Pale Male, A Prairie Burn, County M Hawk, a Grumpy Cardinal, plus a Sandhill Crane, a Great Blue Heron and a Wild Turkey in Flight

             photo courtesy of palemale.com          
     Beautiful Pale Male looks at the camera.             

 Remember the Red-tailed pair who nested in the oak in the middle of a field off County Highway M in Wisconsin?  Well, they've still managed to hide their current nest from me but I did catch Mrs. M hunting from their old nest tree.  She of course recognized my car and took off before I could her picture perched.

  This male Cardinal menaces another in a male Cardinal brawl at Mud Lake. I say brawl but it was mostly about glaring and posturing.

     A Great Blue Heron Heads for His Night Roost

Dale Dean and Edie Baran of Landscape Restoration start the fire for the  burn of an oak savannah, in which the landowner's house complete with their big propane tank are smack in the middle.  All went well and the mistress of the house wasn't even bothered by smoke coming in her windows.  These folks really know what they're doing.

                                                          Photo by Edie Baran
    (How can you tell this is a photo op during my lunch?  I don't have my gloves on.)

 My apologies for the absence of posts the last few days.  For two days I worked very long days on prairie burns then came down with the flu.  


(Obviously I didn't get the flu from the prairie burns but rather from a cast member in the show in which I'm working as a vocal coach.)


My big excitement at the burns occurred when a stand of Common Reed,  Phragmites australis, that nasty tall invasive that often crowds out the native plants in wet areas given half a chance, went up in flash, leaving me looking at a 14 foot wall of fire.  Beyond setting a small patch of a nearby old cornfield on fire, that I with my flapper (the thing I'm holding above) and a guy with big boots stomping, managed to put out before it spread in the wrong direction.


Speaking of flappers, just how does that flap of rubber tool work anyway?  It can be used two ways.  If you've only got a small leader in the fire making it's way in a direction you don't like, you lay the flapper on it and press he rubber down with your booted foot.  If you've a somewhat bigger blaze that is a problem, you raise the flapper up high and bring it down with all your strength whacking the fire, which blows it out in that area.  And you keep doing it until it behaves or needs stronger measures


If the fire is blazing a bit higher yet but in a controllable line though starting in a bad direction a fire broom may be the answer.  This is a special broom that lives when not in use in a bucket of liquid, I assumed water, but upon thought might have had some additive in it, where it saturates.  When it is needed you pull it out and sweep whatever fuel is in front of the flames, such as debris in a cornfield or dead leaves back into the fire where it burns leaving the area in front of the flames less fuel to spread.


And if there is a bigger problem?  Everyone on the burn was told a height on their body, for me as I'm short a place a little above my knees where if a long flame line has taken a bad  turn, it's time to get yourself out of there, pick up the radio and call for the water truck.

I'd seen the resident Red-tails sky dancing earlier on the property then I spied their nest in a typical location of choice.  Rural Red-tailed Hawks like one of the highest trees available with a configuration that will hold a nest.  That way the nest has a view.  Not only can they see what might be coming at them, they can keep an eye on the territory and perhaps best of all while sitting a nest with not much to do but sit, they watch prey patterns for use later on while hunting.

   Photo D.B.                       A Wild Turkey in flight. 

By the way, that puff of smoke left of center is way back where I am with the camera. It isn't anywhere near the turkeys.



 Not to worry about the birds and animals during this burn, great areas of the habitat are saved and not burned by the slow moving fires every year.  Everybody just moved to those areas of the land which weren't affected for a little while and in many cases then moved right back.  Because of the early Spring there were many green spots that didn't really burn at all.  The fire dealt with the invasive woody stuff, such as Asiatic Honeysuckle and Buckthorn.



Next up from Richard Fleisher, a prof over in the Political Science Department at Fordham in the Bronx and a chief watcher of Rose and Vince--
Writing to let you know that one of my recent photos of the Hawks was selected by Popular Photography magazine as their photo of the day.  It is posted on their Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ popularphotography) and on their website (http://www.popphoto.com/ photo-of-the-day/04-02-2012).  This shot as well as other recent photos of Rose and Vince can be seen on my flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/profman_wildlife_photos/)

Rich


Congratulations Rich!  Great work and super publicity for urban hawks.  The more people who get to know Rose and Vice and love them, the safer all hawks are!

 The Sandhill Cranes have returned to Wisconsin and are busily finding mates if they need one plus nailing down their nest-sites.


 PROTECTING RAPTORS BROCHURE --For those who haven't had much luck convincing folks that immaculate  sanitation is the only real answer to rats, New York City Audubon has produced a brochure which names the kill-everything-including-your-hawk-child-or-dog poisons in hopes they may be avoided and those with less chance of secondary poisoning for those who just can't live without using rat poison.


Along with tips on sanitation, blocking rat entry to buildings, plus the recommendation that no poison at all be used from March through August when the parents become hunting maniacs to feed their young and inexperienced fledglings are doing their initial hunting.


The brochure may be ordered from NYC Audubon or you may download it online.


 http://www.nycaudubon.org/images/protecting%20raptors.pdf


Donegal Browne

Quicksilver Does Wisconsin, Green-breasted Mango Hummingbird, and NYC Audubon Migrating Bird Triumph

This is a bird weighing his options and testing the boundaries. Quicksilver is deciding whether or not it's worth it to ignore my warnings about not climbing any higher into the Pussywillow tree.
He's wondering if I really will take him back into the house if he goes for it.

