Happy Halloween!
Halloween is the time for the hunted ghost, goblins and critters that move through the night! As a kid, I remember getting dressing up and begging for candy from my neighbors. Once older it was my job to assist my mother in giving away candy to the up and coming little trick or treaters. For the past few years I have moved away from the candy business and spend my time better undstanding the soft feathered owls moving through the sky (which are the halloween spooks).
Tonight I was not expecting any owls due to southern winds, clear skies and the bright moon. Radar showed very little bird movement and conditions were not good at all. This was a true Halloween treat during my second net check locating a fuzzball. There was no other activity the rest of the night except at the strike of midnight!! I ended up with a little brown bat in my net (happy Halloween to me, grrr). Thank heavens for thick gloves and rabies shots!
My Nephew going Boooo!!
*** I would like to thank my friends from Ontario Canada for visiting the banding station yesterday. I was able to call in an Eastern Screech Owl for them but I was not able to band owls due to very high winds and rain from the previous night. Lets hope that on their next visit that the nets will be full of little fuzz balls for them.
Late Monarch Movement
Originally uploaded by Mon@rch.
Today I observed a Monarch here in Allegany State Park during its migration to Mexico. Today’s weather was in the upper 50’s with calm wind and clear skies. Who would have expected to see any more Monarch’s this season after the numerous snowstorms, down pour rain, windstorms and hard frosts that have occurred. This will probably be my last Monarch of the season that I will encounter!
FYI: This photo wasn’t the monarch that I observed, it was taken in August.
Largest Bird in the World Discovered
Mon@rch News:
While listening to NPR radio yesterday, I learned that an Argentina teenager discovered a near complete skull and leg bone of the largest bird in the world. This skull places this newly found species in the phorusrhacid family which scientists are calling the “terror bird”.
It was published in the Journal “Nature” (volume 443, page 929) that this flightless bird was about 3 meters tall with its head about the size of horse. This species had the speed of a grayhound dog. The Terror Bird survived about 60 millions years after the death of the dinosaurs. It was one of the largest predators dominating the grasslands of South of America and survied up to about 2 millions years ago. For more info be sure to check out the following links:
Giant Terror Bird was light on its feet – New Scientist
MonarchBfly dot com
How awesome is this! Word Press has recently given everyone the option to purchase and connect a domain to your wordpress.com blog site. The Mon@rch Nature Blog will now be located with the http://MonarchBfly.com domain. Do note that all of my old links with https://bfly.wordpress.com will still work and Word Press will automatically direct you to the new address.
I hope everyone likes this domain and I tried to make it somewhat easy to remember! We have heavy rain tonight with strong wind!
The Perfect Fluff Ball Night
Ok, let me cut to the chase! First net check and there she was the most beautiful fluff ball that I have ever seen!! I must admit that I had a feeling that this night would be good but I never expected this to be the best night in this banding stations history!
I really need to go back in time and tell you what is going on. For numerous nights the weather here in Allegany State Park has not been the best for my owl studies. The discussions with other owl banders from across the eastern United States have all been disappointed by the low numbers being captured. Some of the theories are that food supply is very good up in Canada and the owls just don’t need to migrate south this year. I guess we will never know until the season is over. Small banding stations like Allegany rely on good weather conditions to have a good owl night. If you look in some of my previous post, you will notice that I have been watching radar for good movements of birds. Tonight’s weather is almost perfect with very calm winds, clear sky, cold temperature and a waxing crescent moon. I believe that many of these birds were bottled up due to weather and just waiting for a night like tonight. Please check out this radar image from this evening to see the millions of birds that are moving south.
On my first check this hatching year female was just waiting to be banded. She was the most perfect owl and I took some pictures of her talons for a future blog!! After processing her and then with her release, I realized that it was almost time to head back up the hill for another check. As I turned the corner of one of the nets, I could see something up on the 8th trammel. Could that be leaves?? Nope, owl number 2 for the night!! It wasn’t until my fourth net check that I recaptured both previously banded owls from earlier in the evening! Not wanting to catch them for a 3rd time, I decided to take them a little further away so onward over to the Park Police station for a quick visit (they always enjoy seeing the birds being released). I was joined by one of my neighbors for the next net check (getting excited with all the owls being caught). It must have been his luck because we caught two more Saw-whet Owls. I quickly gave a banding demo after returning to the station and we laughed because one of my cats (Lazy) stood there looking through the window trying to figure out what we were doing.
