared to be Jimmy Buffett playing a few songs with support from Jessica Simpson on the tambourine.

Surfbirds MIA?

Anybody know what happened to Surfbirds.com? We've had a couple of e-mails on it already, the site seems to be down completely.

Is it site maintenance, hacking, or what?

A look at the stats.

OK, just for kicks, here is a sampling of where our last 1,000 (roughly) readers are from. We'll probably nuke this post if the formatting takes up too much space.

Num
State/Region
Country Name


134
Texas
United States

90
-
-
-

63
England
United Kingdom

63
California
United States

57
Illinois
United States

53
Florida
United States

50
Georgia
United States

35
North Carolina
United States

35
Minnesota
United States

30
Michigan
United States

29
Pennsylvania
United States

28
New York
United States

28
New Jersey
United States

26
Arkansas
United States

21
Kansas
United States

19
Colorado
United States

19
Wisconsin
United States

18
Virginia
United States

18
Iowa
United States

13
District Of Columbia
United States

12
North Dakota
United States

11
Alabama
United States

11
Arizona
United States

10
Maryland
United States

9
Washington
United States

9
Tennessee
United States

7
Ohio
United States

6
Massachusetts
United States

5
Nevada
United States

5
New South Wales
Australia

5
Limerick
Ireland

4
Indiana
United States

4
Alaska
United States

4
Campania
Italy

4
Louisiana
United States

3
Kentucky
United States

3
Ontario
Canada

3
Connecticut
United States

3
New Mexico
United States

3
Montana
United States

2
Missouri
United States

2
Victoria
Australia

2
Zurich
Switzerland

2
Nova Scotia
Canada

2
Alberta
Canada

2
Utah
United States

2
Western Australia
Australia

2
Dublin
Ireland

2
Oregon
United States

1
South Australia
Australia

1
Baden-wurttemberg
Germany

1
Wyoming
United States

1
Tokyo
Japan

1
Buenos Aires
Argentina

1
Scotland
United Kingdom

1
Utrecht
Netherlands

1
Madrid
Spain

1
Mississippi
United States

1
Hamburg
Germany

1
New Hampshire
United States

1
Oklahoma
United States

Bill Pranty on the IBWO, photos, and rare bird committees

It's rare that we catch something IBWO-related before Tom Nelson has it on his site, but here is a very intereting thread from the Tropical Audubon Society Board:

http://www.tropicalaudubon.org/tasboard/messages/13923.html

Nothing earth-shattering, but Bill provides a reasonable perspective on things.

BTW, there is a ton of info on that board that doesn't make it onto the Florida birding lists.

BINAC is back to Florida again in the next week or two so if we're not too lazy maybe there will be an update with some actual birds in it.

Ordinary, average guys.

You can call then the "Hardy Boys." They call themselves the "other guys." To us, they're just "ordinary, average guys." Sure, they look a little unkempt after camping in the swamp for a few weeks (that's Tyler Hicks on the left, I think the guy on the right is Geoff Hill), but they're trying the best they can.

OK, for the 99.9% of you who didn't get the joke, that's not really Tyler Hicks and Geoff Hill. It's actually Joe Walsh and...oh, never mind. Seems to me we'll just "walk away" from this one.

What we're reading--check it out.

We are in the midst of our annual post-CBC hibernation. This has given us a bit more time to check out other birding sites and blogs, some of which are pretty new or not as well known as the "top" birding sites. We enjoy reading these bolgs, and we think you will too. If you don't, well, don't blame us, we didn't make you click-through.

First up is the site from the U.K.'s most infamous birder, Tom McKinney, which we have mentioned in a prior post. This site is funny as shit, even if we don't understand what they're talking about half of the time. Some of the spoof birding diaries are hilarious, and they'd probably be even more hilarious if we knew who those people actually were. Make sure you check out all of the hidden goodies at the site, like the linked videos. Our kind of guy. Here is how Tom describes himself: http://skills-bills.co.uk/about.htm

And here is more his current birding diary: http://skills-bills.co.uk/2007.htm

Make sure that you check out the rest of the site, including all of the linked videos.

