Some time ago I promised that we'd occasionally take a break from the backyard bird stuff and pursue an occasional "coffee-table" discussion concerning issues involving politics, social issues, and what not. And I will do that again... But not now! Check out the pics below!!!

• The creatures above are Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris)...
• They're omnivores and bug eaters (three cheers for the turkeys!)
• A fully-grown wild turkey weighs between 8 and 15 pounds and sports a wingspan of three to four feet
• An adult gobbler can grow up to 4' tall
• Ben Franklin wanted to make the turkey the U.S. National Bird (If Jefferson and Madison could have foreseen the ilk of today's politicians, they might just have agreed with old Ben.)

(Once again, the battered NovaBird camera comes through...)

As the summer wears on, we've noticed more and more activity from the hummingbirds around the feeders. (See the cam site below for real-time streaming.) And once again, the hummers seem to harbor no fear of us. If we're out on the deck and get in their way, we get buzzed pronto. They're such interesting little birds.

Sorry to drone on like this, but the birds are just amazing. How is it that the turkey hen protects her poults? Why does the color of the throat of a red-throat change from black to orange to red in just a few degrees and a heartbeat? Obviously, the answers are out there... But it's still fun to muddle and ponder...

Anyway,

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Guess it was bound to happen... Spend enough time in the garden fussing with the birds, and sooner or later some dragonfly would pause in front of our lens and the wife or I would get a good photo... And then we'd be off on another hobby... This time Mrs. CCA took the shots (using the diminutive Vivitar 8600s), and the rest will no doubt be history...

Now is that neat or what?!? To see the complete set of pics in all their glory, click here. (Be sure to use the "All Sizes" option to see these creatures in detail.)

So what have we got? As best we can tell, the wee beastie above is a "Gomphus borealis" (aka a Beaverpond Clubtail Dragonfly). But to take a quick step back, two things seem to give away his general lineage... First, he's resting with his wings open and forward. Secondly, his rear set of wings swell in size as they approach the torso. (Typically, the "dragonfly wanna be" damselfly exhibit neither of these traits.)

Onward...

Other cool stuff about the dragonfly...

• They're harmless to humans
• They eat mosquitoes and flies (We need to attract more of these critters!)
• Dragonflies as a species are apx. 300 million years old. Compare that to birds at roughly 200 million years, and humans at 0.1 million years.... Hmmm...

Ok, one more last, last note... Just for fun... Does anyone care to document the little tan rectangles on the outer leading edges of the wings?

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Summer is here, and the backyard and just beyond truly comes alive... Some thoughts...

Nice little water feature for the deck, no? In the warmer months, Mrs. CCA likes to buy decorative ceramic pots, load them up with stones and water, and then embed a small water pump near the top. Not only is the gurgling sound pleasant, but it's supposed to attract birds as well. But it's so important to note that birds and other wee critters have an easy and shallow footing to exit the vessel. If you simply fill up a large pot with water, sooner or later a bird is going to drown. (Learned that lesson the rough way years ago.)

Also, when setting up feeders, etc. avoid "Shepherds' Hooks" like the one in the appallingly bad drawing below*.

The joint where the vertical ground support meets the curved hanger makes for a great animal trap. Once again, I learned this one the hard way.

Finally, don't lose sight of the stuff you already know...

• Bar-b-ques are a blast, but keep an eye open for those empty plastic six-pack holders.
• When you descend upon your favorite fishing hole or hike, take just a few minutes to look for lost monofilment line and other trash in the bushes... Birds try to use that junk to make nests with sometimes tragic results.
• For us, (we live near the ocean and the clam flats) an ideal sea-shore trip always includes a big, heavy-duty plastic bag. Unfortunately, it only takes us a few minutes to fill it with all sorts of refuse that's harmful to both man and beast... (The Resource Police love us though!)

Just my $.02...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

* I can't even draw using something as simple as Google SketchUp. Back to crayons I guess... Sigh...

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Good afternoon, Mr. Catbird! Seems that these guys also enjoy the jelly.

See the full-size picture here.

So much for the bird-related fun... Occasionally in this blog, we actually get serious about stuff, and this is one of those times...

I took this job a couple of years ago with the understanding that these posts weren't simply going to be thinly-veiled advertisements. Since then, I've posted some 250+ entries, and a careless sawyer can count on one hand the number of times I've "pushed" a product. That being said, eBirdseed.com is a business, and advertising of one sort or another is required. And now, in some small way, I'm involved in the process. I bring this up not as a warning that this blog is going to change, because it isn't. It's still going to be birds, birds, and more birds with brief respites for other insanity like this.

Nope, we are not changing this blog, but I am going to bring this full circle and gripe about Internet Advertising in general. Look... As you're reading this, you're probably pretty Internet savvy. And if you're like me, you order a lot of stuff off the Web. Why oh why oh why is it so difficult to find what we want and need in the electronic ether? Granted, about 85% of searches will turn up what you're looking for using a decent query. But that other 15% will just drive a person nuts. (How many times have the wife and I shlumped with head in hands, and pleaded to some murky vendor behind the flat screen... Look, all I'm trying to do is give you my money... Why are you making this so difficult?!?