My neighbor and I continue back up to the hill to check the nets once again! He said “did we catch another one”?? My comment was, “did we catch one?? we have three owls in the net”! You talk about things starting to get hectic!!! I just knew that there was no way that I would be going to bed any time soon and of course I need to be at work at 8am in the morning!
My record for the station was 5 birds on two occasions and I never expected to have banded 10 new birds with 13 total captures for the night! I kept the nets open until 3:30am and I am now off to bed. Please don’t mind any grammar errors; it’s been a long night!
Just another day!
These days happen to all of us from time to time! Mine started with my nose running and throat all scratchy. I almost forgot about doing a needed net repair after my last banding session. A flying squirrel had chewing through one of my trammel lines which I needed to replace before sunset. I had fallen in the mud numerous times while checking for owls. On my 9:15pm check I heard that flying squirrel going “squeak, squeak” not far from my nets. I looked around saying, “please not tonight – please”! Over and over again I end up checking my nets with no fuzz balls. Even worse, I forgot that the TV series Lost was on tonight and missed the first 45 minutes of the show!
Then again, days like today are what keep me one of the happiest naturalist in the world! I observed my first two Horned Grebes this fall swimming in Red House Lake. Weather has allowed me to open my nets again after many frustrating nights of rain and lake effect. The fresh air has allowed me to breathe again and it feels wonderful to be able to walk around!! I saw my little wild mouse buddy hopping around the path, I had to say hello. I continued to find myself turning off my headlamp while walk back to the house. It is amazing the numerous little sounds you’ll hear. Some of the sounds included small mammals squeaking, passerines calling over head, geese honking and the trickling sounds of the water in the drainage ditch! I also happen to catch a few stars trying to peek through the clouds (All of which I have not seen or heard in a quite a few days).
I might not have caught any owls tonight but it was well worth the attempt. There is always tomorrow to try again!!
Grrrrr Lake Effect!
The Lake Effect Snow is moving right over my house, why couldn’t the snow band move north????!!! We are currently in a Snow Advisory!! Grrr
Yep!! Had to go outside and take this photo!
Weekend with little time for wildlife!
I had a fun and interesting weekend but the only wildlife I encountered was a Deer Mouse left by my cats in the middle of the living room floor. I will expect Lazy (the hunter cat) to continue her fun while these little fuzzy moving toys of hers try to make their home in this house (due to the weather getting colder). Phoebe (my overweight cat) might miss 90% of the visits of these mice due to sleeping upstairs in “her” chair. You can be sure that Lazy will try to change the mice’s minds that outside might be a better place to live! Meanwhile, I will try to continue to live trap them in the basement and take them a distance away to avoid my cats. I found this to be a better way to observe these mice up close.
I had expected last Friday to be an excellent owl night but we had unexpected mixed snow (which made it impossible for me to open nets). Last night I didn’t open the nets due to attended my cousins wedding (which was wonderful seeing family and some old friends). I can now focus my evenings on owls till mid November but that’s only if the weather could be equally cooperative! Of course tonight has scattered showers that has appeared to only been scattered only over the park with every cloud that passes. I guess that is what I get living in the snow belt. Going to bed early tonight with hope that a rainless nights might happen in the very near future!
Lake Erie Gulls
Herring Gulls riding the wind, originally uploaded by Mon@rch.
For lunch last Wednesday I decided to take a little walk to try and photograph some birds. Lake Erie State Park is known as a wonderful migration area for many ducks and songbirds. Could it be possible that I will get skunked and not see any songbirds? Luckily…. I did locate a small flock of Cedar Waxwings and several White Throated Sparrows among the shrubs. But this time I didn’t mind being teased by them keeping their distance with no opportunities for capturing that perfect shot.
I decided to work my way over to the beach in search of a loon or even a raft of ducks along the shores edge. Those Greater Black Backed Gulls on the bluffs are what I seemed to keep my eyes on. Since there were no songbirds around, I decided to wait for these black-backs to take flight. While waiting, I happen to notice this young Herring Gulls found some food and kept dropping it into the water (then picking it back up). It almost appeared as if it was washing its food and trying to get it to a point to quickly swallow. Without delay it flew away and I realized this adult Herring Gulls had approached as if to steal this younger birds lunch.
