eBirdseed.com Wild Bird Feeding Blog

• the entrant must take the photo
• all entries need to be in the ".JPG" format
• the main subject of the picture has to be a bird actually on or at a feeder
• all appropriate snapshots immediately enter the public domain (no copyrights) and will be placed in our eBirdseed.com photo library for all to share and enjoy
• pictures that show entire bird bodies and faces are desirable
• eBirdseed.com employees and their family members cannot participate
• eBirdseed.com will determine contest winner

• You can email me at capecodalan@ebirdseed.com and simply attach your JPG file
• You can use the "URL" box in the "Comment" field in conjunction with a file-sharing service like "Flickr" or "PhotoBucket"
• If you have difficulties, you can email me at my address above (or just use the "Comment" button) and I can walk you through the appropriate process

Looking forward to your entries...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hi all,

That shot seems like a pleasant way to start off this post. In fact, it feels like a good way to wind down the summer. I just put the NovaBird remote camera out and let it go to town. (Use the "Photo Library" link below to see more oriole pics, etc.) I don't know... Maybe it's the ornery political season, or perhaps it's the weather, but today it just felt like it's been a long haul through the Dog Days and I wasn't in the mood for fussing, so I stuck the remote camera out and forgot about it.

And that might just be a good topic for the rest of this post. For whatever reason, there are times when backyard birding just ain't very high on the agenda. I read all the other birding blogs and am usually dialed right into the bloggers' enthusiasm. But occasionally I (like many people) get "birded" out. The attitude is probably something along the lines of, Yeah, I fed the birds, now leave me alone... I've got XYZ to do..." And ultimately, that might just be backyard birding's most enticing feature - you can toss $1 or $2 worth of seed in the feeders and not feel guilty walking away and paying attention to something else. But I defy you to blow $30,000 on a boat and not feel guilty for every second that you're not swabbing her deck. Put bluntly, feeding the birds is a cheap but subtle, and deeply rewarding diversion. When all is said and done, it's kind of funny how we spend our days... We work ourselves half crazy, and try to "play" out the other half. It's almost as if all of adulthood is the end of a too-long summer, and the birds have been watching the entire show. Fall will be superb this year...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, our little boat turned out just fine. Here's a bow shot of Harwich's Herring River from her...

A nice sunset picture... Extraordinarily serene...

Finally, this is a photo of a merganser...

But the last snapshot begs the question... Given that this blog is scattered across the World Wide Web, exactly whose backyard are we talking about? It's weird to write about Cape Cod chickadees (or even mergansers) and then think that someone half way across the country might find a disconnect. To address that question, we ask the following... "What birds do you have in your backyard that might seem unusual to someone on Cape Cod?" Hmmm... As a matter of fact, maybe we can go one step further to make this more interesting...

Suppose we had some sort of backyard bird photo contest... We'd have to work out the details as to when the contest starts and stops, and what the prize would be, but we could at least nail down some of the contest details like:

• the bird photo would have to be taken by the entrant
• eBirdseed.com employees and their family members cannot participate
• the pic would have to be of a bird actually perched on a feeder
• all appropriate snapshots would immediately enter the public domain (no copyrights) and be placed in our eBirdseed.com photo library for all to share and enjoy

Pondering by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey, we've got another "Gomphus borealis" (aka a Beaverpond Clubtail Dragonfly)!

To see a much larger version of this shot, click here. It's easy to understand how folks become interested in entomology...

Onward!

What follows deserves telling if for no other reason but the humor involved... Yesterday we struck out in an effort to retrieve our "new" 1957 Starcraft SpeedQueen aluminum boat. The trip should have been 2 1/2 hours to get to the boat's location, half an hour to get it hooked up and 2 1/2 hours to bring her home... Yeah, the plan was to leave at 2 PM, and be back around 7:30 - 8 PM. However, there were some mitigating factors...

• I've never really towed a trailer before... (I did once, but that was with a full-size dump truck hauling a bulldozer - obstacles were hardly obstacles at all...)
• The boat and trailer are older than dirt
• Much of our haul was on the Mass Pike and 495 where the average speed is Warp 7
• There were one-hour traffic delays both en route and coming home... (One of the unexpected rewards of those delays is that we got to take a few shots of wild plants like this one of loosestrife(?))
  

