Going out on a limb

I have a tendancy to oversensationalize when I'm identifying critters. If I find a mink track, I want it to be a river otter so bad. If I get a blurry, grainy IR fox image...I really want it to be a gray not a red.

In this case, my gut reaction to this camera-trapped image below was that I caught the Common Raven (Corvus corax) perching on a log. Which would be a new species for me.

Then I talked myself out of it, and said "No, couldn't possibly be...it's just a [American] Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)".

I even blogged about it over at my Albany Times Union 'Discovering wildlife' blog...and called it a Crow.

But now looking at it, I'm not so sure.

Here's why I think it's a Raven:

-Size. That looks like a big bird. Granted it's fairly close to the camera, but upon reviewing pictures taken at this site of DEFINITE Crows, I feel like this is a bigger bird than those.

-Bill. Raven's are known for having a much heavier bill than the Crows. Also, there are some feathers on the dorsal (top) bill that extend down the culmen. Am I using that word correctly? The Crows don't seem to have this, as I look at drawings in my Sibley's and Nat Geo books.


I unfortunately don't have any GOOD Crow pictures taken from this same angle. Or at least that I saved. Crows are a dime a dozen, so I tend to delete those pictures, unless something is really cool. I do have this picture though that's at almost the same angle, but on a different brand of camera.

 

This seems to be a Crow. Although it's further away from the camera, it seems to definitely be of a slighter build. Also, it's bill seems a bit more slender and not as thick.

One feature of the Raven that is pointed out in both Sibley's and Nat Geo, is that the Raven has some shaggy /throat breast feathers. Unfortunately in neither of these pictures can you see those feathers. So, I can't use that as identification.

Alright, Bloggers. I fully expect to be supported or called out on my sensationalism. If I'm wrong, and this is just a plain old Crow....I'm ok with that. But if that's a Raven, then I have another bird to add to my camera-trapped list!

Help!

Music to my ears...

The two birds I'm going to write about are 2 of my favorites. And I think many people would agree that one of them indeed has a soothing musicality to it's call...and the other, not so much. But still, they're both music to my ears.

If you read last nights entry, one of the birds was mentioned. The Common Raven (paid me a visit last night), and the Common Loon (paid me a visit during work today) are 2 of my favorites because of what their call reminds me of. Almost every summer, for the past 26 years, I've visited the Adirondack Mountains in Northern NY. The ADKs make me think of happy childhood times spent exploring bogs, climbing boulders, canoeing, fishing, bike riding...and then adult summers spent on GORGEOUS Raquette Lake working as a camp counselor for young girls. The Ravens spend alot of their time in the tree tops talking about goodness only knows what. And the loons are just the essence of the wild to me. I have a loon call as my ringtone on my phone because I just love it! People look at me like I'm crazy (like a loon?) when I get a call in public :)

Last night as I was writing, I heard a disturbance outside. One Raven calling is alot of noise, and when I got outside I counted 4 Ravens arguing at the top of an aspen literally a stones throw from my front door. I don't know what the issue was, or what the relation was between the birds (if any), but I just couldn't get over the noise! If you haven't heard a Raven before, check out the All About Birds: Common Raven Sounds page. Play all of the calls at once, turn the volume up, and that's what it sounded like here.

This is the only picture I could get of any of them in the aspen, as they were all hopping and flapping around. But then I heard a croak behind me...

...and up above my cabin in a dead spruce tree was a big Raven. I'm not sure if this bird was old, or dominant, or what...but he/she gave off this air of importance. Almost like a parent watching over the brood.

This bird is in the midst of croaking to the others in the tree behind me...

 

The Common Loon, like I said above, is just a regal looking, evocative sounding bird. Click on All About Birds: Common Loon Sounds to take a listen. Today I was out tracking Lake Trout on Hidden Lake (more on this eventually...) and I was able to see at least 3 different Loons. I saw many, but they may have been all the same birds, but I did see 3 flying over our boat and land together. Most of the pictures I got of the birds, were from a distance...because as soon as you approach, they dive underwater. And they can stay underwater for many minutes at a time, often surfacing a long distance from where they submerged.

Here are 2 of the 3, the one on the left was doing something really interesting. It was preening! Usually we see birds doing this on land, sitting in a tree, somewhere stable. But loons can barely support themselves due to where their legs are set- far back on the body. A duck or goose's legs are right under it's body, but the loon's are almost at the very end of their body! I did a quick Google search for "loon leg placement" and came up with some great images. If I ever found a loon on land, I would try to get it back to water...not advocating for the handling of wildlife, but I would feel compelled to do that. So this loon was preening in the water and rolling around showing it's white belly!

All I kept thinking was "splish splash, I was takin' a bath..."