I continued to watch all these gulls moving up and down this small section of the shore. On occasion one of these birds would quickly drop into the water to picked something up and fly out to a deeper section of the water. This explains why these birds were ignoring me and focusing on their food. Soon my lunch was over and I need to return back to work to finish my day. I did enjoy my limited time watching these birds and of course it didn’t take long to fill up my memory cards.
the grapes
Tuesday and Wednesday I spend some time at Lake Erie State Park which is in the heart of the Wine Country. I wooed and awed over the many photographic opportunities of these vineyards reaching as far as the eye can see. The windy weather didn’t allow me to get any shots on Tuesday but on Wednesday I became obsessed with how these vineyards operated and so I took as many photos as my time would allowed. The grape smell in the air was just wonderful!!
I have never had an opportunity to do any birding in these vineyards. I would have to assume that this area would be an excellent place to locate unique nesting and migrant birds. These sturdy vines can provide wonderful shelter (with leaves and snow cover) and some of the fallen fruit would then be eaten by numerous birds. I would also be curious on what other critters would live in these vineyards.
While driving around, I happen to notice it was harvest time for these grapes and they had numerous (strange) machines parked near their barns. After long discussions, we concluded that these machines must shake the vines and the grapes fall into something (or on the ground, that part we were not sure about). The grapes would then get packaged into these huge wooden cartons and loaded onto flatbeds. From there they get shipped to wineries to be turned into award winning wine!
It wasn’t until we headed home that I noticed the sign for the Chautauqua and Lake Erie Wine Trail. After quickly googling the trail; I found this website www.chautauquawinetrail.org . It appears that this trail is almost 40 miles long and follows the Lake Erie shoreline. Many activities are scheduled throughout the season including a large festival. Check out the website if you’re interested in learning more about the area.
Down time lets me work on new blog!
Weather hasn’t been too good recently and the owl banding station hasn’t had its nets open in the past few days. I don’t anticipate seeing the station starting to band again until Friday evening which will be producing northern winds (perfect for these owls which are bottled up north). Expect me up into the wee hours of the night.
With all this down time, I started to explore new areas to host my blog which is compatible with flickr, ect… Word Press is exactly what I what I have been looking for. I have been moving months worth of files from the old site (soon to be gone) to this wonderful new site. It has been fun exploring my new features and trying to imply them to this blog site. Enjoy and please feel free to spread the word to others about this site!
Frost Expected – No Owls
There is a good chance for a frost here in Allegany State Park this evening! The skies were clear with W to SW winds and temps are starting to get cold. I opened owl banding nets from 7pm EDT to midnight without any owls around. I ended up going to bed with the temps around 30.9F. Spent the day relaxing after the Camp Flickr weekend (www.campflickr.com). Nexrad radar has been down since the 13th due to power problems up in Buffalo! I noticed that it got back online around 8pm EDT. Here you can see some movement of birds through western New York!
Camp Flickr Meeting
I have been quite busy this weekend from the camp flickr get-together which was scheduled here in Allegany State Park http://www.campflickr.com . What a wonderful time everyone had with photographers from Michigan and New York State. Of course the weather always made everything interesting with it being sunny once second, raining the next, sleet and then we would have huge snowflakes in the air. Be sure to check out all of the photos added to the camp flickr group at http://flickr.com/groups/campflickr . I would like to thank the Camp Flickr Team that put this event together and making this a wonderful time! There was no Owl Banding done today and only wish the weather was a little better.
Northern Saw-whet Owl Banding
During the Camp Flickr Meet – we caught a Northern Saw-whet Owl for everyone to photograph! Everyone was so excited with the that there were many people out there photographing this cute little owl. Check out just one local nature photographer Jeremy Martin who took both of these pictures! Make sure you stop by and say hello on his photostream.
Buffalo Mid October Snowstorm
Blustery photo was taken by http://www.flickr.com/photos/chauss513/ who is a WNY photographer. Please take some time to go visit his photostream. You can see the Nexrad Radar shows heavy lake effect is still dumping a ton of snow over Buffalo. I am going to assume that the National Weather Service lost power and resulted in the radar being down. This storm has been located in the same location for the past day and is very not typical for this time of the year.