• A trolling motor for virtually any pond of our choosing
• A 3 hp for waters that allow restricted motor use
• A 9.5 hp for serious tooling about

When all is said and done, I imagine that we'll be using the silent electric trolling motor for bird photographs galore. Stay tuned.

See you by the feeders or on the water,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. If you take nothing else away from this post, please note the following... I measured the gas consumption carefully... On the unencumbered trip out to pick up the boat we drove the usual 60 mph - 65 mph, and that cost us roughly $25 in gasoline. The same exact trip back under the same exact conditions (except that we were carefully towing a 500 lb load) cost us only $15. So why was the same trip with a boat/trailer/motor so much cheaper (by ~40%) than with just the car alone? Very simple... On the way back, we kept the speed down to 45 mph - 50 mph, and we avoided quick stops and starts. In the long run towing cost us very little time, was much easier on the tow vehicle, and saved 40% on gas costs. Wouldn't it be nice if our elected officials would tell us stuff like this?

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, we had a very quick but almost-robust set of thunderstorms here in Harwich. (Other parts of the Cape got hit quite a bit harder.) The pic below will give you some idea.

Yeah, it looked pretty ominous for a while. But the storm was moving too fast and was gone in just 20 or 30 minutes. In a way, it was a bummer of sorts to see it go. Not that anyone wants to see someone get hurt or property damaged... Still, it was a classic "end-of-the-summer" storm - cold air meeting warm earth and water.

Time to ready for Fall in all its wandering vagaries... Expect the spiders to be coming in soon... Have you gotten that heating system cleaned yet? And what about the heating bills? (Are you ready for those?) We'll have to get rid of our old truck to make room for our "new" old boat... Have you cleaned and prepped the feeders for colder weather? What about high-energy foods like suet for bird migration fuel? (Remember to refrigerate...) With a little luck, I'd like to see if I can't paint the house before it gets too cold. (Late August/early September are the best times to paint a house as long as you watch the weather and avoid the cold and dew...) I'm long overdue when it comes to making homebrew. (I used to make a superb red ale. I wonder if I still have the recipe?)

And so it goes... As the old folk song reminds - a circle game...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow... Tempus fugit... It's been a long time since our first post on June 29, 2006. Since then, this blog has seen a ton of goofy stuff like contests, math, and astronomy.... And let's not forget all those bird posts and pictures.

Other cool stuff includes:

• UFO Crash Involving Strange Space Bird!
• Goodnight Tale for Lisa
• Crow Brains
• Emily Dickinson... There's a Certain Slight
• The Long Night
• A brief explanation of digital photography part 1 and part 2
• Building a Bird House part 1 and part 2

Certainly one of our greatest steps forward was being accepted into syndication for the Amazon Kindle reading device. (Now if they'd only start publishing us!)

Yup, We've come a long way... But there's a long way to go, too. We're looking at stuff like podcasting, seed clubs, social networking, etc., and we really need input from you guys as to the direction you'd like to see this blog take. Come on, speak up!

See you by the feeders (for another 300 posts?)

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Just what have we got here?

Hmmm... It appears that the first digit (equivalent to our big toe) of this anisodactyl foot has something on it. One of the truly enjoyable things about backyard birding is that you just never quite know what you're going to see. So what in the name of Phineas J. Whoopee is on that grackle's foot? Thoughts...

• Well, it might be a camera-generated optical illusion. That may sound overly skeptical, but after slogging through at least 10,000 of these sorts of pictures, one learns that the lens can do almost anything. Still, the three concentric rings offer a lot of uniformity that anomaly usually doesn't tolerate.
• It might be a tag of some sort. But a quick look on the Web doesn't produce any sort of bird tag that looks like that.
• In a way, it almost looks like veterinary gauze. Perhaps the bird was hurt, and someone did a rather neat job of patching it up.
• Is this someone's pet grackle? Maybe there's an explanation there...
• Hopefully, this isn't some sort of trash in which the creature got tangled.

It's funny... We set the remote camera out in hopes of getting some good woodpecker pics. And while we did get some respectable photographs, this is the shot that really caught the attention... You just never know...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 2:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Obviously, the image above hardly smacks of backyard birding. But it is an attention getter. (Photo from the 2008 "National Hurricane Preparedness Week Poster".) Back on May 9th, we prodded you to prep for disasters including flooding and hurricanes. Well, 'tis the middle of hurricane season, and folks on the coastlines should take extra precautions to check their emergency supplies. (In short, we're pestering you yet again.) Still, the Cape Cod Emergency Preparedness Handbook is a freebie and a must have for every person reading this post regardless of location.

