Bird Banding - March 20, 8:30-10:30

Please join the KidsWhoBird club for a special event coming up on Saturday, March 20 from 8:30am to 10:30am. Dr. Van Remsen, whom many of you met at the LSU Museum of Natural Sciences, will be doing a bird banding demonstration for us that morning. The process for banding birds involves setting up a "mist net" into which the birds fly and from which they are gently extracted, and then a tiny aluminum containing identification information is applied to the bird's leg. The birds are released unharmed. Information regarding each bird is entered into a central database. This process marks the bird and helps scientists know where birds travel, how long they live, and other important scientific information. What's fun for us is that we get to see, touch, and photograph the birds up close! The attached picture of me features a beautiful Buff-bellied Hummingbird that was banded last week -- I got to hold it for a few moments when it was released.

Please look at your calendars, and if you think you can participate in this event, please send me an email and I will give you address and directions to
the location for the bird banding demonstration. I hope you will all take advantage of this great opportunity!

Our March meeting will be held on Wed. March 24. More info later for that...

February Meeting -- 2/24

For more pictures and video of the Bald Eagle's nest, see http://seejanebird.blogspot.com So exciting to see the activity at the nest!

Our next Kids Who Bird meeting will be held on Wed Feb 24, 2010 from 6:30 to 8pm at the Museum of Natural Science on the LSU Baton Rouge campus on Dalrymple Drive. We'll have a "treasure hunt" of birds using the Hall of Birds displays in the museum (there will be prizes!) and we'll also start learning some bird sounds! Refreshments will be served. Please let me know if you expect to be able to come.

In addition to hosting another great tour of the specimens at the museum, Dr. Remsen has also offered to host a bird banding session for the Kids Who Bird in the near future. The date is not yet set, but this will probably involve a Saturday morning field trip where we'll observe how birds are caught, banded for research and released back in the wild. We'll get to see some cool birds up close and maybe even get to touch! Here's a small sample of what to expect: http://www.vimeo.com/9368059

I would like to field a 13 and under team for the Great Texas Birding Classic held on the Texas Gulf Coast on May 1, 2010. We'd need a team of 3-5 kids who are 13 and under who can locate and identify birds. This is a competition -- the team who identifies the most different species of birds that day wins! Read more: http://www.gcbo.org/default.aspx/MenuItemID/152/MenuGroup/GTBC.htm A parent or guardian will need to accompany each team member, and this will require an overnight stay in TX. If we can put together a team of interested kids, I'll do some coaching prior to May 1 so we'll have a good idea what we're looking for! I can provide binoculars and field guides. Let me know if you're interested!

Also, if anyone is interested in going birding this Saturday 2/13 morning from 7-10am, please let me know. If I have some interested parties, we'll discuss a location. I plan to be done in time to go to the Spanish Town Mardi Gras parade :-)

--Jane Patterson

Night at the Museum

Dr. Van Remsen welcomed the Kids Who Bird Club to the Hall of Birds in the LSU Museum of Natural Science for a behind-the-scenes tour.
The kids learned how the specimens are acquired, how they are prepared for use, and the value of each one to research.

The kids got to see the reddest, the bluest, the greenest...and some of the most beautiful birds in the world! It's amazing that their feathers retain their color indefinitely if prepared and stored properly.

The hummingbirds are always a hit -- such amazing color and variety! Several kids recognized the Marvelous Spatuletail from the PBS Nature special on Hummingbirds, which also featured Dr. Remsen.

Susannah was so excited to hold a specimen of the tiniest bird in the world -- the Bee Hummingbird from Cuba!

So many birds to see -- so little time! Dr. Remsen has invited the Kids Who Bird back again. We'll be making a list of the birds we'd like to see!