There is a wonderful discussion on the snowstorm (Blizzard of ’06) on flickr on damage done on members property. It has been snowing over the city of Buffalo since late Thursday night and this is all the TV news channels have been able to talk about. This heavy snow has dropped around 30 inches of snow through out many locations in Buffalo and the melting will become an additional problem. The news has reported that this storms has very strong winds and mixed snow lightning which has crippled the city with about 200,000 households without power. Everyone is saying that it almost looks like “a bomb has hit the city”.
An Owls 3rd Eyelid
Today we caught two Northern Saw-whet Owls with wonderful WNW winds. While Photographing this owl, we happen to notice that with each picture it would use its 3rd eyelid (as if to protect itself). After looking in a few of my Ornithology Manuals – I finally learned that this eyelid is called the Nictitating membrane!! After a quick google search: answers.com I found this about the eyelid: nic·ti·tat·ing membrane (nĭk’tĭ-tā’tĭng) also nic·tat·ing membrane (nĭk’tā’tĭng) n. – A transparent inner eyelid in birds, reptiles, and some mammals that closes to protect and moisten the eye. Also called third eyelid.
FYI: Nexrad Radar shows a very strong movement of birds taking off just after sunset. Click link to see the Clip.
Slow Evening Banding
We opened nets at 7:15 EDT with great anticipation in another Owl. I guess the fact that we didn’t catch any owl could have been expected with the bright moon and southern winds. Do note on the radar we had very limited movement of birds. Tomorrow we are expecting more northern winds and should be a good day!
Nexrad radar shows very limited movement of birds through western New York State.
An unusual visitor at the banding station
The Barred Owl (Strix varia) is a year round resident who doesn’t migrate like the Northern Saw-whet Owls. They have a very large 42 inch wingspan and a very rounded head. I hear many more Barred Owls than those I get to see. Their very well known for their calls in the middle of the night which sounds like “hoo hoo ho-ho, hoo hoo ho-hoooooaw” or also known as “who cooks for you, who cooks for you all”. Bents life history series of books mentions that they are more diurnal than nocturnal but I guess that depends on the neighboring food supply.
I have had these owls in my nets before but they always seem to get out before my opportunity to band them. The banding team took no chances in giving this owl a chance to get out. This is an adult bird which I was unable to determine its sex! You can be sure that everyone at the station was extremely excited once we realized what we had just captured. As you can see they are very large in size compared to the tiny N Saw-whet Owls that we are use to handling. The moon was bright and we truly didn’t expect a saw-whet (which I should mention we also captured) yet alone a Barred!
As you can see, most of the movements of birds were mostly along the eastern side of New York and New Jersey! Althought there was some movement across all of the North East.
Full Moon Bird Observations
Tonight is the official “Full Moon” and there are no owls in sight. A fun project to do when the moon is full is to set up a telescope and sit back to continue to watch the moon for a straight hour. While watching, be sure to count the number of birds you see (yes you will see them moving) and then there is some math that will help you determine the number of birds moving over your location. It will truly amaze you once you start to add all the numbers together!! You can then look at the radar and you will be able to see about the number of birds flying in the sky all at the same time across the united states.
For the math, I took this info from the “Living on the wind across the hemisphere with migratory birds” page 30 by Scott Weidensaul; if you were to average four birds per ten minute block of time in PA of course, the moon’s disk is only a fraction park of the sky, but it represents that cornerstone of science, a random sample. If you were to draw a line from the horizon to horizon, the full moon covers about half degree of the night sky along it – 1/695 or a circle, or 1/347.45 of the visible sky, to be more precise. To estimate the number of birds passing, I simply multiplied my average of four birds by six for the hour, then multiplied those twenty-four songirds by 347.45. According to my observations, about 8,349 birds should have passed within few of my twenty power scope – a span about a mile and a half wide during that one hour.
Now, the location he is discussing wouldn’t be in a major migration location along the gulf coast or Cape May. Those numbers would increase drastically if you only saw one or more bird(s) per 10 minute block. Let me know if you give this project a try.
Radar shows a strong movement of birds again tonight with perfect calm NE winds and clear sky.
How to have fun when there are no Owls
I have some friends staying over at Cain Hollow for Columbus weekend and this photo was from my trip home just before opening my nets for owls. Obviously from this photo you can see the moon is very bright and almost “Full”. We are not exactly sure why but it is assumed that the reason Owl banders don’t catch many owls during full moon nights is that the Owls are able to see the nets. So, obviously we didn’t catch any owls but we made the best of the night.
