Yup he was up to something and it certainly involved a morsel of some sort. Maybe the driver left something like a bag of french fries in the back, either way, that crow wasn't leaving without a piece for himself! How could you not laugh after seeing that happen while in progress. I'm sure that crow was quite pleased with himself. To finish off, I'll include another of my beloved crow escapades. This one in drawn form...it's what I imagine when told by a friend how the crows at Valley River Center Mall parking lot like to break open their nuts. Not a bad idea, getting nourishment enough to fly off into the sun
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Perhaps here we have an early version of what BirdsAlongTheWay is really about! This was my first time back in photoshop since working on the program extensively during my Master's in Journalism at the University of Oregon. I took a Web Design class that only taught website design, but me being the more artsy of types, I wanted to bring my creative skills to the table. Since my original photo of this drawing out of my sketchbook included the paper as well as a silly cloud and the markers I'd used to draw the darn thing in the first place, my project was to take all those out and fill in some more of the dragon (notice the chest now is purple instead of white). It was a little bit finicky of a time since photoshop is the kind of program where you can do a single thing in a wide variety of approaches. That always makes for a time when it's been long enough I took the class ago that I was fumbling about a bit but I'm proud of the result and I hope ya'll like it. A darker version but just a reminder that while this is birds along the way, birds did start from something reptilian. So there's a ponderance you can ponder away upon ;)
Once again, the original version. Evolution of a dragon indeed. <3 of art too. Fishing success in Great Falls National Park on the Maryland side. Early Spring 2013 on the Potomac River. Just recently I started getting to know Eugene's Wild Birds Unlimited and while I've had to dig deep to bring back the echoes of much earlier in life when I was employed by Olney's The Backyard Naturalist, it's been a pleasure spending time in a place that's known to "Bring people and nature together and we do it with excellence".
I'm glad to bring my past experience working in the field with birds but all that experience in the field brought me close to beautiful and importance species that need help for us to provide habitat, I've realized that I am able to commune with birds better than humans, because birds are a natural part of my life and have been for the past 5-6 years while working with them in areas where only we as field biologists have been fortunate enough to spend time in. Now, though, I'm learning how I'm not the only one who cares so deeply about each and every bird and it excites me to be able to hear their stories from what they're most often seeing out their window as birds come to their feeders or what we come across on bird walks out to the Delta Ponds. It gives me hope to see how many people who have at much enthusiasm as I've grown to have over the years of a great deal of hands-on work. I enjoy meeting birdwatchers who are both new and advanced birders or novice bird feeders, because they each have grown their own wealth of knowledge which in turn can help teach me a great deal of what's going on here in the Pacific Northwest, a place I haven't had much time in to learn their birds. Now I'm getting the chance to hear what waves of birds are moving through the Eugene (and greater) area. There's still much to learn, of course, but getting out there, I've had a chance to glean much of the information our area birders are able to give, and many have. It's really been a hoot. ;) Migration for our birds, on the other hand (wing?). Yes. Saw young robin a few weeks ago outside of the pool in the apartment complex near the river. As I came upon it, I saw the obvious hunch which warned me it was about to fly away upon my approach. It didn't because quickly hunched, myself, onto the grass while speaking softly to it in Spanish (yes I'm a weirdo and even though it had no idea what I was saying, I managed to placate with words soft enough for it to stop its thoughts and not unusual instinct to fly away from this approaching human). Once it apparently decided to stay, I kept still while watching it go about its own business of looking for food. Food is absolutely on the brain of every animal as we fall quickly into the rainy winter season that's starting to rear its head. What I soon found with my young robin friend was that it turned out to be a great and very beneficial thing for it to decide to remain in the vibrant green grass. As I watched, it wasn't even 2 minutes before we both quickly learned how bountiful this patch of grass turned out to be! My new friend found him or herself