Anyway... We're trying to make sure that we don't fall into that forlorn 15%... So let's be clear...

To contact me, simply use the comment button below, or email me at capecodalan@ebirdseed.com. Or you can call (218) 486-5607 and talk with the owner Gordon. (Don't you wish GM or Microsoft worked that way?)

Anyway... See you by those "Mad Ave" feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 3:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For those of you new to this blog, we very frequently use the remote, motion-triggered NovaBird camera. And, after roughly 10,000 photos, the camera seemed to give up the ghost. But after some tinkering, hope springs eternal, and the rig managed to fire off 15 very respectable shots today out of a total of 483... Not bad at all - normal in fact. Consider the one of the Downy Woodpecker below...

Click here to see the full-size version of the above image.

But that begs another issue - that of picture storage organization. (If you own a digital camera, you're probably facing the same problem.) What are we going to do with hundreds if not thousands (or even tens of thousands) of images? In the past, we outlined a simple folder structure/file-naming taxonomy both locally, and on our eBirdseed.com photo library... But the "bird name_photo type_camera settings_date.jpg" format simply isn't cutting the mustard. If for no other reason, we're using different cameras with different capabilities and different applications... What to do? (You professional photographers out there please input via the "Comment" button... (I'm "winging it" on this one...)) Ok... How about if we use the old newspaper credo of "who, what, when, where, why, and how"? That is...

• Who took the photo
• Of what bird
• And when was the picture taken
• Along with where the snapshot was captured
• Finally, we need to know why or how the image was recorded (that is, what camera was used)

So, using that system, a typical file name might be: CCA_robin in oak tree_7 11 08_bells neck resev_harwich_eos_better_ver 1.jpg. (This all feels terribly awkward, but I can't find a better system... After all... The computer I'm working on has 3,426 pics stored in 160 folders, and this is just one of three computers in our current network.)

'Til we can come up with a better system of organizing photographs... Discombobulated by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The activity around the garden birdhouse has been, well, active. Both house sparrow parents have been extremely busy ferrying food to the young ones--at a guess, at least four of them--for the past few weeks. As we're out and around in the garden, we can hear the cheeping of hungry birdlings coming from the box. Happily, our presence doesn't seem to annoy the parents, and they just keep chugging along, bringing load after load of food to stuff into eager beaks.

Early this morning we were very privileged to view a few of the young sparrows fledge, taking their first flights out of the bird box to nearby trees. First, a small head head peeks out, then retreats. The head re-appears and looks right, left, up, and down. Thinks about things. Retreats again. The third time's a winner; the young sparrow pushes off and heads for the pines. Landing on a twig, he teeters precariously for a few seconds, gets his balance, and hops up to a more stable perch.

His brother is not so graceful. Emulating his sibling, he peeks and retreats a few times, then launches himself out of the box, only to collide in mid-air with a grackle flying past. The grackle, more mature and bigger, simply continues flying; the young sparrow takes an unplanned dive to the ground. After sitting and thinking for a few seconds, he flutters to a nearby bush, gathers his composure and heads hesitatingly toward his brother in the pine.

Within an hour, four little sparrows had exited the box at the urging of their parents. Once the fledglings were in the trees, the parents flew off into the woods. This caused some concern among the young, who sat on branches, cheeping in alarm at this desertion. As the day wore on, at least a few of the young sparrows retreated back to the box, and as of this evening, Mama Sparrow was still bringing food to fill hungry beaks.

Meanwhile, at the other feeders, one of the young red-bellied woodpeckers is learning how to handle the suet feeder...

Yes, it's certainly a festival of fledglings around here!

See you and the hungry young birds by the feeders,

Mrs. CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry for the delay... It's been a busy 4th, and other stuff has kept me jumping as well. But beyond all that, this has been a time for reflection (as it should be for all Americans)... We'll take a look at that another time.

Well, the "wabbits" are back in force! We've got way too many pics to post here, and we haven't even had a chance to enter them in our eBirdseed library (link below). We'll get on that ASAP! In the mean time, here's a nice shot... (As always, if you see a photo that you like and it's not in our library, just use the "Comment" button below and ask for the original, or you can email me at: capecodalan@ebirdseed.com... It's all free folks.)

What is it about our yard (aside from the crabgrass) that attracts these "hoppers"? Maybe it's the simple activity, protection, and safety therein... Who knows?

And on a completely different (and sad) note, it looks like "Ms. Mousey" is squeaking her last... Yup... Perhaps the world's oldest mouse can now barely walk, and falls over when trying to eat and drink. A lucky field mouse lasts 2 years... At best guess, Ms. Mousey has doubled that and then some, and now is apx. 110 years old in human years. Part of me wants to hasten the end and use carbon monoxide from the car's exhaust to put her to sleep - it seems cruel to let her starve to death. But another part of me hopes she can rally and enjoy a few more weeks.

Someone should sell tickets to this world.

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 5:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)