The kids were very spontaneous when on camera but I think everything worked together alright. (BTW: We didn’t see the aurora but the fog almost looked as if it was really the northern lights, I took that photo from the web somewhere).
Radar showed a strong movement of birds tonight with perfect calm NE winds and clear sky!
How to observe migration at night
Most people don’t realize that birds migrate at night starting at sunset. Numerous studies show that songbirds use their constellations to navigate their movement to their desired location. On cloudy nights they can use the small opening of the sky or correct themselves once the sky opens again. The amount of daylight is what triggers these birds to start moving and today there are many new methods that Ornithologist are using to study their migration. Currently, Powdermill Nature Reserve is conducting a bioacoustic study where they are collecting nocturnal flight calls made by these birds, which allow them to survey which species are moving through the area. For more info, check out the Powdermill page at: http://www.powdermill.org/research/bioacoustic.htm
I am an amateur weather observer and been “trying” to use NEXRAD radar to assist me in banding these little owls. As you’re aware, NEXRAD radar is an important tool for meteorologist in following rain and snow storms that are in the area. If you listen quietly while checking the nets for owls, you can hear the call of these birds moving overhead. Then you know to check the radar to see what is truly going on. Now because the NEXRAD radar is so sensitive, it can pick up the movement of insects, bats and even dust that is in the air. Typically meteorologist call those spots observed on the radar “ground clutter”. In the fall and spring we call those spots “bird migration”. I choose to use the Weather Underground website located at http://www.wunderground.com and I decided to pay the membership to receive the longer images. If you use the NEXRAD Storm Velocity feature, you will observed the “ground clutter” (after sunset) moving North in the spring and the movement South in the fall. For most nights that I blog, I will be uploading images on the bottom of the radar collected from Weather Underground and if you click on the image – it will show the image moving!
This first clip is from last night’s radar showing the movement of the birds from 8pm EDT to just after midnight EDT! Yes, you’re looking at thousands and thousands of birds moving through Western New York But, it is really hard to distinguish what direction its moving and if it could possibly be fog in the area. For that you use the map below looking at the Storm Velocity.
This is the same image but is showing the birds movement. Green means it’s moving towards the radar (which is located in the center of the screen) and red means it’s moving away from the radar. If you click on the link, you will notice that the movements of the birds are coming from the NW direction (moving towards the SE) and then as the evening progresses the birds start changing their direction heading due south. Now if you think that’s cool, check this next map!
Here you see the front map of the North Eastern United States starting just before sunset. Right at 7:30 the birds will start to appear at each of the NEXRAD radar stations and you can then get a larger perspective of how many billions of birds (aka: Ground Clutter) are moving at one time. You probably can see why everyone finds this so interesting to learn about. For more info on Radar Ornithology, please visit the Clemson University website (where I learned everything I know about this subject). Below is the image from tonights radar where there isn’t much movement (you can see a little) but you are able to see some of the rain storm entering the screen in the upper left!
Obviously, I didn’t catch any owls tonight with strong 10-15mph Southern winds and clear sky.
Start of the New Season
Tonight was the start of my Northern Saw-whet Owl studies here in Allegany State Park. This is my 3rd year out collecting data and I will be continuing this season’s studies for the next 6 weeks (so expect most of my blog reports to be about owls and bird migration).
There is very little information on the migration routes of the smallest owl found in New York State. The Northern Saw-whet Owl is a very secretive bird and has been overlooked for many years now. My goal is to get a better understanding of the fall migration in Allegany State Park, NY. With bird banding, we can better understand where these migrant birds nest and where they go for the winter season.
These photos are of the first Northern Saw-whet Owl captured for the season. We call this a “hatch year” bird because it was a bird hatched earlier this summer. What was unique about this bird was that it’s late in going through its first prebasic molt (which is loosing its juvenal feathers into its first set of adult feathers). The picture above shows some juvenal feathers still in its body but its very close to looking like an adult bird. As the season progresses, I will show you ways that we identify the age of the bird (with a black light), different animals I encounter and the many other things that we can learn about these owls. I can’t wait to share with everyone how amazing these birds are.
Mon@rch's Nature Blog 