eBirdseed.com Wild Bird Feeding Blog

Sorry for the following abbreviated post. There's an awful lot going on around here lately. (Expect a rather exciting blog entry shortly. In the meantime, Amazon Kindle info makes for great reading! (Yeah, pun intended.))

Back to the birds...

I set up the usual Olympus camera/tripod arrangement today and went about the routine... (Earlier, a beautiful Red-bellied Woodpecker had been on the suet feeder, and I wanted to get a shot should he return.) No luck on the woodpecker, but a Carolina Wren appeared on the deck rail doing its weird mating dance. (Yup, the birds are already starting mating dances and scoping the birdhouses.) Anyway, I swung the camera around and managed to get this shot of the wren in all his preparatory procreative glory.

Sometimes you just get lucky.

See you by the feeders, and expect the unexpected!

CapeCodAlan

P.S. Sooner or later, the wife and I are going to get one of them thar 10MP Rebels...

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yup, we folks here on Cape Cod got hit by a sizable snow storm.

Not a huge deal... Cape Codders have a way of getting by.

Let's wrap up that discussion about God. The first of three assertions was that the universe was created 13.7 billion years ago via the "Big Bang".

The next assertion has to do with the nature of what fired off that bang 13.7 billion years ago. Some believe it was a living god, (Intelligent Design) while others believe it was purely a matter of mechanics. But more importantly, for all but the most ardent atheists, the idea that there might have been a living omnipotent Being involved is at least remotely possible.

The final assertion takes us back to Jurassic Park's Dr. Ian Malcolm - ("No, I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way.") Today, biologists, marine biologists, and microbiologists are beginning to echo the words of Ian... In 1977, we found entire marine ecosystems around "black smokers". (Black smokers are deep, ocean-based hydrothermal vents spewing acidic water, minerals, and gasses at 700F or more.) Those ecosystems exist entirely by feeding on inorganic matter, and with absolutely no solar support. The idea, prior to 1977, that such a system (and creatures) could exist was absurd. Still... Life, (weirder, wackier, and hopelessly improbable) finds a way.

Conclusion? 13.7 billion years ago, something mind-blowing happened to create the universe. And there is a remote chance that "The Big Guy" had a hand in the event. Now, what science is beginning to tell us is that life thrives in the "remote chance", if not in the "flat out impossible". Perhaps even divine Life...

Talk about your perpetual machines.

Wondering by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

First, (before we get to the contest stuff) be aware that much of this country has suffered under some pretty severe winter conditions. Be sure that the backyard brethren have plenty of suet for energy and warmth. See our "Suet" post. (Nuthatches and Downeys love the stuff!)

Now concerning the encryption contest and its hints... A number of reports have come in suggesting that the puzzle was too hard. Ramblings about the mystery puzzle...

• If the truth be told, the mechanics of the thing were no more complex than learning two simple embroidery stitches... The problem (continuing the analogy) was that in order to solve the entire recipe puzzle you'd have to embroider a small, simple doily using the same two knots ad nauseum. Still, some people enjoy that sort of thing.
• If you've been following this blog for any period of time, one of the themes we've stressed over and over and over again is that of community involvement. We actually hope that you put down the pie, step away from the living room one-eyed brain bandit, and actually talk with a relative, friend, neighbor, or co-worker concerning our contests (and our site). Beyond that, there are countless math forums that could have helped your cause.
• Note also that the XOR operation is a critical element in your life whether you know it or not. From the computer that you're looking at right now to your ATM card, to your credit cards, to your social security information... XOR plays a crucial rule in virtually all data encryption, computer programming, and computer electronics.
• It's interesting to note that if the key is truly random, and used only once, the code is virtually unbreakable. In fact, the hotline between the USSR and the US used this data-encryption system after the 1963 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Anyway... No one solved the puzzle, no one gets the chowder, and (thankfully) I don't have to wear a mouseketeer hat out on the flats... Whew!

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This post was originally intended as an overview of bird's eyes... (That seemed an appropriate adjunct to the Oct '07 post, Crow Brains.)

Preparations for this post included the usual for this sort of entry... Dig through the Web, prep for "PhotoStudio" diagrams, "bullet" avian anatomical characteristics, compare and contrast between differing bird orders, etc. Until...