a couple of gloriously plump, squirmy grubs in the very same patch of grass that had a week or so earlier had gotten more than its fill of water by the fact that someone forgot to turn off the sprinklers over one weekend. I became overly dismayed at the waste of the gushing water that overflowed the grass and poured through down the sidewalks and into the street, soaking up colors (aka toxins) of the rainbow. Watching yellow warblers later the same day drink from tha very puddle, I was pretty peeved enough to make a bit of a deal of it on my Twitter account (don't mind me, I gripe a lot.) But while it may (or may not) have been detrimental to that one species, I guess this was Nature's way of showing me that maybe there wouldn't have been such big juicy grubs if not for all the water that flowed then that green patch of grass. Grubs that existed in that well watered swatch of uber green grass may not have been even present much lessfound by a young robin with speckles on his chest, if not for that overflow of water letting me know this would be this individual robin's first migration (however far robins may or may not go, this is a mild winter kind of place.) Nonetheless, it was thanks to mother nature and my own patience and willingness to learn from another species that I managed to sit, watch and learn. I had a chance for this earth of ours to remind me me that even the birds born this same year are getting ready for migration. Migration, in fact, that, for that individual species of bird may be temperate; a temperate migrant is the kind of species that simply shifts to lower latitudes (meaning we might see more northerly of the same species through thismild winter) versus the kinds of migrants like the lovely arctic tern (as seen above, one of my favorites thanks to working with Project Puffin) with its longest migration of all, twice a year, from one pole to thee other, the antarctic to the arctic and back again as the weather warms into the next spring we're so lucky to witness, year after year. So why not take a look at the birds that haven't left yet and let's know that some of them are on their way south, be it a far trip or not, they need those juicy grubs to help get through the trials of flying southward and every bit of protein helps. A peek into the life of a handful of field biologists in Puerto Rico's Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge working with and researching a fasinatingly communal bird called the Smooth Billed Ani. To give an idea of some of the birds I've come to know and love along the way, I've got a gallery here of some of those I've come across. The birds you see below (and the kids, including yours truly) were part of a project that I worked in Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge. Specifically we were tracking colonies of Smooth Billed Anis. Part of the job involved using tall mist nets to capture these birds as they came out of roost (after, through careful monitoring the evening before, we determined the tree a specific territorial group had decided upon in which to roost.) Groups were in the area of about 8-20 individuals and they have the fascinating behavior of laying all their eggs in one basket (or nest, if you want to avoid cliche presumptions!). This habit usually led to groups that primarily consisted of females and boy would they lay! Sometimes we'd have upwards of a dozen eggs in one nest and, by careful observation, we found that sometimes even females in the same group were still picky enough that they'd kick out an egg or two before laying their own! Either way, though, the benefit of living in these territorial groups helped each and every individual because there's always a male or two lookout and birds that flock together can keep tabs on each other as well as the goings on around them. Our job was to trap the birds using a variety of means, including enormous mist nets (which sometimes gave way to a good amount of by-catch as seen below by the mockingbird and the bananaquit!) But, when placement of the net was sucessful, we'd catch adults and band them according to an individual ID that we'd record down so we'd know what bird from whichever colony we pursued from one morning or afternoon to the next. Another, much more difficult means of capture was using a round wire trap with doors which were easy to pass in through but hard to get back out of (think crab traps). We'd use "bait" which were some anis that we raised ourselves to entice adults to go into the traps. Much less success here, but various trials and attempts, whether with nets or wire traps, most attempts were hit and miss a lot of the time. Nevertheless, we did get some radio transmitters on various birds from different colonies so we had the ease of opening up the radio transmitter which helped us locate colonies at a much more rapid rate. While the birds nested and fought amoung themselves (we even saw something