Not so, the day before yesterday. This is a tired bird. This is a bird straight out of his travel box after spending numerous hours traveling to Wisconsin from New York City. This is a sleepy bird who's preening his crumpled feathers.

This is a bird who's had some sleep, though is still scoping out the new surroundings. Though you can tell from his face that he's been doing some thinking about the situation. He's sat nicely put while sitting in a tree, and upon asking to go outside again, sits nicely on the picnic table without attempting to take it apart.

He sits in the sun, on the glider, as well behaved and civilized as anyone could want.

Then he asks for another sojourn in the tree, but this time he clicks into "Jungle Bird of the Mangrove Forest", and inches up the branches the minute I glance away.

"Silver, don't do it. Don't climb the tree. You'll go in the house."

Then the decision is made, he's making a break for it. Fortunately the tall ladder isn't needed to retrieve him. The exact reason he isn't allowed to sit in "real" trees like Maples anymore.

He's allowed to sit in the kitchen window, look out at the trees, and chew a butter carton to bits, which he's doing happily when I leave the room. But when I get back he's on the sill, looking a little guilty in my opinion. I pretend not to notice and make a false exit.

Aha! He's after the shortening. Not only is he leaning towards it but I can see the white smears on his beak.
He scoots over, stretches, and pulls the can towards himself.

"Silver!"

BUSTED! Obviously it's time for me to go to the petstore and get some parrot play areas. Translate that to parrot retaining equipment. New environments always instigate a new round of boundary setting. Silver goes into his cage for a nap and I head out.

Then it's time to make dinner. In the meantime the neighbor's grandson, Michael, comes over to meet Silver. Silver likes him. Silver runs him through the drill. "Want to go tree, want up, want shoulder, want apple, want treeeee" Michael obliges. Then while out in the tree, Silver is heading up it, Michael goes to pick him up and Silver gives him a sound pinch on the finger. He's testing. Back in the house Silver comes. Silver says,"I'm sorry." Michael accepts and goes home for dinner. I put ours on plates. The table is currently covered with papers so I deciderather than having to sort them again, we'll sit on the floor, look out the patio door, and eat.

Silver looks at his plate, looks at me, then looks out the patio screen and calls, "Dinner, dinner!", out the door. Is he inviting Michael to dinner?

Silver keeps calling, "Dinner, dinner!" Is he talking to someone in the park? Then I realize there are some birds eating seed on the patio. Silver says, "What's wrong? Are you cold? Dinner, dinner!"

I say, "Silver, come eat your dinner. Here. Look. Dinner." I point at his plate and the quick movement causes a flash of wings outside the door.

Silver goes into his agitated stance, his body bouncing up and down, wings slightly separated from his body. He's the model of birdie frustration-- "Dinner! Dinner! Are you cold? Want fresh water? What's wrong?"

Finally I get up and go look out the door.

It's Doorstep and Friend sitting on the bath. Doorstep is watching him fixedly. Silver seems to have been inviting them to dinner and is upset that they're not responding.

He's back doing it again. Originally he was the only bird at our house. When Tip and Edge, two young pigeons appeared out of the bathroom, where they'd been handfed for some weeks after being retrieved from an abandoned nest, Silver went over to their cage and attempted to have a conversation. He verbally invited them to share his treats, asked if they wanted fresh water, and tried various other conversational topic. They stood petrified and stared at him. He tried for several days to get them to talk, but finally gave up. It then appeared that he had decided they were a bit dim. Not understanding that they just didn't have the equipment to respond in English, beyond the fact that they were just fledglings. As other birds appeared in the household he'd try to converse, but finally gave up on it altogether.

Why had he suddenly started trying to talk to other birds again? Then it struck me. He's been watching all the Alex videos with me , some several times when I showed other people. Alex and company converse so why not the birds in Wisconsin. Perhaps here all birds talk.

How would he know without trying it?

He never did eat his dinner. Finally he went up into his window and looked out. Around 11pm he decided he was cold...

and decided to eat a piece of fried chicken.

Silver eyes his new play area. A place he knows he'll find himself, if he doesn't behave in his window.

It occurs to me, Silver is getting on towards adolescence now, a teenage parrot. Perhaps, not only does he need more places to play, he truly needs a place where he can talk to other birds who can talk back.

I'll have to work on that.

From Wisconsinite and fledgling birdwatcher, Marian Anderson, comes this link to a Yahoo News article reporting on the sudden appearance of a Green-breasted Mango Hummingbird in Beliot, Wisconsin, who's well out ot it's normal range of Mexico and at it's most northern, southern Texas. The only other officially recorded sighting was Concord, MA in 2000. The birders have now begun to migrate in mass to Beloit.

Rare hummingbird spotted in Wisconsin - Yahoo! Newshttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070922/ap_on_sc/meandering_mango

And from boffo Link-finder Bill Walters, a New York Times link to a real success story. Kudos to The NYC Audubon Society for their meticulous work and The U.S. Postal Service for listening!

NEW YORK REGION September 22, 2007

Long Perilous to Visiting Birds, Building Receives a Makeover

By PETER DUFFY Changes to a Manhattan building that has long been a deathtrap for migrating birds have stemmed the carnage.

Donegal Browne