Until BIO 554/754, Ornithology, Nervous System: Brain and Special Senses II came into view...

This is without a doubt one of the finest bird Web sites around. Seriously, this is a stunning piece of academia... If you’re at all interested in birds, take a Sunday morning and a tall cup of joe and wander through that site. Kudos to Dr. Gary Ritchison.

So, now what? Let's see... Random stuff...

• Your chance to win some free genuine Cape Cod Clam Chowder (and a signed picture of yours truly wearing Mickey Mouse ears out on the clam flats) is rapidly slipping away. (See contest info and more contest info.) To make things more interesting, an old programming buddy was notified concerning the contest. Let's see what he can do...
• The New England Patriots are Super Bowl bound... But wait! This just in... Brady may be hurt! The Boston Herald is running with the story. Arghhh!!! No really... Arghhh!!! Quickly... Check your keyboard for a "Panic Button"!!! After all, there is a "Lombardi-esque" historical event hanging in the balance.
• Not sure how many of you know that we have an eBirdseed.com newsletter... But there's the link.
• The question has come up concerning the shutter speed of the NovaBird remote, movement-triggered camera. A request to NovaBird concerning this info went unanswered, so testing will follow in a later post.

That should do it for the moment,

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Looks like I've got a "two parter" here... The first has a couple of pictures of a titmouse and a Downey woodpecker. It also holds the start of a discussion concerning the existence of God. (We like to think big.) But first the birds...

Yes, we've been playing with the NovaBird again. The flesh is weak.

A few posts ago, reader Gerry asked where do birds go in inclement weather. (You can read my response here.) The photo below shows a Downey seeking shelter from the storm, (as Dylan might say).

This is the same birdhouse we built last year. (See parts 1 and 2 of that build.)

I guess that probably the best answer to Gerry's question is that birds (like life) find a way to survive... Anyway, on a broader scale, perhaps Dr. Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum) put it best in the movie "Jurassic Park"... In his defense of his theory that an all-female population of dinosaurs could somehow still breed, he replied, "No, I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way." And that takes us to our coffee-table chat... Does God exist? (We have a rather large coffee table.) The argument that follows is from an agnostic engineer (me). Let's come at this with three simple assertions, and a final conclusion....

The first assertion has to do with the assumption that something fairly complex started this universe about 13.7 billion years ago, (see Wikipedia - "Age of the universe"). Read that the "Big Bang". Yup, the majority of the scientific community now agrees that roughly 13,700,000,000 years ago, some hot, dense, nondescript, non-temporal "primordial goop" coalesced to an infinitely small state, and kablooey! All space, matter, and time as we know it entered the picture.

That's all we have time for tonight campers... Tune in next time for more photos, and a debate that's sure to raise St Anselm...

See you by those ontological feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. Read Part 2 of this thread here.

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 3:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you haven't checked out The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) yet, you might just want to take a look. This is a joint project from the folks at the Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology... I'd go into detail, but the name seems to say it all. Just follow the first link and you should be all set. (But watch the dates! February 15th to the 18th is the whole enchilada...)

Associated with the GBBC is a fantastic little applet - the online bird tally sheet. This utility will give you some very specific information concerning the birds that reside (or vacation) in your neighborhood. Very handy indeed when it comes to selecting seed, feeders, suet, etc...

What else? Well, we're looking at ways to better get our eBirdseed.com message into the ether that is the Web... And one of the ways I've been fussing with is the emerging social networking stuff. The following two videos might offer some insight...

Social networking:

Other stuff... The contest is looking good. (Read that... It looks like I'm not going to have to don a mouseketeer beanie and go scratching quahogs, though I've given some pretty hearty hints...)

Guess that should do it for today...

See you by the feeders sans mouse ears,

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, I give you fair warning... The end of this post contains a link to a popup which shows a picture of a coyote gulping down the last of a gray squirrel. There's no blood, and no guts, but there is a squirrel foot sticking out of the coyote's mouth. If that sort of thing disturbs you, don't click on the link.

Onward...

