Stale chunks o' bread

This winter has sucked in the Northeast for camera trapping, in my opinion. It's been frigid, which really takes a toll on the batteries, and we've been dumped on with snow! Feet and feet of snow! So, if I actually had had cameras out during December-January-and the beginning of February, they may have gotten covered over, or it would be inconvenient to check on them. And, the animals don't move around as much!

An Eastern cottontail...blinded by the flash!

Well in recent weeks, I've stuck my two cameras (a Bushnell Trophy Cam and a Cuddeback Attack) in the woods right behind my house. I've had all the wild canids that call NY home, bobcat, fisher, cottontails, squirrels, an owl, a hawk, other littler birds too. And it's easy to get to.

The Cuddeback Attack's flash is so bright, it just can not take pictures in the snow, unless I cover up the flash somehow, so I don't have any pictures that are worth sharing. You can see in the picture at left how washed out it is. It is taking pictures though, so that's a plus! (it doesn't always take pictures...)

But, my trusty Bushnell pulled through with some nice pictures. I threw out some crusty, stale bread...which the woodland creatures seemed to enjoy.

By the way, the date and time is not correct. Rookie mistake: changed the batteries and didn't reset the clock!

One of the first Eastern chipmunks I've seen this season! Chippies do not hang out above the snow, and are one of NY's true hibernators. BUT, with slightly milder temps, longer days... they somehow know that it's time to wake up!

Two Eastern cottontails enjoy some bread too!

Blue Jays

And finally, a spindly-tailed red squirrel. I wonder if someone took a grab at him!

 It's odd to me that I haven't seen any of the usual scavengers around lately, either by picture or by tracks in this snow. Raccoons, opossum, striped skunks, and even porcupine love a free meal.

Finally, here's one last picture I will share from the Cuddeback. It's REALLY too bad the snow was so bright, but did I catch the first mating pair of Ruffed Grouse for the season?

Winter camera-trapping

This is the camera I’m currently 

using: A Bushnell Trophy Cam HD.

If you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time, you’ll know that I LOVE using camera traps, or game/trail cameras. I love sticking them out in the woods and seeing who comes when I’m not looking. This set of pictures doesn’t contain anything too exciting, all common critters, but I got some multi-species pictures. I love it when that happens, I feel like I’ve totally breached the code of wildlife and am a secret agent spy. “HA! I KNEW you all hung out like in Disney movies!” Well, in this case, several members from different species hung out together, because I sprinkled a handful of black oil sunflower seeds on my favorite camera-trapping log.

Enjoy!

(BTW, I had around 1,500 pictures from 3 days. Once the seed was discovered, critters descended and burned up all my battery by December 20th! The camera was set until January 5th, but due to lots of action and/or frigid temps, the camera died.)

The normally EXTREMELY territorial red squirrel is shown here sharing the log with another red. They are known for caching food in an accessible hiding spot, and then defending it. If you’ve walked in a conifer stand, and heard someone “yelling” at you from the trees, it was probably a red. I’m assuming because it’s winter, these 2 were able to put aside their differences and munch amicably on the seed within feet of each other.

400 pictures “later” than the duo of squirrels, I caught many pics of these 4 American Crows together. Crows are often seen in groups, but what interests me now, is that they appear to be eating the seed! Crows are opportunists, so they WILL eat anything, but are not typically seen at a bird feeder eating bird seed. Well, I suppose in the winter I’d eat bird seed too, if I had to.

A handsome Blue Jay makes a brief appearance!

Here are two species eating in harmony! The red squirrel and a Mourning Dove.

Another multi-species picture. I see the American Goldfinches and Dark-eyed Juncos.

Here’s Red, looking guilty? Did he just chase off the birds?

 

 

And the last picture I found to be of interest, has 3 different species in it! Can you find them all? From the bottom of the picture up: Dark-eyed Junco, red squirrel, and a Black-capped Chickadee.

Backyard bird buffet

Addie and I on Christmas Day visiting
Chimney Bluffs State Park, Lake Ontario

Today was so snowy!

I usually hate the winter months, but this year I kind of like it. Probably because I’m on break for a month from school and I have literally nothing to do. I have a big, safe SUV to get around in, and the snow is kind of fun to play in with my pup! I’m at my parents house in Wayne County for a few weeks over the holidays, and we got ~18 inches last night of snow. Luckily my Dad plowed out the driveway this morning, and since I was home all day while they were at work I worked on shoveling out the decks and the doorways.

I also noticed the bird feeders were all covered over with snow, so I trudged through all the snow to clear off the feeders. I swear, within moments there were a large flock of songbirds of all shapes and sizes feasting on black oil sunflower seeds.

Happy birds!

I sat in the picture window for 30 minutes and was able to watch 7 species of birds come and go: Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays, Dark-eyed Juncos, White-throated Sparrows, Black-capped Chickadees, Titmice, and Mourning Doves. With the backdrop of the fresh snow, picture taking was prime!

Female Cardinal munching on a black oil sunflower seed.

A male Cardinal, White-throated Sparrow, and a Dark-eyed Junco sharing the birdseed buffet.

Female Cardinal

1 Cardinal, 3 Mourning Doves, and 2 Blue Jays

 

A pair of Cardinals

 

A Blue Jay on the suet

 

Mourning Dove butts.

White-throated sparrow

Blue Jay

 

Dark-eyed Junco

I wasn’t able to capture any pictures of the Chickadees or the Titmice this time, they were too quick for me and didn’t want to seem to compete with the bigger birds on the feeder. They kept to the bushes mostly.

