Italy - Part I

So here it is. Finally. We're going to take it nice and slow and in pieces, ok?

First here I am holding Leah after many many hours of flying. I often say that my mother is the baby crazy one, but I pretty much threw my bag on mom's shoulder and snatched her out of Nikki's hands when I saw her :) (Don't worry, Mom IS in fact baby crazy, but she's baby crazy in a nice helpful way instead of a standing around in the airport doing nothing kind of way).
So we got into town, and I have no recollection of what we did. But we must've ended up on base that day (oh, right I forgot, we had to take the safety class to get our international drivers licenses valid on base. I mean, we didn't ACTUALLY take the class (Nikki's sneaky like that), but maybe we should've. More on that (a lot) later.)

So this is Mom entertaining Leah (in that helpful baby crazy way) outside one of the buildings on base.

Then the next day we went to Ca' Madresca for a wine tasting. It was SOOO much fun and very informative. First of all, the wine was super tasty and the owner (Adrian, I think) was extremely educational. We got to taste 4 or 5 wines and we even got to pour some wine from one of the really huge tanks to see the difference in a wine that wasn't fully aged yet. He explained how the colors affected the taste of the wine, as well as where the grapes were grown (on the hill or in the valley). It was awesome. As were the appetizers (we got to taste homemade salami). So we tasted wine, shopped for a while, then Mom went and entertained Leah outside for a while, then we played on the barrels, took some pictures and went home before Leah melted down (with 6 or 7 bottles of wine and a bottle of pistachio liquer). I will reiterate this in many posts, but that kid was really a trooper most of the time. I'm pretty sure we made it into the car this time and Mom had to stay in the back and keep her awake (we were only 15 minutes or so from home) so she'd get a good nap in when she got home. I remember only one major meltdown and that was after driving on the Autostrade for hours in idiotic traffic, so I kind of felt like melting down too.

I ADORE this picture. She's like "ewww, why are you kissing me?!"

I like this picture too - Mom (Nana from here on out) has her drink and Leah has hers.

And this is actually that morning when we decided to dress up the doll, er, I mean Leah, in the super cute dress that Aunt Bettie made for her. WITH bonnet.

So as you can imagine, Aunt Chrissi (I think of myself in the third person whenever I'm around nieces and the nephew) did not actually forget about birds while she was in Europe. In fact, I think Nikki was...well, impressed is maybe not the right word but...impressed with my one-track mind. So I harassed her enough that we got up early one morning and went down to the spring at Polcenigo. I'm not going to go into any of the birds on any of these posts and instead do one big bird post at the end.

So this is picturesque, right?

Kind of hazy, neat rocks, a sign in Italian, a goose.

Ah, right.

The goose. Funny thing about the goose - he was REALLY territorial. So of course he didn't want to let us near the spring at all. He kept honking and flapping his wings. Sounds terrifying doesn't it? We thought about trying to scare him into the water, but in this picture is essentially where he wanted to be goshdarnit. Eventually 2 men (British and Italian I think) came along and one of them tried to shoo him away and that Goose was having none of it. He was seriously aggressive. He scared the guy away (at which point the other friend starting making chicken noises and gestures at him and laughing hysterically - it was entertaining). I'm really not doing this story justice - it was really kind of ridiculous. But whatever - the spring was gorgeous as was Polcenigo (um, I think, there were a lot of towns that started with a P and I couldn't keep them all straight). We walked up and down the river a bit and then we went home for naptime.

The spring was at the end of this walkway (we followed the geese...slowly, all the way down it).

A restaurant.

So that's the end of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 is Venice and Burano.

Delinquent

I know I'm delinquent on posting pics from Italy. To tide you over:

Montrose

So I went to Montrose Harbor last weekend in the morning for the first time. Due to the fact that it was nice weather and spring and morning (apparently) there were probably 40 or so people there with binoculars. I was a bit intimidated. :) There were, of course, 8 gabillion red-winged blackbirds (more on that later). But also just a TON of warblers. And see, the thing about warblers is they Don't. Stay. Still. ...Ever. Taking pictures of warblers is an exercise in futility. But I did get a few pics :) Also, I think these are just the second time I've posted pictures taken with the new lens converter and I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I discovered the wonder of the "high speed burst" setting on my camera. I don't think the Megapixels are as high, but at least the birds aren't blurry.

Here's most of what I spent my day looking at: This guy sat still for me at the end of the day for me. I believe he is an Alder or Willow Flycatcher.

