(Make sure you also see the previous months’ Bird Quizzes!)
Can you identify these birds? The top photo was taken in Puerto Rico in May. The bottom photo was taken in California in February. My answer will appear next Monday.
Category: Birds
Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR
Saturday was such a gorgeous day in Colorado, my husband and I headed for the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, just northeast of Denver. There’s something inherently satisfying about taking a place that was once a chemical warfare factory and turning it into a shortgrass prairie abounding in wildlife.
Or at least it was supposed to abound. We’ve been there before, in late spring, when the numerous scrubby areas were full of birds. This visit was quite different.
Rare Birds Indeed
It would seem that the El Paso County (Colorado) parks department needs to take some birding classes. Look closely at the sign in the next photo.
Dear Aiken Audubon…
“What should I feed the owl in my backyard?”
“How can I keep those spotted woodpeckers from waking me up at 5 a.m.?”
“Do you sell bluebird houses?”
“Do you have programs for children?”
“What bird is this?”
When our Audubon chapter website encourages people to “Contact Aiken Audubon,” the emails come to me. I’m the “real person” behind the Aiken email address. It’s fun. I never know what I’m going to find in my inbox!
Quiz #10: Answer
To refresh your memory, here again is the photo for Bird Quiz #10.
As I mentioned in the quiz, the photo was taken in Oregon in September. As you can tell, the bird is standing on sand, eating a piece of a large fish. It’s pretty safe to assume I was at the beach.
Bird Quiz #10
(Make sure you also see the previous months’ Bird Quizzes!)
Can you identify this bird? The photo was taken in Oregon in September. My answer will appear next Monday.
Invasion of the Yellowjackets
I’m sitting quietly at my desk as an unidentified insect makes an orbit around my head, buzzing aggressively. What in the…? It changes direction, aiming directly for my eyes. I want to flail at the bug, but realize that may not be a good idea, so I jump out of my chair and out of the way. Buzzzzzzz…. It finally lands on the wall and I get a good look. Yikes! It’s a yellowjacket!
Moments later, there are two wasps circling my screen, then three, and four. It seems that every yellowjacket in the neighborhood has somehow found a passage into my house, and they’re ganging up on me.
Rare Bird? Read This!
I make it a point to generate my own material for this blog. I research and write the articles, I take most of the photos. However, once in a while I come across another blogger’s post that is so well done, and so helpful, that it makes no sense for me to try and do better.
In this case, Greg Gillson has written a post called “How NOT to report a rare bird.” This caught my attention because I have, in fact, had occasion to report a rare bird (although not as often as I could wish!) and I really had no idea what I was doing.
Please click on over to Birding is Fun and read Greg’s article. He is concise, informative, and entertaining.
New Birds: A Proposal
Last August I posted my suggestion that we add inanimate objects to our life lists. For some reason, my idea didn’t meet with the enthusiasm I had hoped for. Still, I think it has merit. Birders love to catalog things, and think of all the different kinds of beer cans, water bottles, plastic bags, and similar items we can enjoy identifying and collecting.
In any case, I’m not giving up. Perhaps we balk at trash and rocks, but how about other living objects we might mistakenly perceive as birds? Surely we can consider such additions as…
Quiz #9: Answer
To refresh your memory, here again is the photo for Bird Quiz #9. Read no further if you still want to have a shot at identifying this bird.
Mountain Plover 