Apparently this is the Spring of Me Rescuing Birds

So, last month there was the grebe that crash landed in the middle of a Chicago street that I rescued and got to a wildlife sanctuary where it was given medical treatment and rehabilitated.

Then this week there were the baby geese that were stuck behind the chicken wire.

So I'm chasing this little bird around (the guy on the fence post, not the geese in the background) when I notice... hey there's a pair of geese in the background!  And at this time of year, where there's a pair of geese, there's frequently baby geese.

And sure enough.  These particular parents had a set of triplets. Aren't they adorable?

But then I notice that this one is behind the chicken wire fence.  Now I know most of the chicken wire fence around the South Pond is to keep people on the paths and off the plants.  But right here, there's a goofy comma shaped section closed in between the path and the pond.

Two of the goslings had gotten into that comma shaped area.  Momma, Poppa and one of the babies were on the outside of it, with a clear path down to the water.

The ones to the right of the fence... I don't even know how they got in there.  About two feet across, at the back of the section, the fence is underwater.  I couldn't find a gap anywhere that would explain how birds that can't fly yet got into this space.

At this point I stopped taking pictures, in fact, I set all my gear down to figure out how to get all the geese back together.  Unlike a mother mammal, geese don't have the instinct to 'scruff' their young and move them.  All they can do is herd them and trust the small one's instinct to stay close to the parents.

In this case that was actively working against them.  As I got close the parents crowded up against the fence and began to hiss at me.  They never honked and they never flapped at me or tried to charge me. And believe me, Chicago geese are afraid of *nothing*.  Certainly not people.  I have to think they understood I was trying to help.

For about half an hour I tried to lift the fence (it was nailed down too well) or find the opening they'd used to get back there in the first place (I still don't know how they managed it.)  But when the goslings tried, repeatedly, to shove themselves through the chicken wire to get back to their parents, I knew I needed to do something.  They could get their heads and necks through the holes, but clearly couldn't get their tubby little behinds through a roughly one-inch diameter hole and they'd thrash when they got their heads stuck.

So I stepped over the fence, to the parents' great displeasure, and herded the goslings up to a corner of the space they were stuck in and one at a time picked them up and put them back down, right in front of mama.

Now, I know some people hold on to the old wives' tale that if you handle a baby bird, the parents will smell 'human' on it and reject it.  I've done enough reading to know, a bird's sense of smell is garbage and their need to take care of their young is very, very strong.  In my reading about song birds falling out of the nest, they said to pick it up and put it back in the nest if you can.  So in this case, picking them up for the three seconds it would take to get them back where they could rejoin their families was certainly not going to be an issue.

So I did.  I got them back over the fence...

... where Momma and Poppa herded everyone together and back down to the water...

Where they set off for the island in the pond where there's none of that pesky chicken wire to separate them.

So that puts my bird rescue total for the season at three.  Wonder what it'll be by the fall? :)

Last New Species post for North Pond - 5.10.10

So I thought I was done with new species for this trip, but then I started going through the shots I'd oh-so-cleverly labeled things like "CheckThisBird" and "UnknownSparrow".

 The first thing I found was this dragonfly wheel.  Unlike the pondhawks I had a ton of last year, this is apparently a Common Green Darner.  He's different because instead of having a solid, dusty, light blue tail, he has a darker green tail with brown marks on it.  He's also *huge*.

 After a few hundred painted turtles, I finally found something a little different.  This is apparently a False Map Turtle.  According to Wikipedia, When with other turtles, they also are very communal, sharing space and using each other for predator watching, increasing the odds of surviving an attack by any unwanted animal. Which explains why every time I saw one of these, they were hanging out with the bigger, more obvious, painted turtles. :)

Like this:

 A False Map hanging out with a group of Sliders.

 Not a new species, but in case you haven't noticed, I find sexual dimorphism fascinating.  This is the female Common Yellow-throat Warbler.

 The folks at the fabulous Project Noah site had to help me with this one.  Turns out he's a Lincoln's Sparrow.  They migrate through Chicago, but apparently don't stay.  So I was lucky to catch him as he passed through town.

 Here you can see his identifying head stripes a little bit better.

 This one is still throwing us for a loop at Project Noah.  He's a wren.  We know that much.  The white eyestripe makes me think he's a Carolina Wren.  But the Carolina Wrens have a very white chin, and this guy doesn't seem to have that.  The Marsh Wren is similar in coloring, but doesn't have the white eyestripe.  Any suggestions gratefully accepted! :)

 Another view, in case it helps. :)

 Something else that needs an I.D.  It's a beetle.  It was digging around in the bark chips on the path of the North Pond.  Any ideas?