of a "war" between adjacent colonies; prime real estate was at stake, you see.) So, with colored bands and even painted beaks (using whiteout, which chipped off over time) we could get an idea of the various individuals and the hierarchy of a colony. And, when the nests didn't get raided by the horrible influx of rats to the island, we got to climb to precarious heights on extendible ladders to reach the nests and monitor the hatching and growth of the ani chicks and eventually, once large enough, get them banded too. By taking blood samples of the birds we caught, the research assistants had us bottling up tiny vials that would eventually give them the information that they could take back to do genetic work on to see what kind of success one female from the next was having in getting her genes passed along. All in all, it was a fantastic fall in which we spent in the tropical dry thorn-scrub & grassland section of Puerto Rico, which really was a stunning place (and don't get me started about the magnificent cloud action I was constantly in awe of each and every day!). I hope you'll enjoy this little peek into one of the bird wonderlands that I was beyond fortunate to work within as a biological field technician, hands on with another fascinating species of the whole avian community which forever I hold in my heart as one of my favorite experiences (just another favorite among favorites)... Feel free to scroll down and hear my tirade which I "tiraded" to keep small. ;) So, in the meantime, I need to find a way to occupy myself. I think I have such a history with birds that it needs to finally become digitized in some kinda special, multimedia way. We'll see... But seriously, who knew you couldn't get a one-way ticket to Peru? Not me. I was too excited dreaming up-in-the-air possibilities of what to do after completing my position working with the Caciques (..birds, those of the yellow-rumped persuasion). This was a position predetermined to last through mid-December. But trying to cross LAX on LOW fuel had me digging my own hole as I stumbled from one end of that monstrosity to the entire opposite side (with questionable help..). Anyways, the entire night which started in PDX didn't end in Lima, like I saw it doing in my mind's eye. That eye was waaay off. So, ultimately, thanks to a Brother in Law of the DannyBoy persuasion; it ended with me back in Eugene (notice the surprised looks on our faces above? That's how I felt. Someone did something wrong, but who?) Not on purpose, I hope. Anyways, the "all knowing" internet seemed to think it was okay for me to buy that ticket to Lima, Peru and keep the way home unknown since I had such dreams of entering Medellin, the City of Flowers, Colombia donde hay una chica rara y bellesa como el otro pedazo que yo tengo aqui. But, anyways, as per Euge (or Yooj), Real Life had Other Ideas. So there I was with a ticket that wanted to bring me there but I lacked the ticket that they wanted me to have to ensure I wouldn't stick there (Bird-wise? Dunno how hard it'd be to pull me back out of South America!). Nonetheless, the situation is over and, seeing as how no deep Amazon culture needs to see what the heck an Iphone is (I call mine Majick: Fake Magic). There are far more important things than that, and I believe the most desolate, un-"civilized" tribes already know all of that and more. Now if I can find a way to finally get there, to the Amazon (with all the most proper of manners, of course, thanks to a strong reprimand by good ol' LAX and employees not entirely keen on helping a desperate girl on the dirty floors wondering what all went so wrong that she suddenly was no longer on her way to Lima in those earliest hours of the morning of Aug. 29th. So? Shite. But, to learn from this experience, I'm taking life seriously here so that I can see if I can (sooner rather than later) get myself down to South America to see a girl I love and those birds that have already left, as the crow flies, southward. Peru. The Amazon. Where I'm headed to live for the next three months... I'm getting ready to reenter the world of field biology: tent living, buggy, lush wonderlands and lack of refrigeration. I've cut my hair,prolly 10 inches or less — there's still more than enough to spare. That was so that I don't overheat in the rainforest. I've also managed to buy WAAAY too much equipment from REI; packed and unpacked and repacked and unpacked and overpacked and am trying to underpack because there's no way I can hold every toy I want to bring. What else..Oh! I've also recently been in an altercation with a massive raccoon, the matriarch of her tribe and I, somehow, came out unscathed. Somehow I felt like that was a challenge I was put to overcome to see if I was up for the greater challenges presented out in the Amazon. But seriously: I'm excited. And ready. Ready, ready, ready. |
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