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Xray the Enforcer

By Xray the Enforcer,
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Fragile Bird Council Member

Fragile Bird

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I don’t know where else to put this, but I saw a little story on a book called Great Trees of New York Map. It’s from Blue Crow Media, which has a series on urban trees, and it will lead you to 50 of New York’s most wondrous specimens,  from a 350-year-old tulip tree in Queens to “Brooklyn’s crowning curio,” a Camperdown elm in Prospect Park.

Something for you New York birders. :) 

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Xray the Enforcer Council Member

Xray the Enforcer

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18 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I don’t know where else to put this, but I saw a little story on a book called Great Trees of New York Map. It’s from Blue Crow Media, which has a series on urban trees, and it will lead you to 50 of New York’s most wondrous specimens,  from a 350-year-old tulip tree in Queens to “Brooklyn’s crowning curio,” a Camperdown elm in Prospect Park.

Something for you New York birders. :) 

Walked past the Camperdown elm today, in fact. :) 

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Fragile Bird Council Member

Fragile Bird

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51 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

There are kestrels nesting in the rotted out eaves of the abandoned house I'm working on!  There are tons around here but I've never seen/located a nest before.  

That’s really cool! The closest I’ve ever been to a situation like that (similar but different) was when I worked out in the suburbs and the building we were in had a pond on the grounds that was part of the flood control system. One year foxes moved in and then came back every year after. The lunch area was on the main floor overlooking the pond and we would see the kits come out and play, until they would grow up and vanish. We didn’t know if they lived there and just stopped coming out in the day time, or if they headed for the nearby river where there would be more of a food supply. Ducks would nest there too, and the ever-present geese. Security always kept an eye out and told employees to stay well away if any creatures took up residence.

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Xray the Enforcer Council Member

Xray the Enforcer

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On 5/13/2021 at 8:47 AM, larrytheimp said:

There are kestrels nesting in the rotted out eaves of the abandoned house I'm working on!  There are tons around here but I've never seen/located a nest before.  

That's awesome! And great to hear because overall kestrel populations are declining, and nobody is quite sure why (but it is probably linked to grassland conversion to homes/crops).

Also, note to everyone in the U.S., because we're into nesting season now: Make sure to not disturb any nest until all of the birds have fledged. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but also because disturbing bird nests is a federal offense under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. 

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Larry of the Lawn Council Member

Larry of the Lawn

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19 minutes ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

That's awesome! And great to hear because overall kestrel populations are declining, and nobody is quite sure why (but it is probably linked to grassland conversion to homes/crops).

Also, note to everyone in the U.S., because we're into nesting season now: Make sure to not disturb any nest until all of the birds have fledged. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but also because disturbing bird nests is a federal offense under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. 

I was wondering whether or not eggs would be in the nest yet- a lot of the other local kestrels are still displaying what I've been told is mating season behavior.  I'm not sure when they started the nest, they aren't bringing in any nesting material, but I've seen the pair around for the last week or so before I saw them exiting and entering the eaves.  The female caught a foot and a half long garter snake last week and slowly ate it up in a cottonwood on the edge of the swamp, that was the first time I'd noticed them.

I have a 50 ft long wire mounted camera I use for chimney inspections, I was briefly tempted to use it to try to sneak it over the roof from the opposite side to take a look, but figured that would be a Very Bad Idea.  

I kicked the carpenters off that side of the house yesterday, and they have a couple months worth of other stuff do do here before they need to tackle that.  The homeowner was immediately very supportive of keeping any construction away from the nest.

In other local raptor news:  

Earlier this spring there were a few days where I saw kestrels, merlins, and peregrines all on the same day.  It's been a falcontastic year here, peregrines and kestrels are seen regularly but the merlins I only see a couple times a year. 

Other everyday raptors I see locally every week are red-tailed hawks, northern harriers, cooper's hawks, ospreys, and bald eagles.

Last fall while hiking I saw a goshawk up close which was pretty cool - I'd only ever seen them way the fuck up in the air during fall migration at Hawk Mt.  