I ADORE this shot. It's a Black and White Warbler. (I had this down as a White-Breasted Nuthatch, but after looking at it's markings, that didn't seem right. Nuthatches have a flatter body and less of a neck. But when I observed this bird, it was creeping along the tree like a Nuthatch/Creeper, hence the ID. So I looked up the B&W Warbler in the book, and apparently that behavior is common in the B&W as well since they also eat insects out of the bark.)

Gray Catbird. You can just barely see the rufous/red color on his rump. Or, in this case, I think maybe this is a her. I mean, she's really fat, so I imagine she's maybe got some buns in the oven.

OK. Storytime. As I said, the Red-Winged Blackbirds were just everywhere. Also, those suckers are loud! They chirp, and they make these weird chattering gutteral sounds and they chase each other and are just really, really loud. So, as I also said, it was a bit intimidating being around all these other more experienced birders and I was trying to behave in a professional and appropriate manner. I was just sure that all these people could see right through me and knew I hadn't a clue what I was doing. So I finally found a little part of the trail by the magic hedge that was kind of empty. And a female Red-Winged Blackbird (RWB from here on out) flew over my head and perched on a tree about 10 feet in front of me. And I was bemused by how lovely it was to have all these birds just flying about. Ah, communing with nature. Then she let out a loud squawk and came flying right back to where she came from. Well, she was kind of bearing down on me right down the trail, and I thought, oh she just doesn't see me, she'll lift up here in a minute. No, really, just another second. Oh crap, she's gunning for me!!! At which point I let out a loud shriek and went running off the trail. In front of all those much more experienced birders than me. It was humbling. So then for the rest of the day every time I would surprise some stupid RWB hiding in the grasses I would duck or jerk away because I was sure I was about to be attacked. Fun times. This isn't the exact little lady that chased me around. This one was much nicer and posed for me for a while.

This is a Magnolia Warbler. I spent the better part of an hour trying to get a good shot of him.

Hopefully this shot makes up for my 2 abysmal shots of Northern Flickers from a few weeks ago. These normally very shy birds just came up and perched on a fence post for me. It was great!
Just look for the reddish-orange eye. The poor Killdeer just couldn't get away from me.
These are Caspian Terns. I spent the better part of an hour trying to determine whether these birds were Caspian or Fosters or Common Terns last year when I first started birding. Funny thing about bird books, they show the proportions of all the birds as the same. Turns out that Caspian Terns are literally twice the size of Commons or Fosters (saw a picture of some together, the commons look like the Caspians mini-me's).
This is a female American Redstart. I have a picture of the male too, but I didn't like it enough to post. The male has the same pattern, except he's black where she's gray, and orange where she's yellow.
In addition to the above, here's the rest of the list for the day:

Wilson's Warbler

Palm Warbler

Yellow Warbler

Common Yellowthroat

Barn Swallow

Chimney Swift

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

Eastern Towhee

Black and White Warbler

White throated Sparrow

White-Crowned Sparrow

Ovenbird

Robin

American Goldfinch

Cardinal

And here's my list of unconfirmed IDs:

Northern Parula

Baltimore Oriole

Spotted Sandpiper

Indigo Bunting

And last story: While I was looking around at the end of the morning, I got a little "pssst" from a fellow birder. I went over to him and he said that he just wanted to let me know that there was a "morning" over in that part of the park. We talked about the warblers a bit and what we'd seen, and I had to try and concentrate really hard to try and understand him because he was talking in birding shorthand and because there are probably 30+ types of warblers so people just call them by the descriptive word, not putting "warbler" on the end (I didn't realize that at the time). So after he left, I thought to myself, what is a "morning"? He wasn't talking about "Mourning Dove's" was he? I mean, I see those all the time! So I looked up birds in the index and decided that maybe he had said "Moorhen". Well a moorhen is like a rail that lives in marshland. So I didn't really think that was it, but I proceeded to go up and down this trail for another half hour looking on the ground, just in case. Once I got home, I realized he meant "morning warbler" after looking it up on my birding website but I was just so confused, and also, too proud to tell him I had no idea what he was talking about because I was so flattered that he was giving me advice and treating me like a real birder! :) I'm silly. If I see him again, I might have to 'fess up. :)

The Wizard of Dogz

Christine, this is for you. (If you can't see the whole thing, right click on the picture and select "show all" to get a wide-screen view)

Pictures of Me

So a few months ago, Nikki asked for pictures of everyone in the family so she could post them on a picture wall for Leah. Michael and Christine had done the same thing for Abby and she could recognize everyone on the wall after a while. So I realized that I had only one picture of me that I liked but thought it would be sending the wrong message to my niece to have the picture of me posted on her wall to be one where I'm holding a glass of wine. I can just imagine her at 17 years old going "I don't know why, but whenever I think of Aunt Chrissi, I think of wine". I mean, let's be honest, that may happen anyway, but at least this picture won't be the reason.

