Californ eye ay

Whelp, I'm done with Duluth (for now), I've been home for a great week, and now I'm on my way to Cali. Flight today to MPLS, then hopefully a three day drive to San Fran, starting my new job on Sunday...

Picture of a picture of a night in the good ol' days when they caught 300 or so swets in a night and had to put them in a side building while they banded others.

Grey Ghost

Unfortunately this was one of the birds I missed earlier this month. An adult male harrier. Beautiful bird and hard to catch.


Photo by Larry


Photo by Larry


Photo by Larry

Larry releasing a different harrier...so GRACEful

Photo by Larry

GBDC for this picture

Peregrine going into a can

Photo by Larry

More from Larbear

Photo by Larry


Photo by Larry


Photo by Larry


Photo by Larry


Photo by Larry

It's cold in my tent...

Long eared feet

Photo by Larry

Adult goshawk

Photo by Larry


Photo by Larry

RL

Photo by Larry

Harrier

Photo by Larry

Bouquets of owls

Photo by Larry

Totals

Totals for the year:

Saw whet: 910
Long eared: 53
Short eared: 1
Barred: 1
Harrier: 3
Sharp shinned: 755
Cooper's: 8
Goshawk: 38
Broad wing: 4
Red tail: 7
Rough leg: 2
Kestrel: 15
Merlin: 17
Peregrine: 2

Total: 1816

In Review

I grabbed a couple hundred photos from Larry, who got some great shots throughout the season, so I'll be putting up his pictures for a while, as I have no new ones, and a way of reviewing the season, which is essentially at an end.


Photo by Larry

Kestrel

Photo by Larry


Photo by Larry

Pbird

Photo by Larry

Grant releasing the rough leg

Photo by Larry

Adult goshawk. Redder than red.

Photo by Larry

Long eared with a broken pupil...

Photo by Larry

Fud, in his element

Photo by Larry

Barred in VT

Well, though I'm not getting to see a lot of birds these days, my parents got a great look at a barred owl in Vermont this weekend. My dad pulled over and took some pictures, and here's one of them. It's kind of nice seeing a picture of a bird perching in tree for once, don't you think?

Snowed in

It snowed again. This time we got around 6-8 inches. The road we live on is not maintained too well, so it took them a day to plow it out, so we were stranded on the ridge for the night, which was fine. This morning it was still snowing pretty good, so we waited until it stopped around 10 to start shoveling out a couple of the bownets. We had two bait birds out for the day, but only saw a handful of birds flying. It looks like this brings our owl trapping to an end as well.









I've been sleeping in my tent for awhile now, even through the snow I guess.


Also, a quick video of a chickadee being trapped:

Banded Chicks

I just looked up the banded chickadees. Four of them appear to have been banded this year because they are not even entered into the database yet. Two of them were banded in September of 2008. One of them was banded in September of 2007. Old birds it seems to me...

Boredom Trapping

I did see another hawk!


I also did some more chickadee catching. I've caught six of them with different bands. At some point I'll look them up and see where they're from (probably here).

This one had a couple of white feathers growing on its head. Freak.




Hairy woodpecker.




Long inner tail feathers to support its body against trees as it hammers away.


Also, a (notsopurple) purple finch

Cheeseburger

It's been awhile for a post, because it's been awhile since a bird. Since that adult goshawk on Saturday we haven't caught any hawks. There have been a few owls, but we had our first two days of zero hawks and owls the last two days. Not only that, but the only birds we're seeing are the one or two adult bald eagles around.

Winds are bad, and it is November, so at this point we are all just kind of counting down the days, which is fine with me, as I am leaving in 8 (+/- a day). There is hope for more red tails or rough legs, and the occasional gos, but I think I'll be lucky to see another hawk before I leave. With only 7 red tails this year we have caught, by far, the fewest in the 39 years here. Fud has no idea why, but it might mean interesting things for next year.

In order to get some new pictures I set up a little potter trap on our bird feeder.


The first two chickadees I caught were banded. (Also, "Cheeseburger" is supposedly what it sounds like chickadees are saying in one of their calls...according to Larry.)



We also have a lot of red breasted nuthatches poking around and I was able to get one of each sex.

Here's a female, which has a gray-blue cap, as opposed to the male's black cap.


Male


Nuthatch tail

ADGOS

Despite missing the first adult goshawk we caught this year, I had my chance today. This is an after second year female. As you can see the plumage difference between the immature and the adult birds is much more dramatic than in most of the other species we catch.

NOSH 2

I caught our second Northern Shrike today...and it torn me to pieces. All blood you see is mine.