Early yesterday morning, I gave thought to setting up the automatic NovaBird camera, and simply letting it run all day. And just before I started to rig the system, I looked out and saw a beautiful coyote with half a squirrel in his yap. (Keep in mind that I like squirrels. Also, I think they serve as a good alarm system for the birds - this is especially true when one of them gets devoured under the feeders.) It wasn't a pretty sight and it probably wasn't a pleasant sound either. Still, that's the name of the game, and we all need to understand that.

Let's be careful around the feeders...

Ok, on to happier stuff... In the last post, I introduced a puzzle for a recipe. My hope was that you guys would mess around with it, seek out help from your geek friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc., and maybe come up with a solution. Well, I've gotten some feedback, and quite frankly, I'd like to save you a little time. Here's how the encryption game works...

1. Understand that a computer character is typically represented by a unique pattern of eight 1s and 0s, (known as binary ASCII). For instance, the letter "A" is "01000001". (The Web is loaded with conversion tables.) Take note that each "1" or "0" is called a "bit".
2. An unknown "key" is converted into binary ASCII. (You have to find the key... Something about 1775... Obviously, I know what the key is.)
3. Next, I used a simple math operation called XOR to encrypt the recipe by meshing the key with the recipe. How is the meshing done? Well, each eight bits of the key are sequentially compared with each eight bits of the recipe to produce the mish mash in the last post. (An XOR operation is simply a measure of uniqueness. A "1" XORed with a "0" shows variety, and results in a "1"... Whereas, "0" XORed with a "0" demonstrates no variety and produces a "0"... A "1" XORed with a "1" also yields a "0".)

So how do we undo the XORed mish mash in the last post and find out what the recipe really was? Very simple... We XOR the mish mash with the binary ASCII equivalent of the key and poof! The recipe reveals itself. I'll get you started... The key begins with the character "T", and that breaks down to: "01010100". Now, if you XOR that with the first 8 bits of the mystery mess ("01100111"), you'll get "00110011", or the binary ASCII code for the character "3". (Yes, the recipe begins with the number "3" as in "3 eggs,".)

But the problem still remains... What is the key? (Hint: Keep in mind the phrase "the earth has many keys", and the number 1775.) Also note that once you understand the XOR process and have the key, the actual decipher is just an extraordinarily boring, simple, tedious process. Hmmm...

And with the hints out of the way... Again, warning! Coyote picture follows:

See you by those annoying feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Time we had a new contest... But this one ain't so easy. The picture below is a secret code I wrote for a recipe. (Might help to print it out...) The hints are provided. With the right research and whatnot, this can be cracked in your spare time. (Unfortunately, I didn't have that whatnot, and had to cipher the beast by hand. Still perfectly doable though time consuming...)

So... If you come up with the complete, correct recipe and a valid description of how you broke the code, what will you win? You'll get a quart of my fresh, frozen, vacuum-packed, home-made clam chowder (shipped anywhere in the continental U.S.) and a signed picture of me out on the clam flats wearing a Mickey Mouse hat... I kid you not.

The contest is open to everyone... Employees of eBirdseed.com and their family members are welcome, as are our regular customers and blogites, strangers, wee beasties from Mars... (Yup, only I know the encryption process, and I have absolutely no intention of wearing Mickey Mouse ears for anyone.)

Note: Delivery of prize will depend upon weather and tides. Contest ends 11:59pm EST, 1/24/08

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. For what it's worth... It's been a number of years since I created this puzzle. "Aut" is another term for XOR.

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Meet Ms. Mousey... Alright, everyone be forewarned that if I get any teasing concerning this post, I ain't gonna' be happy!

Onward...

One of the advantages about backyard birding is that you never quite know what the process will entail... Enter Ms. Mousey. Here's her "tale."

The wife and I buy and store a lot of seed, and try to keep the rodents at bay using sealed bins. But a few seeds do spill and the occasional mouse does get into the garage, and well, there you go. No problem, right? We just used those little humane "trap and release" gadgets, walked the captors down the road into the woods, and let the little buggers go. Still, the mouseketeers kept coming. After a while it became apparent that we didn't have a problem with squeaker saturation, but rather an issue with rodent recidivism. There were just a few of the little beasts, but they kept coming back. It got to the point that we'd release one, and it would make a bee line back to the house faster than we could. What to do?