So I asked my friend Natalie (well, she was Nikki's friend first, but she lives in Chicago and we hang out) who is a professional photographer if she would consider taking a few pictures of me for the wall. We went out and took them on the lake while her fiance played photographers assistant (which included holding both of our purses). I about froze to death, because the first time I mentioned this to her it was fall and still warm out. Once we finally got around to doing it, it was March. That day it was probably high 30's. But I liked them so well that I thought I'd post my favorites here. The color is a little wonky on the last 2 because they were actually test shots to get the color right, but I like them and you can't really tell unless you're looking for it. So here you go. I'm not fishing for compliments, though, I swear! If anyone deserves a compliment, it's Natalie for taking such beautiful pictures.

Hoo-Hoo!

Guess what I saw today?! First....ever....Owl!!!

(A note: I am now uploading my pictures to Flickr and embedding the image so clicking on the picture will take you to the Flickr site of the picture. If you want to see a bigger version click "All sizes", then "Large". Also, you should be able to see my entire photostream of pictures there instead of going back and forth between the blog and Flickr. The photostream is to the right on the Flickr page.)

I can't really take credit for it, but I don't care! I was walking down to the pier at Montrose and saw some guys with the really big lenses taking pictures into the Hedge. I smiled as I walked past and one of them asked, "Don't you want to see it?". And I said "what?", and he said "The owl". At which point I kind of freaked out a little and then turned and saw the most beautiful Long-Eared Owl. He was fairly indifferent to all the fuss he was causing.




Then the guy that pointed the owl out to me pointed out a Field Sparrow to me as well and told me how to identify it (pink bill and white eye ring).

My other first of the day was a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker:


I also saw an American Kestrel while I was out on the pier. He was having a lot of trouble with the wind and he was really right above me about 20 feet or so. I just looked up, and there he was. Then I saw him again in the hedge and was able to see his little black markings on his face (the moustache).

I also followed a Northern Flicker around the hedge for a while. They're very shy. I have a couple of pictures, but they're not very good - one his face is hidden by a branch and the other you can only see his face.


Here's a Hermit Thrush (I think)

And here's a Flycatcher of some sort. Both of these ID's are up on my message board for confirmation. Edit: According to the boards this is an Eastern Phoebe (which is in the Flycatcher family).


These are all American Tree Sparrows. The first one is fairly obvious, but the backlit photo you can tell because his upper beak is dark and lower mandible is straw-colored.


At the end of the day, I was driving out of the park and I stopped to call Mom and tell her about the owl. I had just kind of stopped near some small trees and as I was talking to her, I see this small bird climbing up the side of the tree. I yell into the phone "That's a Brown Creeper! I have to go, I'll call you back!" and hang up on her. That is not the first time something like that has happened to her :)

Grebes!

I have recently (as in about 15 min. ago) learned the art of zooming and cropping in my free photo editing software and therefore seem to be able to upload pictures in a timely manner again. Yay!

I went down to Montrose Harbor today to see the Grebes that I had heard about on the IL Birders Forum and I was not disappointed. I spent forever taking pictures of them, and forever whittling down which ones to upload, but I'm proud to say that I didn't have to download ANY pictures this time off the web to show you what any of the birds look like. These are all my own pictures!

So here we have a male Horned Grebe. I have a picture later which better illustrates why they're called horned. Isn't he pretty? They have a red eye (this is their breeding plumage, non-breeding is grey and white), white tip on their bill, and of course the gold behind the eyes.

Here is what I suspect is a juvenile male. He's too pale to be a breeding male (or maybe he's just not all the way into his breeding plumage) and it took me a long time to try and figure out what was going on with this guy. If you blow up the picture, you'll also note he looks kind of scruffy, which would indicate that he's molting, so it may not be a juvenile, just a male still getting into breeding plumage. This is by far my favorite picture of the bunch! So cool! These guys must be awesome fishers because I saw at least 3 chowing down on fish just while I was watching.

Here's a female Horned Grebe. She has a little of the gold color on her head and neck, but she's mostly gray and white with a red eye.

I was shooting into the sun for this one so it's a little dark, but you can see how the gold feathers on his head stick up a little bit and look like horns.


There were a whole bunch of Red-breasted Mergansers way out on the water, but the only reason I posted this picture, was so I could post the next one.

Action shot!

Actually, I have at least 4 pictures of empty or splashing water where I took the picture just as the ducks went underwater, so I was terribly proud that I got this one in action.

Here is an American Coot. I posted on them last fall and went into some detail about their feet and how they're actually Rails, not ducks. Well, you can see his weird, big toes in this shot. For some reason I couldn't get a great shot of him, although I have a good one of him swimming away from me.

