Conjoined Birds In (Where Else) Arkansas

Lorraine sent me this story:

Apparent conjoined barn swallows found in Arkansas:

An apparent set of conjoined twin birds - an incredibly rare find - has been discovered in Arkansas, authorities said.

The bodies of the barn swallows, which are attached at the hip by skin and possibly muscle tissue, are being sent to the Smithsonian Institution for examination and confirmation, Arkansas wildlife officials said Friday.

"I can't even say it's one in a million - it's probably more than that," said Karen Rowe, an ornithologist with the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission. "There's just very little to no records of such a thing."

The birds, found by a landowner in White County, fell out of a nest as a healthy sibling flew off to learn how to hunt with its parents, Rowe said. The birds first appeared to have only three legs, but further examination found a fourth leg tucked up underneath the skin connecting the pair.

Rowe said the landowner likely kept the birds for a day before calling wildlife officials. By the time officials arrived, the birds were not eating. One died early Friday and a veterinarian later euthanized the other.

Finding conjoined birds is rare because they likely die before being discovered, Rowe said.

X-rays of the pair found each bird was fully formed, Rowe said. She said the birds would have had to come from a double-yolk egg.

Barn swallows can live for several years, though the conjoined twins might not have lived that long even if they had been separated. Rowe said it would have been difficult to teach the birds to fly.

What A Crazy Weekend!

This weekend completely fell out of my hands.

Non Birding Bill and I went to CONvergence and he premiered his movie Thac0--and it was a hit! I was bummed that I missed the initial premier because I had to help set up for a Raptor Center program at the convention. However, the movie was so popular that it ended up being reshown Sunday night--I was so proud of him. It is so cool to sit in a packed room and listen to people be entertained by something your spouse worked so hard on with all of his friends. Above is a photo of the second movie audience. It was packed both times it was shown, standing room only. I think he's going to reshow it later this month.

Go, NBB!

Our TRC program was action packed! Above is Gail Buhl toting our turkey vulture Nero. We had an hour to go through four birds and one heck of a panel to present the bird information:

Here we have Erin from MISFITS who books TRC for CONvergence, Mercedes Lackey, Gail from TRC (who you might recognize from the oh-so-viral baby porcupine video), my buddy Amber (whose photos periodically show up in the blog), me, and Larry Dixon. Between all of us, we had some fun bird stories. Amber, Gail and I were just as excited to hear Mercedes and Larry's tales of wildlife rehab as we were to talk about the birds we brought.

Once again the sci fi and fantasy community treats TRC very well--everyone donated during the program and we took home an additional $200 on top of the actual off site program fee. Misfits also makes it possible for TRC to make appearances at area schools and we are so grateful for their support.

Mobridge Bald Eagle Nest On Shaky Ground

I just got the following email and photos from my buddy Amber:

"My dad just took these photos today. It is a nest that was built in a tree that has since had a river overflow next to it. If there is a big wind, I am afraid these eaglets might drown. The proper authorities have been contacted and hopefully they will respond?"

Amber has put in a call to The Raptor Center, but I'm not sure if there's anything that can be done. The birds look to be close to fledging but they really do not have any room for error in that first flight.

Are there any South Dakota readers who have some ideas to help these birds?

Watch Where You Step!

I helped out at the Swarovski Optik booth at the American Birding Association Convention. I was out with a couple of the guys from the booth--Clay and Bruce. As we were going down a mountain road, Clay put on the brakes and said, "That looked like an interesting woodpecker!"

We found a place to pull over and walked in. I was hoping for a Williamson's sapsucker, but we weren't seeing anything but robins. Bruce picked up a stick and started pounding a nearby tree, doing his best sapsucker territorial drumming. We heard some soft drumming and eventually found:

...a three-toed woodpecker. Not a lifer, but always a cool woodpecker and fun to see it outside of Minnesota. Clay then said, "Hey, Bruce, check it out." and pointed to Bruce's feet.

From Clay's excitement, we thought there was a snake. We looked down and couldn't really see anything, Clay kept pointing and then Bruce finally saw it. It's in the above photo with Bruce. Can you see it? Don't worry if you can't, I was there and can barely see what Clay was point to. Here is a hint:

bruce
There in the center of that circle is a tiny young robin! We had been there for several minutes, watching the trees, talking, banging sticks against trees and yet this young robin stayed stock still, using it's fledgling coloration to camouflage with the surrounding vegetation. I wanted to digiscope it, but the young robin was too close to focus in my scope, so I had to back up a few feet:

"You can't see me!" Fresh from the nest and already this bird knows what to do, instinct told it to just sit and hide, and the big lumbering creatures would move past, hopefully without stepping on it. It was strange that we did not hear the adult robins give their warning and freak out call. We could hear that they were busy feeding another fledgling nearby. Since we'd seen the woodpecker, we decided to move along and let the young robin be and commence to learning how to care for itself under the tutelage of its parents.