Okay, so, I'm not entirely sure what they all *are*, but there's five new species in this post.  So now I'm at 28 of my 50, and the butterflies and dragonflies and most of the cold-bloodeds haven't really started making an appearance yet.  I may have to up my goal. :)

North Pond - 5.10.11 - New Speices, Post 1

Wow... yesterday the weather was just amazing so after I tracked down the falcon, I went to the North Pond.  I took my time and my tripod and got some really neat shots.  There are still a few species I need to research, but I found some really amazing stuff out there.

I also have a new obsession. ProjectNoah.org  It's a social wildlife site where you post what you've seen and where you've seen it.  If you don't know what it is, people can help you identify the animal or flower from the picture and the context you give.  And you get to earn little badges as you go.  If you've ever seen how I play Farmville, you know I love getting little electronic badges to signify accomplishments. :)  If you're on, or join, Project Noah, and want to follow me over there, I'm listed by my name (Kymberlee Ricke).

So anyway, it took me 5.5 hours to make the loop around the pond yesterday.  The wildlife was in full swing.  And so were the local birders and photographers.  At one point I stood around with two other people exchanging sightings and talking about the Kingbird that perched, basically, right above our heads and the warblers that are still in abundance.

So... new species from this particular adventure...

 So this particular duck is a bit of an odd case.  It's a Pekin or Domesticated duck.  Found in the wild... so... *shrug*  I suspect it was either put there by or escaped from the Lincoln Park Zoo, nearby.  There's exactly one pair on this pond.  So, yeah, wild, but not exactly.

From white ducks to American Black Duck.  Apparently these guys were in danger of being wiped out as a pure species.  See, there's other ducks that are happy to mate with them, thus diluting the American Black Duck gene pool.

 Which leads us to this guy.  At first glance, he seems to be a mallard with that bright green head, but that's only part of the truth.  He's a mallard mix.  Like dogs, ducks can apparently intermix when breeding and mallards are apparently all too glad to do so.  This particular mix seems to be the "labradoodle" of the duck world.  A 'mutt', but one that occurs enough to get its own name.  According to one website I found, the mallard head with a white neck/chest and brown body is called a Duclair Duck.  In general a mallard mix is referred to as a "manky duck".

Okay, this guy isn't new.  It's a correction.  I had originally listed him as a White-Fronted Goose.  And while that would be an appropriate description of this guy, it's not his species.  He's a Graylag.

 Did I mention that the pond is Warblers-Are-Us right now?  This is a Common Yellow-Throat Warbler.  Looks like more than just his throat is yellow to me!

 Here's the Eastern Kingbird I mentioned above.  Kingbirds are a type of flycatcher and apparently somewhat rare in the area.

 One of my favorite finds of the trip was this Rose-breasted Grosbeak.  So very nice of him to show off his distinguishing red breast for me.  Made it much easier to identify him. :)  He's a finch - related to cardinals.

 Now here's something you don't see every day.  Mostly because he never comes out of the grasses and reeds!  A Virginia Rail.  We don't get too many wading birds in Chicago, other than the herons, so this was a pretty cool find.

And the coolest find of the whole trip?  A Red-headed Woodpecker.  Yep, like Woody.  Someone had mentioned to me that they'd seen one around and I was pretty sure they were confusing red-headed with either Downy or Red-breasted because they both have red on at least parts of their head.  But no, sure enough, here's a bird that's listed as a threatened species, right here in the middle of Chicago.



So those were the major new finds.  Eight new species, for a total of 23 of my 50.  Almost half-way there.  I suspect it's going to start getting a little thin in the 'new species' area, at least until June and the influx of the warm-weather insects.  I saw a clouded sulphur butterfly when I was out getting the falcon yesterday, so we should start seeing more butterflies soon.  And the bees are starting to pop out.  So hopefully about the time the migrating birds move out, the insects will move in.

Quick Post - special new species - Peregrine Falcon

So, I didn't know about this until the news ran a bit last night...

Chicago is quite the home to peregrine falcons.  There are all kinds of blogs and sites for the sets that have permanent nesting locations in places like the Uptown Theater, St. Michael's Church and a few other places.

So, with our first really, really good weather day of the year (The news said we hit 90F, but I was on the lake all day, so if we got over 75F where I was, I'd be surprised.  It was LOVELY!) I went out to see if I could find one of these awesome birds of prey...

Found it!  I went up to the church, and parked about a block away.  As I was getting my gear out I saw a large bird circling the church, but it was really high up and really far away.  So I walked up to the building and looked where the news said to look for the nest.

Nothing. 

I waited for about half an hour hoping it would show its head.

Nothing.

So I headed back to the car.  Just as I was unlocking the door, I noticed that swooping shape I'd seen before, so I grabbed the camera and started shooting, trying to follow it as it flew and get a few shots.

I don't have the kind of glass that would let me get a really, really clear shot of him as far away as he was.  As it is, I'm pretty impressed that these came out as clear and recognizable as they did.