Next up, and continuing the Maiden theme (is there a correlation between Iron Maiden and birding skills? Why doesn't Cornell study that?), is Bell Tower Birding. We first found this site from a link at Charlie's Bird Blog. We think. We forget stuff like that. Anyway, this site is run by a European birder who is currently living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We think it's interesting to see how an experienced Eurobirder views birding in an urban (or at least semi-urban) part of the Midwest.

Check it out: http://www.belltowerbirding.blogspot.com/

Finally, we'll give you one more newish site to check out. It's Josh's Around the Globe blog. Josh's blog is probably going to focus on African birding to start out; Josh is working for a major birding company, so he'll get to see the rest of the world again. We think Josh's blog is sort-of the reverse of Bell Tower Birding for us: a local "urban" birder's view of the rest of the world, including some places most of us will never get to. So check it out:

http://oxypogon.blogspot.com/

IBWO update from "the other guys"

Well, since the two IBWO sites haven't picked this up yet (we're sure they will soon), here is an update from the Auburn folks in Florida:

http://www.auburn.edu/academic/science_math/cosam/departments/biology/faculty/webpages/hill/ivorybill/Updates.html

Sounds promising, but it always does.

Has Rancho Naturalista Gone Downhill?

We would be willing to wager that a large percentage of U.S. birders have made Costa Rica their first neotropical birding destination, and for many years, birders flocked to Rancho Naturalista for their introduction to Central American birding. We've been there, and virtually every birder we know who has done foreign birding trips has stopped there at least once. Who can forget the talks over dinner with John Erb about hyperbaric oxygen chambers, and John's feats of physical strength?

However, we were recently sent a Surfbirds article that claims that Rancho is not the prime destination it once was:

http://www.surfbirds.com/trip_report.php?id=1054

As usual, we are not taking sides on this, we're just soliciting opinions, and you can make up your own mind. An informed birder is a happy birder, so if you've been to Rancho lately, please let us know what you think.

Dead Body Found at Swallow Cliff

Since Swallow Cliff is a pretty popular spot for local birders, we're posting the entire article:

***

Woman's body found at Swallow Cliff

December 26, 2006
By Jonathan Lipman Staff writer

An unidentified woman was found dead in a picnic grove near Palos Park on Christmas morning, authorities said.

A fully clothed white woman, between 25 and 35 years old, was found about 9 a.m. Monday in the Swallow Cliff Forest Preserve near 119th Street and LaGrange Road, forest preserve district police spokesman Steve Mayberry said.

A man walking his dog made the grisly discovery in a grassy area of the grove and contacted police.

There were no immediate signs of foul play, but the odd circumstances have prompted a full death investigation by the county sheriff's police, which handles detective work for the district police, Mayberry said. Police have not ruled out homicide.

"We think it was something that happened overnight," Mayberry said. "We can't be sure, but there was no indication that (the body) had been there for a very long time at all."
Investigators at this point have no leads into who the woman was, Mayberry said.

"Unfortunately, she did not have any ID with her. We are hoping that with dental records and things, the medical examiner's office can make an identification," Mayberry said.
The medical examiner's office did not have any information as of Monday evening. An autopsy is scheduled for today.

Anyone with information about the case can call forest preserve police at (800) 870-3666.

Cat Exterminator Finds Ivory-billed Feathers?

Well, if you don't think that the IBWO and Jim Stevenson cat-shooting stories are odd enough on their own, one of our astute readers has posted a link in a comment that shows how those two stories are linked. Apparently, Jim Stevenson found an IBWO nest cavity with feathers in the 1980's.

If you don't believe us, read it for yourself (click on "Winter'06"):

http://web.mac.com/rmcpeak/iWeb/Site/Gulls%20n%20Herons.html

We've try to lay off on the IBWO stuff for a while (there's no need for us spend time on issues that are being fully covered on other sites) but this one was just too good to pass up.

Let the comments fly, this ought to be entertaining.

TINY UPDATE: Well, we're too busy birding (for once, and near an area that actually did have verifiable IBWOs in the 20th century) to actually spend much time on this, but one could speculate that David Pashley might know more about Jim's sightings, which might have occurred near Everett Slough, which might be found on the Florida DeLorme page 48, go to the SW corner and go NE diagonally, it's the second block. Just glad we're not ones running an all-IBWO, all-the-time website. How do you determine just how crazy some of the TBs out there really are? C'mon, is Jim less crazy than, as crazy as, or more crazy than: Mary Scott? Bill Smith? Jesse Gilsdorf? Exactly *how* do you determine how ridiculous a claim must be before you endorse it? Fun fun stuff.