The best loon picture one could hope to take...I was so lucky to get this picture with my zoom out on a bouncing boat...

And then I got caught watching! The loon didn't seem to mind, and allowed me one more shot before we moved off to a different part of the lake.

Although these two species of birds are polar opposites, they remind me of home. I'm 5,000 miles away for the summer, and I'm not really homesick...just wistful to be enjoying my home state in the summer months. At least I can hear a comforting sound in my temporary home :)

A Lesson: Aging Fish Scales

Earlier this week we had a very rainy, miserable day, and temps barely topped 50 degrees. After going out the the Funny River to check the weir, and getting thoroughly soaked, I was offered the chance to sit in the office for the rest of the afternoon and learn to age fish scales. I jumped at this, not just to get out of the weather, but because I'm interested in checking out scales a bit closer.

In the Wetland Mammals class I took a couple of years ago, we found otter scat and rinsed it out so that we just had the hard bits left over. We attempted to ID the species of fish that the otter had been eating by looking at the scales. It's tedious and difficult...and as I remember, we were not successful in IDing the species.

Anyway, when I had the chance to do this again,  I was interested to actually LEARN what I'm looking at rather than just trying to compare an itty-bitty scale to a picture in a book.

I got kind of a crash course in aging scales, but this paper is very comprehensive. If you're a Fish Head, you should read it. Not only comprehesive, but written fairly "layman", so it's easy to understand. Sometimes these things are written with ONLY peers in mind, and that's not always the audience.

This is a scale card. It's kind of sticky once it gets wet, and the scales stick to it pretty well. The way it's organized is from right to left, top to bottom. SO, fish #1 that we sample goes from 1 down to 31. We take 4 scales/fish. Not sure WHY it's done this way, there's got to be a reason. Seems too odd to not have a reason. These were not the scales I would be learning to age from though. These still needed to be pressed into acetate making a permanent, hard record of the scales.

The scales I was to abe ging were in these little envelopes.

Not sure how many are in here...but way more than is considered "fun"...Also, the scales in these envelopes are no where near the size on the above card. Those scales, to give a frame of reference, are like the size of a pencil eraser. Below are the size of the scales I was working with.

Can you see them? I circled them because otherwise I don't think you'd be able to see them. They are tiny, and also very silvery/translucent. These scales came from coho and chinook smolts, which were probably finger-length, if that. And I realize that you probably can't see the scales too well, but I didn't want to write this post without sharing HOW small they are.

So what I was looking for was to determine if these fish were "0" in age (hatched that year, haven't had a chance to add a annuli ring), or a "1" year old in age (between 1 full year and 2 years of age). All of those rings you see above are not annuli, but circuli. Annuli rings are added on after a year, and are a bit more pronounced than the others. The image above points this out with an arrow, although to me, they all look the same in these drawings. Actually looking at the scales under the dissection scope seemed (or maybe I thought I was doing better than I actually was...) to be easier to pick out.

All of these fish have yet to live in salt water, they've just been hanging out in the rocks and vegetation eating inverts and growing.  At the same time of the scales being taken, they were also implanted with a PIT tag.

Q.

What is a PIT tag?

A.

A Passive Integrated Transponder tag is a radio frequency device that transmits a unique individual code to a reader where it is displayed in a numeric or alphanumeric form. The tag has no internal battery, hence the term “passive". The reader powers or excites the tag circuitry by radio frequency induction and receives the code back from the tag. Radio frequency identification does not require line of sight, tags can be read as long as they are within the range of a reader. Biomark - Specialists in Electronic Identification

I'd speak more on that above, if I had enough information to explain with. Simply, I assume half of you that are reading have worked with these tags in the field, and need little explanation. The other half of you, you know those little microchips your vet can put in the cat/dog? Same thing! The tag is actually about the size of a grain of rice- it's very, very small.

I may have the opportunity to implant some in fish later this season, and of course if that happens I'll be sure to share.

And this is the data sheet I was recording the ages on. That length is in milimeters, just to give you an idea. Above I said finger-length and 91mm is long, but that was one of the larger fish that I recorded.

I sat here for 3 hours or so, staring at these little scales, through a microscope. When I walked out of work that day, I could barely see straight. I've always had an issue looking through binoculars and microscopes, even though I have 20/20 vision. I'm not sure if that's me misusing the equipment or truly having an issue. Regardless, it was interesting to do, just will remember to take breaks next time.

I have a few blog entries in mind to write soon, and I wanted to share a picture of what was going on outside my window as I was writing this. I would like to write a full entry on these guys eventually.

Common Raven (Corvus corax)

There was a group of 4-5 Ravens hopping around the tree tops squawking very loudly...not sure what was going on but it disturbed me enough to go out on the porch and look for them!