I'm pretty sure I have one reason for that - spot metering.  It was really bright out today and I'm sure I would have lost him in the light if I hadn't set the metering properly.

This last shot is probably the best example of why I needed to spot-meter.  It's still not great - there's chromatic aberration around his tail, for example - but you can still see the shape of his legs and his talons.  Here he is perched on the steeple of the church he's made his home.

From there I went to the North Pond.  The amazing weather and the fact that I didn't have someone waiting for me to finish (like the last time I was out there) meant I could spend five hours making one circuit.  There were tons and tons of great finds.  A Virginia Rail, a redheaded woodpecker, more warblers and turtles so deep they were stacking themselves on top of each other to get spots on the logs in the sun.

But that's for the next post.  For now, I'm at 15 new species for 2011.

More new species - North Pond and Magic Hedge - May 1 and May 7, 2011

Okay, so I'm on my way to my 50 new species for the year.  Here's a few more I caught this week.  This is the rest of the batch from the last post at the North Pond and a few I've spent a few hours researching that I've found at the Magic Hedge.

We'll start with Warblers Are Us!

 Okay, this took way more research than you would think.  But our first warbler making his way through Chicago during the migration season is a Yellow-Rumped Warbler.  Funny, I don't see yellow on his rump, just on his wings... but I'm pretty sure this is right.

I need to go back and really work to get a good shot of one of these; they really are pretty.  Yellow Warbler (kind of obvious, that one, yeah?)

From the warbler family, an Ovenbird.  I have absolutely no idea how it got that name.

 A better look at the bright spot on his head.  He was actually a very cooperative little guy, hopping around on the floor of the forest, but out in the open so I could see him for quite a while.

 From pretty decent shots, to absolutely awful shots, this is an American Redstart.  It's also part of the warbler family.  I'm not even sure I'd be able to identify this guy from this shot, but there was a bird-watcher out there who identified him for me.

This was the best view he'd give me for more than half-a-second.  The good news is, when I was researching them, they mentioned how the Redstarts like to show off their tail feathers quite a bit, so it helped me to know that, yes, this was what I was dealing with.

And just for comparison sake, a bird I actually counted as new in the last post. This is a female Eastern Towhee. Noticeably browner than the...

... male Eastern Towhee.  Sexual dimorphism, they have it. :)










So, that's 4 new species, to go along with the 10 from the last post.  14 new species for 2011 so far!

North Pond - 5.01.11 - Post 1 - It's Like Living on the Avian Super-Highway

So Chicago is in the middle of a pretty significant migratory path and at this time of year we see all kinds of birds that don't hang out here year-round.  I'm told the Magic Hedge can see over 300 distinct species in a migration.

Now I was out quite a bit both last fall and last spring, but I'm certain I didn't even see 50 distinct species.  What that tells me is that I'm clearly not looking hard enough.  For example, it took until a particular walk out there last fall to realize that there were at least four distinct species of sparrows all over the place - the ones that were black and white, the ones with the yellow stripe on their heads, the ones with little red mohawks and the ones with the gray heads.  I obviously need to be more studious in my taxonomy.

So I've set myself a challenge for this year.  In the year 2011, I want to photograph fifty wild species that I did not show up on my blog in 2010.  For this particular challenge, I'm a little less worried about how stellar a given shot is - especially with birds, they rarely sit still where you can see them for the time I'd need to set up a tripod and change settings and all that.  I just want to show that I'm looking closer.  That I'm getting on the ground and looking for caterpillars and bugs.  That I'm learning the difference between a black-capped chickadee and a white-crowned sparrow.

So here are my first ten new bird species.  The North Pond was *spectacular* last weekend.  I felt a bit like Tippi Hedren there were so many birds flying around me.

New Species #1: American Coot

This guy was adorable.  His head moved back and forth as his little legs carried him through the water.  He's about half the size of a Wood Duck - so this is one small waterfowl.  And he was out there by himself.  I didn't see another like him or a female that would appear to go along with this guy.

New Species #2: Brown Creeper

 
Last year I would have assumed this was some sort of sparrow.

Not even close.

It's a Brown Creeper.  It's like a nuthatch, only not.  A nuthatch goes head first down the tree when foraging for food.  Creepers spiral up.

New Species #3: Chipping Sparrow

Here's one of my "it's a sparrow" birds.  I never really looked much closer.  This one is distinctive because of his little red and gray 'mohawk' of feathers on top of his head.

New Species #4: Eastern Towhee

 At first I thought this was an oriole.  And I wasn't too far off.  He is in the same family.  The reddish brow patches on his sides really stand out when he flies.