And they're off---but can migration re-wind?

Well, today is the official beginning of our favorite time of year--Christmas Bird Count season. There don't appear to be any Chicago-area counts scheduled for today, but there are a few downstate counts taking place, and today is the beginning of "Count Week" for some of the big Chicago-area CBCs.

Here's the big question facing all of the counts that will take place this weekend in this part of the Midwest: will the unseasonably warm weather (one forecaster predicts 60 degrees on Saturday in parts of northern Illinois) help or hurt the count totals? Last weekend almost every non-moving body of water in the Chicago area (away from Lake Michigan, of course) was frozen solid. Most moving water (rivers, streams, even the tiniest creeks) seemed to still be open. There was also a pretty tough layer of snow and ice everywhere; those conditions seemed ot really concentrate landbirds last weekend along areas of open or running water.

This weekend, all of those lakes and sloughs should un-freeze; marshes along rivers will almost certainly be open, and fields and prairies will be wet: free of snow and ice, with possible habitat for snipe and who knows what else. So, will we see empty prairies and and sloughs this weekend, or will those areas fill up with birds that headed a south a week or two ago when everything froze? We have this working theory that ducks (and for that matter all birds) try to stay as far north in their range as their specified habitat allows, so they can get back to their breeding grounds in the spring as soon as possible. So puddle ducks would stay as far north as they can to find the particular kind of water resource that they need to feed. Is that true? Can micro-weather conditions of a limited duration prompt migration to re-wind to where it was two or even three weeks ago, thereby giving us some birds that woud normally only be seen in late November and not in late December? We have no freakin' idea, but it will be a fun hypothesis to test out!

So good luck and good birding to all of the folks doing the FermiLab, McHenry, Lisle/Arboretum, and Chicago Urban counts this weekend, and to everyone around the world who is doing their 1st or their 100th count this weekend.

Help us help Jim Stevenson

We haven't forgotten the whole feral cat episode. We have probably received more comments and mail on that issue than on any other issue (that doesn't involve a certain large woodpecker species) since the site began. However, to start our FJS campaign, we need a bit more information, and for legal and strategic reasons we can't ask Jim ourselves. So, the first thing we need is a PDF or a link to the actual animal cruelty law (don't know if it's a statute, ordinance, or whatever) that Jim is accused of violating. The name of the presiding judge or officer and the prosecuting entity would also be useful. We don't have time right now to dig this up but we're guessing that someone out there has the info handy already.

Here is a good example of why CBC data can be important

If are an avid ABA-area lister, or if you regularly bird Florida, you probably know that Smooth-billed Ani has been virtually extirpated from the state, and essentially from the entire United States. So, what is an enterprising birder to do? Field a petition to get the species listed as state-endangered in Florida. What is the hard evidence supporting that request? Christmas Bird Count data! Check out the actual petition and the attached CBC data for Florida:

http://myfwc.com/imperiledspecies/petitions/Smooth-Billed-Ani-Petition.pdf

It's Christmas (Bird Count) Time Again--Hooray!!!

Well, we have been buried (literally and figuratively) since the conclusion of BINAC's You're A Peon Vacation, partially because we are diligently preparing for the upcoming Christmas Bird Count season. When we're not out killing feral cats, there's nothing we like more than participating in a good old-fashioned CBC. So we will try to blog on a few counts that we are doing, and give our readers (whether they be experienced counters or CBC virgins) a few tips for making your count day a big success.

One thing that you have to do on your CBC is embrace modern technology...only 4-5 years ago we were still dealing with paper Topo maps, then we moved on to Terraserver and crappy aerial photos, and now we have the "full monty" through the excellent Google Earth. We know that other bloggers have already talked about using Google Earth for CBCs (we seem to recall that Nuthatch posted a nice tutorial last year) so there is no need to reinvent the wheel, but check out Bill Schmoker's site at brdpics.blogspot.com for a nice piece on how to use Google Earth on your CBC.

We're probably too lazy to do the surfing on our own, but if you have a blog with a CBC tutorial, or if you run across a good one on someone else's blog, sent us the link and we'll post them here.