 

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Larry of the Lawn Council Member

Larry of the Lawn

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On 5/21/2021 at 6:03 AM, Michael Elway said:

I saw a blue jay yesterday.

On another side of the coin, don't you think the first angel, in an atheistic world, would be actually a deformed pterodactyl? I believe it was St. Michael the Archangel. He is the progenitor of the human race if this surprises anyone. A child came out of the egg one day very deformed. Imagine how neglected he was. 

I think the blue jay was sent by him. It is said St. Michael the Archangel's color is blue. Said to use that color ray to heal people. 

The sad thing is that we've no longer got the wings to show for it.

Speaking of pterodactyls, the great blue herons have been out in force this spring.  They are everywhere.  Hoping that speaks to the overall health of the river.  The herring and suckers are running right now and I've been watching the herons just feasting on them. 

I imagine that first bird-child-human was a bit..... Gollumy?   but with more feathers and maybe some optimistic wing structure?

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Xray the Enforcer Council Member

Xray the Enforcer

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spring migration is finally winding to an end in eastern North America, and mercifully so. I've been leading walks before work two or three times a week since April and I am really freakin' tired. One last hurrah this coming weekend (leading an event on Saturday, then on Sunday heading to two known hotspots: one to see Golden-winged Warbler, the other is a huge grassland so I can be yelled at by Bobolink, Eastern Meadowlark, and my beloved Grasshopper Sparrows) and then I'm going to take a break until mid-June when I have to co-lead whatever we end up doing for Pride. 

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Wilbur Council Member

Wilbur

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This morning I staked out an African Sumac at the edge of one of the ponds at the Scottsdale Silverado Golf Club, sitting on a rock in the duff under a Palo Verde / Pine bosque for an hour or so.  This enabled me to positively determine that the duff also contained both thistles and mosquitos, so hooray for that.

At long last, I finally got a clear shot of a Common Yellowthroat, one of the most elusive Flying Bananas that we get on the migrations here in the Valley of the Sun.

https://ebird.org/species/comyel/US-AZ-013

The crazy thing about it is that although it is supposed to be a migrant, eBird shows it being spotted all year long here in Maricopa County.  Not by me, that is for sure!

 

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Fragile Bird Council Member

Fragile Bird

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I went up to a friend’s farm in the country north of Toronto today. The bird feeders attract all kinds of birds and I saw a few blue jays and red-winged blackbirds in addition to the more run of the mill sparrows, robins and grackles. And they have hummingbird feeders, and several of the damn zippy little things came by for a nosh.

And as an aside, her brother and sister-in-law dropped by to show their two new rescue boxers, adopted two weeks ago. Their previous owner had been a young drug addict who sadly and tragically died of an overdose, part of the opioid crisis I mentioned in the Covid-19 thread. 

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Xray the Enforcer Council Member

Xray the Enforcer

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8 hours ago, Wilbur said:

This morning I staked out an African Sumac at the edge of one of the ponds at the Scottsdale Silverado Golf Club, sitting on a rock in the duff under a Palo Verde / Pine bosque for an hour or so.  This enabled me to positively determine that the duff also contained both thistles and mosquitos, so hooray for that.

At long last, I finally got a clear shot of a Common Yellowthroat, one of the most elusive Flying Bananas that we get on the migrations here in the Valley of the Sun.

https://ebird.org/species/comyel/US-AZ-013

The crazy thing about it is that although it is supposed to be a migrant, eBird shows it being spotted all year long here in Maricopa County.  Not by me, that is for sure!

 

Outside of breeding season they're fairly skulky, hiding in reeds and understory around wetlands and in riparian areas. So yeah, I can imagine they wouldn't be obvious unless you were very specifically going out to find them. Congrats on the shot! And if conditions are right -- in your case, presence of water -- Common Yellowthroat are pretty hardy. My friend found one over-wintering in NYC. It hung out in a subway grate in Union Square (where it could stay warm) and popped out every day to get food.

19 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

Rufous Treepie :wub:

Jealous. We don't have treepies in North America -- only magpies.

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