That out of the way, we might as well drill down a bit more into the subject of flooding... Check out FloodSmart.gov for all sorts of tips concerning flooding... A word to the wise...

What else storm-related? Ummm... The National Oceanographic Data Center tracks ocean temps and compares them with historical data... Keep an eye on warming ocean water that goes beyond the typical by just two degrees C... Warm water often offers up energy for severe storms. Besides, the site is just an interesting read.

Before we go... Just gotta get in a Winter mourning dove shot. Perhaps this will take a bit out of the swelter of August.

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

P.S. For something completely different, check out Grand Rants, a new blog the wife, I, and a friend just started. It's mostly political science and social stuff, but nothing is off limits including birds.

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 4:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, the old NovaBird remote camera soldiers on....

and...

Let this post just be a reminder that eBirdseed.com offers free, "no-hassle", "no-sign-up", "no-registration", "no-blood-sample", "no-first-born" resources like the photo library link below. Right now, our library contains roughly 2,000 photos, and they're all free for the taking. Possible uses for those shots? Well...

• Many would make for good wallpaper. (Pay special attention to our "Favorite" and " NovaBird" sets.)
• Students of ornithology probably will find something of interest
• Graphic artists can peruse the photos to find just the right color and then use something like Photoshop to determine the exact RGB value for that color
• Fly-tyers can study bird feathers to get a better feeling for "what's out there"
• Lastly, photographers might discover something of interest

With that... Tis late and the eyes are crossing... Nighty night...

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 1:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'll get to the bird stuff in a minute, but right now, I need a break... (You'll understand why shortly, but in the mean time please bear with me.)

When we set up our eBirdseed Webcam, we needed a computer in the kitchen. I pictured a simple, dedicated machine destined to stream the feathered ones and collect dust. It didn't quite work out that way. Over time, the kitchen machine has become invaluable for checking email, looking up recipes, finding phone numbers, glancing at the news, playing a quick game of solitaire, etc. Moral of the story? If you can find a way to incorporate a computer in your existing kitchen, do it. And if you're remodeling or building new, by all means plan for a kitchen computer. You won't be sorry.

There, thanks for giving me that avian respite. And what follows are the reasons that I needed it...

Well, the day started promising. I set up the NovaBird remote camera just after sunrise with the intention of getting a few award-winning, close-up photos of the turkeys. I'd tried the previous afternoon and got 300+ pics of blurry ground and blurry squirrels. I thought that today was to be different. Around noon, I brought the camera in with roughly 400 shots on board. Surely there must be a decent image in there somewhere. We'll never know. I plugged the SD card into one of our computers, and in a masterful bit of multitasking between three computers, ten applications, and one cat, I deftly deleted all photos without even looking at them first. (And no, Windows XP does not save files deleted off an SD chip in the Recycle Bin...) Grrr! So I put the camera back out, and checked it 6 hours later. There were another 300+ pics of blurry ground and blurry squirrels. Double grrr! A little math indicates that I took 1,000+ photographs in two days, lost 400, and weeded through another 600 all for a total of zipoid.

And just to round out the happiness of this particular post... I recently learned that one of the turkeys that roams our neighborhood decided that it was ok to hop up on Rocky Chase's picnic table whilst he was eating there. I don't know what my life-long buddy did, but I know what I would have done... Slowly stepped away... Both turkeys and geese fall into the same "Threat Department" - both birds will attack humans. Just check YouTube for videos of turkey attacks. This is no joke.

Now do you see why I needed a bird break?