On our way out of the woods, I found a second fledgling. Like its wise sibling, this young robin also stayed stone still as I walked past. Moments like these always make me wonder how many birds (especially owls) have I walked past when focused on something else. How many birds have been just a foot away and I just didn't see it?

Word On The Street At The ABA

oriole
Above is a beautiful Bullock's oriole we saw on a field trip in Vivian Park yesterday. See, Non Birding Bill, they aren't all brown and gray out here. So, here are some of the topics birders are discussing at the American Birding Association Convention in Utah:

Falcons are more closely related to parrots than other raptors??

Yes! That is the word on the street here at the ABA Convention and on the birding listservs and blogs. There's an article about at the Chicago Tribune and Grrl Scientist has a bit more detail here in her blog.

So, what does this mean to you? Your field guide orders are going to change. But aren't they always changing anyway. I still get confused seeing waterfowl up front instead of loons and grebes.

The other interesting deal going down is that a man attending the convention has scanned in his National Geographic Field Guide and placed it on his iTouch! He said that it took him three weeks and he showed me how he can zoom in on the illustrations and you can easily view the text. He also used the Thayer Software for birding and has all the North American bird calls to go along with it. Now, because it's proprietary to National Geo, he can't sell it, but he has offered to mail a disk of the scanned guide to anyone who wants it--for FREE! He doesn't want money and he just seems to enjoy getting a good guide on an iTouch.

I was going to blog out loud to National Geographic and say: "Yo, dudes, why aren't you doing this--getting a good field guide onto an iPod, iTouch, or iPhone? You did such a fun job with the Palm Pilot thing." And when I checked email yesterday, I got this in my Inbox:

Introducing National Geographic Handheld Birds Online

Now all of the power in National Geographic Handheld Birds™ is available Online! Access Handheld Birds™ from any full-featured web browser on a computer or mobile device such as the iPhone. With the new online features Handheld Birds™ is a must-have for any bird enthusiast!

Here are just some of the new Online features:

-Compare species side-by-side
-Search on multiple selections for criteria
-Search with new “family” criteria
-Add notes to checklists and individual species observations
-Manage your checklists and lifelists
-Set date ranges for checklists for a single day or over months
-Order species in checklists by name, taxonomic order, and count
-Download checklists to your desktop or store them online
-Set personal preferences
-Manage up to 100 checklists at a time

For a limited time only, you can get a full 1-year subscription to Handheld Birds Online for only $25. That’s a 50% savings off the regular price!

This now makes it compatible with an iPhone or iTouch when you are online.

Techno Birding is getting interesting folks.

Bald Eagle Attacks Swan

I did not take the photos of the eagle attacking the swan, they were taken by Kelly Munday. It's another one of those viral photo series filling up inboxes--almost as popular as the Golden Eagle vs Fox series. I get sent stuff like this from time to time and it rarely has the name of the photographer and each email seems to have a different location for where the photos were taken, so I like to take time to see if I can figure out the back story before posting them in the blog. And now, I present in the same vain as Bald Eagle vs Sandhill Crane a bald eagle attacking a swan--with photos taken by Kelly Munday at Waterlily Bay Resort:

Yes, that is an adult bald eagle attempting to grab and kill a fully grown swan...I believe its a trumpeter swan and not a tundra swan or mute swan. I don't see any yellow on the bill that you would see with a tundra swan or orange that you would see on a mute swan. The bill on the swan in the photos, looks big and chunky like you would see on a trumpeter.

Check out the size different between the eagle vs the swan. If it is in fact a trumpeter swan, then its average weight would be about 20 pounds, the average weight of a bald eagle would be around 10 pounds. If that eagle is able to grab and kill the swan, it will have to eat it where the swan body lands on the ground--eagles are only able to carry roughly half their weight when in flight.

Alas, there is not a lot of info to go with the photos (like was there a trumpeting sound coming from the swan, clinching its id as a trumpeter swan). The website that posted the photos just has the photographer's name (Kelly Munday) but no more about what initiated the attack, the end result, or how long it lasted.

I can only guess from the photos that like the bald eagle with the sandhill crane interaction we witnessed this past March, this swan got away. However, was the swan mortally wounded? Did the eagle continue the chase out of the view of the photographer? Again, you can see the entire photo series here and read a quote from the photographer here.

