Yesterday 37 bird blog and peregrine fans gathered at the National Aviary to see the sights, learn about birds and watch the Sky Deck show.   We had fun!

Steve Sarro, Director of Animal Programs, gave us a wonderful tour and taught us a lot about birds.

The favorite thing I learned is this:  Steve told us that African penguins add 50% to their weight just before they molt and then they lose all their feathers at once!  It takes several weeks to grow them back.  One of the Aviary’s African penguins, Elvis, is molting right now and he sure looks shaggy.  He’s in a good mood but he’s having a couple of “bad hair weeks.”

Up at Sky Deck, the weather was perfect for flying and the birds were awesome.  Amut, the lanner falcon, flew for the lure and used amazing “sneak attacks” by flying below the building’s edge, then popping up over Sky Deck to hit it.   Heather Jacoby got a nice photo of her on the glove, above. Here is Sharon’s video:

Much as we love falcons, everyone agreed that the black kites were the best.  All six of them flew above us snatching food out of the air.  At one point three of them went for the same airborne morsel and gracefully avoided a midair collision.  Click on Heather’s photo of the black kite (below) to see Sharon’s video of them flying.

We had a great time on our afternoon full of birds as you can see by our smiling faces.  Thanks to all of you for coming!    And thanks to Heather and Sharon for sending links to their photos.  If you have photos you’d like to share, leave a comment with your links below.

p.s. The Aviary is open all year, but Sky Deck is just a summertime show so visit now while the weather is perfect for flying.  For more information see the National Aviary website at www.aviary.org

(Lanner falcon and black kite photos by Heather Jacoby.  Group photo by Sharon Leadbitter.)

I’ve just finished reading a fascinating book about birds’ nests called Avian Architecture: How Birds Design, Engineer & Build (Princeton University Press, 2011) by Peter Goodfellow.

It’s not your typical bird-nest guide.  Instead the book groups nests by architectural type, shows blueprints of their construction, and provides case studies and photographs of species who construct each type. 

Did you know that…

• Female hornbills seal themselves into their cavity nests and must rely on their mates to feed them through a narrow slit until the chicks are ready to fledge.
• African Jacanas build nests that float.
• Spider silk and moss work like Velcro.  The builder can stick them together, pull them apart and re-glue them elsewhere.  Hummingbirds are masters at this.
• Some birds actually stitch their nests.  The common tailorbird (nest pictured above) wraps a large leaf with a thread to make it curl, then pokes its bill through the leaf edges and uses spider or cocoon silk to sew it in place.  When the curl is secure she builds her nest inside.
• Megapodes build compost heaps and lay their eggs in them.  The heat of the decaying vegetable matter incubates the eggs.

If you’d like to learn about avian architecture this book is a great place to start.  The photographs and illustrations are gorgeous.  I learned something new on every page.  

Click here to find out more from Princeton University Press.

(photo of a Common Tailorbird nest by J.M. Garg at Wikimedia Commons.  Click on the photo to see the original.)

p.s.  Scott Shalaway recommended this book among his Wildlife Books for Summer Reading.

Today’s blog is for “techno birders,” people like me who play with technology and go birding to get away from it all.  Or so I thought.

Until recently my birding was low-tech.  I’d go outdoors with only binoculars and my field book.  Then three months ago I bought the Sibley eGuide for my cellphone.  I thought I wouldn’t use it much.  Hah!  I love it!

First let me say that I come by technology honestly.  I’ve worked with computers since high school and my real job at WQED is Director of Information Technology (no, not “blogger”).   Even so, I’m conservative about gadgets and updates and am slow to adopt the latest technology.  I never have the newest stuff because I’ve seen too many new things crash and burn.

On the other hand, I have a Droid smartphone.  I don’t carry it to make phone calls.  Nooooooooo!  It’s my pocket computer and I use it everywhere.  I suffer withdrawal if I can’t get on the Internet.  Ask my husband how I react in a certain place in Maine that has no 4G network.

Being a slow adopter I am very cautious about downloading apps to my Droid.  My low-tech husband was the one who researched the Sibley eGuide for my birthday gift.  I downloaded it a few months early so I could use it during my trip to Nevada last April. (It cost $29.99 at the time.)

Since then I have become addicted.  The Sibley eGuide allows me to:

• See Sibley’s great images and read detailed information about each species including range maps and behavior.
• Zoom in on the images to see more details.
• Use taxonomic or (my new favorite) alphabetic lists.
• Narrow the scope of potential birds by choosing my state/province location.
• Use the Smart Search function to further narrow the possibilities by size, color, body features (such as tail patches), etc.
• Listen to the song to help my identification.  (No! No! No!  I do not play the songs so the birds can hear them.  I turn the volume very low and listen right next to my ear and play just a short bit to verify my audio guess.  Do not play the sounds for the birds!  Here’s why, from Sibley himself.)
• Compare two species’ images side-by-side as I would in a book-based field guide.
• Compare two songs side-by-side.  Can’t do that with my field book.
• Record the bird’s date and location and email or export the list.

The Sibley eGuide [no longer] validates its license over the network every time you open it. It works just fine when you’re off the grid.  For me, it used to force-close at startup but that’s because I was being way too tech-y and killing it with my task killer instead of gracefully closing it like a normal person.

Since downloading the Sibley eGuide I’ve changed my birding habits.  Instead of thinking “I’m not carrying my field guide because it’s heavy and I won’t encounter a bird I don’t know,”  I now say to myself,  “I don’t need my book. I have my Droid.”

I never leave home without it.

(image from Sibley eGuides to Birds App webpage at sibleyguides.com. Click on the image to read more about the app.  Get it at Android Market or at iTunes for iPhones or at Blackberry App World, depending on your cellphone model.)

As you can tell from the links in the photo credits, the Sibley eGuide also runs on the iPhone (its original platform) and the Blackberry.

By next Sunday the young peregrines at the Cathedral of Learning will be completely off camera (they’re leaving the nest) but I’ll be on camera on WQED-TV.

On June 5 from 8:00-9:30pm WQED will rebroadcast the popular PBS Nature show Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air. 

We’ve reserved 90 minutes for this one-hour show because it’s a fundraiser.  During the pledge breaks our hosts will ask you to pledge to support our broadcasts of PBS Nature.  (These great PBS shows are really expensive!)  They’ll also be interviewing me as their special guest on the subject of birds.

This is live TV so I can’t even predict what I’ll say!  I can already tell you I’m no hummingbird expert but I’m absolutely sure that the subject of peregrines will come up.

So tune in to WQED on Sunday June 5 at 8:00pm to see me on air. 

Will I wear my birding hat?  And what will I say?  It ought to be interesting.  🙂

(photo of me by Chuck Tague)

Here’s a lecture you won’t want to miss if you’re in the market for a new field guide.  And even if you’re not!

On Monday May 16 at 7:30pm at the National Aviary, acclaimed birder and photographer Richard Crossley will speak about his revolutionary new field guide, the Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds.

In his book, Crossley shows the birds in their natural habitat, on the ground and in flight, near and far, in breeding and non-breeding plumage and in transition.  This is as close to reality as you’ll get in a guide.  It’s what you see when you’re out in the field.

Click on the image above to watch Richard Crossley’s video and see what I mean.  It’s a new look at birds.  I’m convinced!

The lecture is free and open to the public.  The guide will be for sale that evening and Crossley will stay after the lecture for a book-signing.

(video from YouTube)

Happy Easter.  Best wishes for a good Passover.

Happy Spring to everyone!

(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)