Backyard birding is really fun and something you can do as long as the birds are there. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been called to the window to see this or that and learn to identify it. That’s what happens when your Dad is a bird nerd.

The Sibley Guide to Birds
by David Allen Sibley

If you are looking for a GOOD birding book- perhaps not a book for beginners, but if you are serious about birding and plan on travelling, check out The Sibley’s Guide to Birds.

This book is $24 and change right now on Amazon.com and worth every penny. I have brought this book with me all over New York to the Outer banks of North Carolina and all the way up to Denali National Park in Alaska. The birds I was looking at were all in this book. I would consider this book more of a “reference” than a field guide. It’s larger than other field guides I have, and is a little heavy. Sibley also has an East coast and West coast field guide. Basically the big book is split in half. I don’t have either of the smaller ones since I have the one big one, but maybe they’re a bit more on the beginner or novice level of birding.

Whatever your favorite book is, it just has to be able to show you what the birds look like and where they are found.

I’ll be off the ‘net for a few days, I’m heading down into the heart of the Finger Lakes region to spend some time eating, drinking, playing the snow, and ringing in 2013 with some of my family!

Happy New Year!

Wildlife Wednesday - Passerine bird banding

Today was our 2nd Wildlife Wednesday of the semester, and today's theme was mist netting and bird banding any of the Passerine's that came our way.

What does Passerine refer to? Perching birds, and commonly referred to as our song birds.

Several students, myself, and Professor John, and Conservation Dept Tech Sasha all met up at our East Hill Campus in Naples this morning. Last week John and Sasha went to the EHC to scope out a place to mount the mist net, so today all we had to do was set up the rebar and netting and walk away.

In my opinion, we were wildly successful, meaning many birds were caught, and there were a variety of birds!

Sasha, John and Adam setting the rebar.

We set the net between the woods/shrubby area, and the bird feeder :) , and walked away for 10 minutes to set up the banding station inside the house (doesn't everyone get to experience field work and animal processing in the comforts of indoor plumbing and heat???).

Sasha pulling the mist net across.

After 10 minutes had passed, we went out to check the net: 3 Black-capped Chickadees! Never have I personally been so excited to see such a common animal. I find myself realizing this time and time again recently- some of the most common animals are still REALLY cool! I see them often, yet at a distance, I just take them for granted. Up close though, those BCCs have beautiful plumage and such bright little eyes!

Here's the net completely set up.

The net is so fine and light, that the birds don't even see it, and easily get VERY tangled in it.

See below.

Black-capped Chickadee thoroughly tangled in the mist net, but comfortably being untangled while in the banding grip!

Before I continue on with the cool bird pictures, I want to show the "tools" of the trade.

John's banding tackle box with all of the essentials such as: different sized bands, special pliers meant for banding, cloth bags to store the birds during processing, and hand sanitizer.

Two different sized bands. On the left, probably appropriate for woodpeckers, and on the right, appropriate for BCCs.

Here are the pliers and the size bands we used for most of the birds.

This card is used to determine band size, if you are unsure. Just slip the bird's leg into a slot until you find one that's not too big, not too small...but just right!

John has one freed BCC and Sasha works on another, while students watch...

Inside now, John has the BCC in a 'photographer's grip', commonly used for getting good pics of the birds! About to clamp the first band on!

Because birds are migratory, and can be relatively long-lived...bands are managed on the state and federal level. Age, sex, location of banding, species, and band # all have to be recorded on a data sheet and submitted. I don't BELIEVE there are 2 numbers the same (someone correct me if I'm wrong?), kind of like a license plate. So, the theory is...if one of the birds we banded today, migrated to Tenessee, and caught there...it could be traced back to NY with all it's information in tow. With mammal tags, they are not as closely regulated because, and especially small mammals, they have VERY short life spans. Like, less than a year. And, they don't mass migrate over long distances like many birds do. In the picture to the left, it may look like John is nipping that little BCC's leg off, but no fear- he's not! The pliers have a hole in the nose that fits the specific band sizes and NO SMALLER. So, you can only clamp it as small as the band, which is just larger than the diameter of that birds leg. I'm sure accidents do happen where the ends of the band don't line up as they should, or it over-pinches/crimps, but that happens less than when all goes the way it should.

I was given a bird to release! I think I stated this in an earlier blog...but it's QUITE the rush to release a wild animal from your hands! I try not to think of it as a terrified little creature trying to escape, but as an amazing tiny organism full of energy and life returning to the wild!

The NEXT capture, was very exciting! A lively, vivacious, "bitey"...

Blue Jay! By the way, all of those above adjectives are all good things for a wild animal to be while handling them.

Sasha struggled a bit getting this guy/gal out of the net because of the height of it...and because he was clenching his feet around the net in a death grip! ...(perching bird)...

Inside, we got to check out the beautiful plumage.

My dear friend, and NON Conservation student, Julie tagged along for the morning. She had never experienced bird banding before, and was a little nervous to tag a little guy. So, with some gentle encouragement, she agreed to band the Blue Jay!

She just sent me a text message, and she had a great time!

Looking forward to having her along for the ride again...

We also caught many Dark-eyed Juncos, but my phone died (and that's what I was taking pictures with...I know, get a real camera!). If I can beg, borrow, or steal some pictures from someone else who was there, I will add Junco pics below! They are a pretty, slate-colored little bird...

Thanks to John and Sasha for facilitating and thanks to the birds for flying into our net!