I've heard more than one birder wish that bald eagles would figure out how to attack and kill the non native (in the US) mute swan (my photo above taken at the World Series of Birding in Cape May, NJ). Mute swans are a big threat to wetlands when they show up, they destroy the vegetation native ducks need for food and nesting and have even been observed killing smaller ducks that wander into their territory. From time to time, I get email press releases asking me to protest mute swan eradication programs, but I can't get on board with it. Like starlings and house sparrows, mute swans are an introduced species and causing problems with our native wildlife--it's not pretty to watch one kill a teal. I wonder if these same groups would be just as quick to protest starling, house sparrow and rock pigeon eradication programs or they just jump on board with mute swans because they look pretty (arguably prettier than our native trumpeter swans and tundra swans)?

We saw quite a few mute swans while in Cape May. Above is a flummoxed animal control officer trying to figure out what to do with a mute swan taking refuge in a neighborhood. This younger swan had been pushed out of the nearby ponds by nesting adult mute swans. Every time it went back it was chased and even flew into some power lines. The animal control officer was trying to figure out if he should get it to a vet or try to find a pond without mute swans.

The mute swan question is not easy to answer, but if our native ducks, rails, smaller herons and other waterfowl have to compete with the mute swans for food and territory, a management system will have to be put in place to deal with them.

Holy Crap We Won! And Contest!

I'm blogging from the World Series of Birding Awards Breakfast. When I arrived with Amy and found Pete Dunne and my other teammate Clay, they said our digiscoping team (The Swarovski Digiscoping Hawks) won--our goal was to digiscope as many bird species as possible in one day. We won? In complete and utter shock I said "Get the heck out!" (Athough, substitute a more colorful metaphor in there).

The photos didn't have to be pretty but identifiable. So above is one of our photos that helped us win. What species of bird is this? First winning answer with a name attached in the comments section of this blog entry wins a Woodlink Hummingbird Feeder.

Don't worry, cool photos will be uploaded soon.

Meanwhile, our team is sharing a table with WildBird Zen Zugunruhe team (who won the Cape Island Division) and they would like me to tell you that their teammate Tait Johansson is dipping his bacon in catsup and teammate Matt Garvey is my favorite because he is keeping my coffee cup filled.

Also, I just learned that New Jersey is putting a moratorium on the harvesting of horseshoe crab eggs until the populations of both the crabs and shorebirds recover...go New Jersey birders!

Turning A Corner With Banding

Wednesday was a glorious 70 degree day and just a fun morning of banding--I'm finally getting my footing with getting birds out of the net. We got in quite a few white-throated sparrows like the bird above.

KARE 11 came back to film a few more shots for the bird segment they are working on. Jim Fitzpatrick is getting interviewed above. And once again, as I was trying to get a bird out of the net I heard, "Hey, hold still, we're coming over to film that!" Happily, there was no panic attack like last week. I ended up doing it twice and I really feel like a turned a corner in my learning process. I have to admit that after last week, I was questioning whether or not I should keep going--but thanks to some extra practice last Sunday and the patience and teaching of some of the other banders at Carpenter I feel like I'm back on track with little birds. The only thing I worry about is that I don't dress for tv when I'm banding at Carpenter, I tend to dress for comfort--ah well.

The most interesting bird that we got on Wednesday was the last bird in the traps--a junco (quite possibly the last junco I will band this spring). When I was taking it out of the bag, I could see that it had a pink rump. Closer inspection revealed that they were not pink feathers:

The bird was missing a large patch of feathers on its rump. It must have happened a couple of weeks ago, pin feathers are already growing above the tail. You could also see that in the middle of the pink skin was a healed over puncture wound. Something had attacked this junco and it survived! And it was still strong enough to migrate! At this point, the juncos we are getting at Carpenter are ones that spent the winter further south like in Missouri or Texas. Somewhere along the way, something tried to eat it. We made a note about the wound and it will be interesting to see if the junco is retrapped and how long it survives.

wound

Here's a photo pointing out the growing feathers and the scabbed over wound. You can also see the uropygial gland also called the preen gland. They squeeze this gland and oil comes out that is used when preening. I wonder if this wound is from a shrike? Shrikes kill with their beaks? It could also have been a sharp-shinned talon too. I don't think it's from a cat, small animals usually don't survive that. Cats have a bacteria called Pasteurella that will infect the bite or claw wound and kill the small animal within a few days.

So many things learned at banding.