At the end of the day I went over to a little pond on the golf course because I thought I saw a Coot on the pond. Then I thought it was a Ring-necked duck (which I saw a few weeks ago but haven't posted on yet), then I finally realized that it was a female Scaup. The white on the face threw me off.

I also hung around the hedge a bit and got this really good shot of a Fox Sparrow. They spend a lot of time on the ground, so I was lucky to get this shot of him up in the tree before he flew away.

Oh, and I harassed a poor squirrel. It's just so much easier to take pictures of squirrels than birds. They can't fly.
That's all for now. I'll try and post more pictures later :)

New Camera

Izzie got to be the first one to model for the new camera :) I'll post more pics later once I figure out how to upload them - right now I can only upload one at a time and it takes a few minutes. You can look forward to a duck quiz (I saw 4 new species 2 weeks ago).

Spring is coming!!!

So I went birdwatching last weekend and, you guys, spring is coming!! I've been seeing so many new birds!!! On Saturday I walked around the Point (the very mushy, melted snow saturated point) and ruined a pair of jeans in the process. (It's ok, I was going to give them away anyway, now they're going in the trash). Most of the winter I walk through the hedge area to get to the beach and it's just dead silent. Now it's very, very loud with very talkative birds :) Yay!!! I saw a Hairy Woodpecker, who was just not shy at all (saw him on Sunday too). I was probably within 3 or 4 feet of him freely moving around and he could've cared less. Previously in the day I tried walking along the harbor wall, but it was too muddy, but that's where the Mallard picture came from. They were all walking along the ice, but the ice was melting and was very very slick, so they kept slipping. It's very funny to watch Ducks slip and slide on ice. I'm not sure why. It's not like Ducks are particularly dignified creatures in the first place, it's just funny. I have video that I might post later, although it's not very good. But I took a picture of the male Mallard and posted it just to show you how ridiculously bright orange his legs are. Spring is so fun - all the colors on all the birds are just so bright! The cardinals are ridiculously red, and the red breast on the Robins is beautiful! Then I went down the pier and walked all the way to the end (which bends around to look like hook - hence the name Fishhook Pier) and I heard this weird sound. On the inner edge of the pier is a juvenile cormorant just hanging out. He was trying to dry his wings, I guess. I picked my favorite picture - blow up the picture and you can see his turquoise eye! Also his gape (the skin around his beak) is very yellow. Shorebirds like that (the egrets, herons, pelicans, cormorants, etc.) all get different colored skin around their mouths in the spring when they are breeding (some go red or green as well as yellow). So the yellow gape and turquoise eye are because it's spring. I was worried that he was sick because it seemed like he was coughing or sneezing, and it seemed odd that he was so close to us, although out of reach, and not reacting to us at all (us being me and the other people on the pier). But I went back the next day to check on him and he was gone, so he may have just been taking a pit stop. While I was checking him out, another couple came up and I got to expound on Cormorants and the other ducks (Goldeneyes, Scaups, and Mergansers) that were at the end of the pier. I thoroughly enjoyed that :) Just so happens that me and Nikki were trying to identify some Cormorants (Shags, actually) that she had photographed in Trieste, so I had spent a lot of time on wikipedia the day before researching them. So I sounded super smart :) They were terribly nice and I let them use my binoculars to look at the cormorant and goldeneyes. So at the end of the pier, I'm pretty sure I saw a pair of Redheaded Ducks fly out. I'll check out North Pond this weekend and see if I can get some pictures of some of them that are supposed to be there. Then on Sunday I went back to the Hedge and it was just alive with bird calls. There were Grackles (which had the most beautiful purple head), Starlings, Red-Winged Blackbirds (loud, loud birds), Cardinals, Robins, the Hairy Woodpecker again, and I also saw a Sandhill Crane fly overhead and a Killdeer came swooping in. Killdeer are loud. I chased him down and flushed him out twice to get a positive ID. In order to identify them, you want to make sure that there are 2 rings around their neck (not one) and as they are flying away they have kind of a light-orange tail which is, I think, diagnostic. They also have white lenth-wise stripes on the tops of their wings which are very easy to see in flight, but that's not diagnostic because lots of shorebirds have that for some reason.


Here's my cormorant (Juvenile, Double-Crested)

Mr. Clumsy Duck

And a picture (that I didn't take) of a Killdeer flying away so you can see the orange tail. And also the white stripes that run lengthwise down the wing that you can see when they're flying.

And here you can see the two black stripes on their neck.

Next week: I got my new camera this week and I'm going to take it for a test run this weekend sometime - hopefully it'll be sunny!