New Species #5: Gray Catbird

To be fair I did *see* one of these last fall at the Hedge, but I couldn't figure out what it was.  I'm learning to ask the birders I see out with their binoculars if they've seen anything interesting.  If nothing else, it gives me a name or two to Google when I get back.  I also know of a great website that tells me what species are close to the one I'm looking up.  For example when I looked up "oriole" for the one above it said, "Similar species: towhee" so I knew to check that when oriole was clearly not right.

New Species #6: Greater White Fronted Geese

 Another set of animals I think I've seen before.  I'm pretty sure this pair of geese hangs out in the North Pond, or near it, year-round.  They aren't tagged as belonging to the nearby zoo, but they're the only two of their kind I've seen.  I have to say this: I like these guys a lot better than our 'garden variety' Chicago geese - those are Canada geese.  They stay in Chicago all year, despite their name,  and are mean as all get out.

New Species #7: Hermit Thrush

Something else I would have called "some kind of sparrow" and wouldn't even have been close about.

New Species #8 and #9: Barn Swallow and Tree Swallow

Two for the price of one!  Yeah, I know, it's an *awful* picture.  They were really, really at the limit of my telephoto lens.  I'm hoping to go back and actually get good pictures of them.  But they're swallows and it's amazing to find them sitting still for more than six seconds.  These were the guys that gave me the Alfred Hitchcock feeling. They were swooping around *all over*.

The one on the left is a Barn Swallow.  His buddy on the right is a Tree Swallow.  I don't think they hang out in Chicago for very long.  I don't remember seeing them at all last year and with the huge numbers we're seeing now, I'm pretty sure I would have seen a couple in the summer if they'd stayed.  So we appear to be a stop-over on the way to either Michigan's UP or Canada or something.

New Species #10: White-Crowned Sparrow

 So I was saying about the 'black and white headed' sparrows.  They're White-Crowned Sparrows and there seems to be tons of them this year.

 So that's ten to get started with.  I suspect it'll be easy to get the first 25 or so, but then I'll stall out when it's all "It's another chipping sparrow" or "Gee, look, another thrush."  I have a few more, but they'll go in the next post so I don't kill anyone's computer with too many pictures in a post.

I Think I've Photographed Everything That Moves in Chicago

So, I've been away for a bit.  I haven't left home, but my internet time got a little derailed by a few things.  Most notably I had a houseguest for the past 8 days.  She wanted to see Chicago.  Since I see Chicago through the lens of a camera, I took her to my favorite shooting grounds.  In a week we covered The South Pond, Lincoln Park Zoo, The Shedd Aquarium, The Field Museum, The North Pond, The Chicago Botanical Gardens and the Magic Hedge.  And right before that I went with a group to shoot "The Bean" and Buckingham Fountain downtown and went out to Willowbrook to retrieve the tripod I left out there.

I have roughly a million photos to deal with now.

Doing all this shooting in such a short time has made me think about a lot of things.  Chiefly about my workflow.  If you're unfamiliar with the term, workflow in photography is the system a photographer uses to get their pictures off the camera and in whatever final form they want them in.  In my case I want them ready to publish on this blog.  Other people want to get them printed or produced in books.  Whatever your final form is, the beautiful thing about digital photography is that you can take your raw image (not RAW image - I'm not talking about file format here) and edit it yourself and make the most of what your camera captured.  But after a few hours out with your digital camera you come home and find that you've literally taken 300+ images and... well, NOW what?

In my own workflow I tend to have one less-than-stellar habit.  I race home from any given shoot, move my shots to my harddrive and then go through and sort out the ones I want to at least look in in my editing program from the absolute garbage.

Unfortunately, sometimes I come to a screeching halt right there.  I have tons of shots I know are pretty good, but haven't been edited because I have the attention span of a damselfly. 

Ideally, my workflow would be something like this:

1.) Move the photos to the harddrive.
2.) Sort and label shots with some redeeming value from what I can see in the 'preview' function in the finder.
3.) Sort the decent shots into preliminary groups based on how I want to group them for posts here.
4.) Edit in batches.  Crop and correct color/lighting in each photo in a given group all at once.  This is where I should probably start reducing the number of 'useful' shots pretty judiciously. 
5.) Save both large versions and small (blog-sized) versions of edited shots.
6.) Blog each set once it's been edited.
7.) Back up photos onto a DVD.  I've lost all my shots from 2009 from a dropped external harddrive.  I really should be better about backing up the 1/2T of shots I have on the current external than I am.


I'm curious to know how other photographers handle large numbers of shots.  Back when I was a kid and shooting on film, we didn't have workflow. Not like this.  You took the 24 or 36 shots and then shipped the canister off the the drug store for developing.  If you had your own darkroom, like I did, you may have waited until you had a few rolls to develop so you didn't waste unstable chemicals, but even so, you weren't working with the extreme numbers of shots you can end up with after a week of digital shooting.

So the next oh... many posts will be my shots of spring *finally* deciding to come to Chicago.