See you by those exasperating feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, per usual, I was working quietly in our home office when a very distinct thump/bang sound nudged the usual silence. Worried that our "Navigationally-Challenged Wonder Cat", Toby had run into yet another table leg, I ventured forth in search of the usual flustered feline. I found him alright, but far from flustered. He was frozen mid-slouch in the living room, with his head down, ears back, and eyes staring into the spare bedroom. "Hmmm," methinks. "This is not good." If someone was at the door, Toby would have pulled a rapid "Snaglepuss" and exited stage left for the underside of the bed. Nope, the cat was confused and scared. Really not good... So I made the usual rounds, but could find nothing askew or broken. Anyway, I wrote it off to the groans of an "experienced" house (nothing that money and copious amounts of time can't fix) and started back for the office. As I passed through the dining room, for just a fraction of a fraction of a second, on the outermost edge of my peripheral vision, I spied through the glass sliders a most-unnatural monster and it was staring at me. Tough to describe the feeling to those who haven't been there, but I'll do my best. Imagine walking past the open door of Congress, and as you pass you glimpse a pack of congressmen and congresswomen and they're clutching all your credit cards and checkbooks. A pack of slow, mechanical zombies... Staring... Silent... Indifferent... Creepy stuff ain't it? Lucky for me it was just the three below. (But on second thought, turkeys are turkeys even if they're wearing suits.)

Now about those birds... Judging from the sound they made when they arrived on the deck railing, 20 lbs of wild turkey can make quite a thud when they "stick a landing". Someone oughta sell tickets.

To wrap this one up... In the last post, Mrs. CCA asked the question, "Why do turkeys cross the road?" Her answer was that they came here to eat all our seed. I think she only got that one partly correct. They also come here to scare the tar out of the cat and me.

See you by the feeders if Big Bird doesn't get me first,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To eat our delicious birdseed, of course!

Seriously, though: aren't these amazing creatures? Mother turkey and six poults have been lurking in the neighborhood for several weeks now, eating pretty much anything they can peck up off the ground. I think they're gorgeous!

See you by those overflowing feeders!

Mrs. CapeCodAlan

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 9:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know, I know, I know... I keep promising to give the backyard birding bustle a break, and I will. I truly will. We'll gather round the ol' coffee table and solve all the world's problems, if just for a moment... But once again, not right now.

Check out the osprey (?) pic to the right... Suzie and I were out on the deck and heard the ominous kwee! kwee! kwee! calls coming from two birds wheeling above... Mrs. CCA managed to point the camera to the azure and snap this simple photo. But even a simple photo speaks volumes and opens a myriad of topics and talking points...

• Right off the bat, I think we're are looking at an osprey. The dark colorings and the outermost trailing feathers ("primaries") suggest as much. Still... It could be a hawk.
• As we live only a quarter mile from a small freshwater pond, the sight of ospreys comes as no surprise. They're supposedly exclusive fish eaters... However...
• The bird was big... Very big. Maybe a 2' - 3' wingspan.
• Did you know that ospreys can dive at roughly 80mph and plunge 3' into the water to snag a fish its own weight? Check out more facts at the Public Service of New Hampshire site.
• Trying to photograph these guys is pretty danged difficult. As far as I can tell, the photographic procedure involves rigging the camera with fresh batteries, making the appropriate adjustments to the "Brownie's" automatic settings, and then crossing your fingers. (Why does that not feel like an immediately rewarding hobby?)
• The picture also raises a dark topic - that of other predators around the feeders. Sorry, but it's the name of the game. If you have a healthy backyard menagerie, you're most likely going to have hunters and occasional piles of feathers. Not pretty, but it is what it is.

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In two years, it's a pretty safe bet that we've covered every imaginable subject on this blog, from birds to engineering to God to birds, birds, birds, and birds. (Not to mention birds, birds, birds, and more birds. Come to think of it, about the only things we've never posted on are Spam and Vikings ... Hmmm... ) Anyway, as mentioned before (and will no doubt be mentioned again), this blog isn't a veiled sales gimmick. We mostly write about birds, and even if you never buy any of our stuff, we hope that this is always a good read. What's more, the photo library link below is all free as is the hummingbird cam link.

So what does all this have to do with those pictures and value? Very simple... The snapshots are just reminders that you may not be taking full advantage of our discounts. The top JPG is just a note suggesting that you might save $5 by referring a friend. And the next is that of our streaming bird cam setup, and has a particular portion blurred out. (Rumor has it that there's a blatantly obvious promo code in the actual stream that lets you take 15% off all our non-sale products. This promo code is good until August 31, 2008 and can be used once per customer. Gee... Maybe the newsletter mentioned this...)

As the saying goes, "Looking out for you..."

See you by the feeders,

CapeCodAlan

eBirdseed and misc. references

Other birding references

eBirdseed.com bird cam

Posted by CapeCodAlan at 4:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)