Thankfully, "Otis" the owl stepped in, and that took care of most of the vermin pronto... But still one remained. We trapped it and pondered - finally deciding to put her in a wire-topped aquarium. That has been her official residence for the last three years. It took her time to acclimate, but she has become a fun pet, forever untouched. In fact, she sits less than five feet from me now. Ms. Mousey thoroughly enjoys her running wheel, white chocolate, and pecans. And she seems to be doing well... The average lifespan of a field mouse is 2 years. She is coming up on twice that.

Anyway, just goes to show ya' that you never know where residential birding is going to end up...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The next photo shows the strange beauty of the sweeping flight of the bird.

We saw no blood, and no feathers, so there is some doubt as to the success of the swoops, though it's hard to believe that 3 or 4 assaults would yield nothing. Perhaps a better question is, "What bird did this?" I lean towards "Otis" the Eastern Screech-Owl, or one of his ilk. Suzie thinks that the marauder might have been a Great Horned Owl. The following snapshot of Otis shows him perched in a 3" to 3.5" hole.

See you by those unforgiving feeders,

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 3:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

#10: I will not stop eating salty snacks while I write this blog. And frankly, I don't care how greasy the keyboard gets. Gee... The letter "S" sticksss... How did that happen?

#9: I will not blow $33,995.00 on a Hasselblad digital SLR camera. Sorry, but the Hasselblad is beneath me. Besides, why should I deprive you of such masterpieces as the shot below?

#7: I will not fail to give comfort to "birds" Condoleezza Rice and Michelle Malkin should they both stumble upon our doorstep simultaneously on a dark and stormy night whilst soaked and laden with beer. (The wife gives her permission on this one. For the life of me I don't know why she isn't threatened by the thought of that kind of realistic female competition.)

#6: I will not curse neighbors who let their cats roam. (Ok... I lied again. I'll curse irresponsible pet owners right into the River Styx.)

#5: I will not use birding projects to justify boat building projects. (Ummm... Let's just "pencil in" that non-resolution.)

#4: I will not try to show our cat "Toby" the birds that amble just beyond the glass sliders because he simply doesn't get it. (One of his nicknames is "Captain Dial Tone". You get the idea.)

#3: I will not discourage the wife from feeding the birds in the morning.

#2: I will not discourage the wife from feeding the birds in the afternoon.

#1: I will not... Whoaaa!!! Wait a second... I think I hear someone at the front door! It must be Condi and Michelle! Gotta go!

See you by the feeders, and man will I have some stories to tell!

CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Happy new year!

Well, the college football madness is in full swing, the weather has been miserable, the gorged Christmas credit-card bills will be arriving soon... Maybe we need a break from this time of year. How about an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, (Papilio glaucus)? Now that gives the ol' eyeballs a change!

And just to keep things interesting and a tad different... For Christmas, Gordon et al were kind enough to send me scads of wild rice along with a couple of family recipes. The recipe we used (excellent by the way) follows, along with my future rendition...

• 2 cups of real Minnesota wild rice (not that black stuff) well rinsed. (Put rice in pan and add water. Drain and repeat until water is clear - this may be 4 or 5 times.) Drain last time.
• 4 cups boiling water
• 1 cup fresh sliced button mushrooms
• .25 cup chopped green onion
• .25 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
• .50 cup dried cranberries. We use "Craisins"
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• .33 cup pine nuts, toasted

1. In a large, covered saucepan, cook wild rice in boiling salted water for about 20 minutes or till rice is tender and most of the liquid is absorbed.
2. Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, cook mushrooms, onion and celery in hot oil for 5 minutes or till tender.
3. Add the vegetable mixture, peas, cranberries and soy sauce to rice. Cook , uncovered, for 3 to 4 minutes more or till heated through and the remaining liquid is absorbed. Salt to taste.
4. To serve, transfer rice to a serving bowl. Top with nuts. Makes 14 servings. (To use left over rice, scramble an egg in a fry pan and chop in small pieces. Add the left over rice and heat through. Makes a complete meal.)

• chicken white meat
• chicken livers/hearts
• lima beans
• crawfish meat (the most underrated food on earth)
• shrimp
• sausage/linguica/chourico/bratwurst, etc.

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)