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| Photo by Glynn Wilson |
| As the Alabama summer heat finally begins to break, it is about time to start thinking about the fall bird migration season. Armed with a new Giottos professional tripod, we finally managed this morning to get a few shots of a male ruby-throated hummingbird archilochus colubris. The females seem to be much easier to catch. The males tend to fight each other off the plants and feeders. |
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| Photo by Glynn Wilson |
| Thanks to a bunch of folks on the ALBIRDS listserv, we now know this is a green heron [butorides virescens]. We stopped by the Swann Bridge in Blount County off Highway 79 on the way back from an investigative trip across North Alabama to Ft. Payne, Rainsville, Scottsboro and Guntersville. We ended up camping overnight on some free public access TVA land by Guntersville Lake, and then launched the canoe this morning at a free boat launch just before the main entrance to Lake Guntersville State Park. They were testing the high speed wireless Internet connection there, so this could be a regular day trip from Birmingham to blog on a picnic table in the woods by the lake or the Tennessee River. |
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| Photo by Glynn Wilson |
| The spring bird migration continued at its peak on Saturday and Sunday, with all kinds of warblers passing through middle Alabamaland. The rose-breasted grosbeaks visited the yard today, along with a shy blue grosbeak, a couple of ruby-throated hummingbirds and a couple of brown thrashers [toxostoma rufum] like this one. |
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| Photo by Glynn Wilson |
| The yellow-crowned night herons have returned to the tributary of Village Creek running through the Roebuck Golf Course, heralding in the spring bird migration in middle Alabamaland. They say it’s a nocturnal species [nyctanassa violacea] of the Southern swamps and coasts, but there are two that fish all day long near tee-box number 12, paying little attention to golfers - or photographers. I was able to walk right up on this one Wednesday and get a really close shot. I call this one Smeagall for the way it sneaks up on the fish. |
It’s blackberry winter in Birmingham and the spring bird migration is now underway. Reports from Dauphin Island, Fort Morgan and Gulf Breeze, Florida, show all kinds of migrants along the Gulf of Mexico coast.
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| Photy by Glynn Wilson |
| An Eastern blue bird [sialia sialis] checking out a bird bath. |
In middle Alabamaland, the blue grosbeak showed up Thursday afternoon just before dusk, too late to get a photo, but just in time to make me miss the first debate between Democratic Party candidates for president.
It’s way too early for debates anyway, with the first primaries and caucuses still 10 months away. After watching the analysis on MSNBC, there were apparently few fireworks anyway, and the Iraq war dominated the discussion.
Democrats Fault Bush in 1st Debate
Speaking of war and impeachment, tens of thousands of Americans from Miami, Florida to the North Pole in Alaska will take to the streets on April 28 to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney.
This marks the beginning of what activists are calling “Impeachment Summer,” an intensification of grassroots pressure on Congress, and it comes on the heels of the introduction by Congressman Dennis Kucinich of impeachment articles against Dick Cheney.
For more information, hit the A28.Org Website.
Then, don’t forget to watch CBS’s “Sixty Minutes” Sunday to see former CIA director George “Slam Dunk” Tenet slam the Bush administration for using him as a scapegoat for the ill-conceived invasion of Iraq.
Also, Jazzfest in New Orleans starts today. Watch the news page for headlines and stories about it. We won’t be there this year, but we’ll be missing the shade by the big live oak tree over by the Zydeco tent.
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| A male red-winged blackbird [agelaius phoeniceus] posing on a cattail on a tributary of Village Creek in Roebuck Springs, Alabama. Perhaps the most abundant bird in North America, the red-winged blackbird population is estimated at 190 million. It is a highly polygynous species, with one male having up to 15 different females making nests in his territory, which it fiercely defends during the breeding season. The male vigorously keeps all other males out of the territory and defends the nests from predators, and will attack much larger animals, including horses and people. |
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| Photo by Kenny Walters |
| This great blue heron was captured by Kenny Walters at East Lake Park in Birmingham, Alabama. |
As of this morning, Feb. 26, participants had counted more than 10.5 million birds in the Great Backyard Birdcount and recorded 621 species on 75,699 checklists, far surpassing the previous record of 61,049 checklists, according to today’s press release from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society.
If you counted birds for the Great Backyard Birdcount during the Presidents’ Day weekend and haven’t turned your results in yet, the final day to post your results and photos online is Wednesday, Feb. 28.
http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbc
The first report on the final results will not be up until March 10, but you can explore the maps and tables of the preliminary results at:
http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/results
And don’t forget to check out the photo gallery here:
http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/gallery
Paul Green of the Audubon Society and Miyoko Chu of Cornel send a “big thank you for making this a memorable and record-breaking tenth anniversary year.”
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