January meeting -- Special Museum Tour

The January edition of the Kids Who Bird Club will feature a "behind the scenes" museum tour at the LSU Natural Sciences Museum in Foster Hall on LSU campus. The tour be on Thursday, January 28, and will begin at 6:30 and end about 8pm. What we will see are the tools that ornithologists (those who study birds) use to research birds. The tour will be conducted by Dr. Van Remsen, who is a professor of ornithology at LSU as well as the museum curator. It's a fun tour because Dr. Remsen gives you sense of not only of the science that can be learned from these important specimens but also how much he genuinely loves birds and enjoys sharing that with others. This photo album, done by Amy Shutt of a previous tour, will give you a preview of what we'll see on the tour. http://www.day-lab.com/vantour1/

Please note, due to the narrow aisles in the museum, the group must be limited to 15 people, so this is first come, first served! Please reply to me with the number of folks who will be participating so that I can keep track. If we have more interested than can participate this time, I will impose on Dr. Remsen for another tour in the future.

Next meeting - new location! & Field Trip planned

The next meeting of the Kids Who Bird club will be held next Wed, November 18, 2009 from 6:30 to 8:00 pm. However, the location has changed. We so appreciate the National Audubon folks allowing us to use their space, but we just need more room! Beginning with the November meeting, we'll meet at the LSU Museum of Natural Science in Foster Hall on the LSU campus (directions and parking info below). Many thanks to Director Fred Sheldon and Professor Van Remsen for the opportunity!

The subject of our November meeting will be Birding by Ear -- learning to identify birds by their songs and calls. As we talked about last time -- bird sounds are usually the first clue we'll have that birds are present (some are very good at hiding) and sometimes it's the only way to tell birds apart! Recognizing sounds is a critical birding skill. Please let me know if you expect to attend. I will probably be there by 6pm, if anyone wants to come early to look around the Hall of Birds in the museum.

Also, for those that are interested, we'll be having a field trip to the Capitol Lakes this Saturday, November 14 from ~7am to 10am. We'll meet at the lakes in Arsenal Park, which is basically the park area between the Capitol building and the Governor's Mansion. That way we'll be looking to the west while the sun is still low, but we'll move around the lake to get other vantage points as well. The street is one way around the park and parking is in pull-offs to the side of the road, so just look for me and my car. Some of the ducks and other birds that visit LA in the winter have arrived, so we'll be focusing on them -- including the Peregrine Falcon that likes to hang out on the Capitol building! Please let me know if you think you'll be able to come to the field trip so I know who & how many to expect.

Hope to see you this Saturday and/or next Wednesday evening!

======================
Directions and parking info for Foster Hall:
Foster Hall is located on Dalrymple Drive across from the Greek Theater. Google Maps actually has very good maps of the campus (I find it easier to use than the campus maps on LSU's website). Zoom in on LSU campus and you can see labels for each building. The entrance to the museum is on the west side of the building (the opposite end from the Subway, which is located in the basement of the building in the cafe).

Parking is unfortunately never free on campus. While visitor parking permits may be purchased, our best bet is to use the metered parking, which should be available at this time of the evening. The closest meters will be on Tower Drive near Memorial Tower. There are also meters near the Visitor Center (Highland @ Dalrymple) and the Student Union. Meters cost $1/hr (and probably require quarters).

October Kids Who Bird Meeting

The next meeting of the Kids Who Bird Club will be held on Wed, Oct. 28, 2009 at the Baton Rouge offices of National Audubon located at 6160 Perkins Rd, Suite 15, Baton Rouge, 70808. The meeting will start at 6:30 pm and last until 8 or so. We'll be talking about Bird Identification and will be practicing with binoculars and field guides.

Please send me an email (Education@braudubon.org) if you plan to come!

Next Kids Who Bird Meeting

The next meeting of the Kids Who Bird Club will be held on Wed, Sept 16, 2009 at the Baton Rouge offices of National Audubon located at 6160 Perkins Rd, Suite 15, Baton Rouge, 70808.

The meeting will start at 6:30 pm and last until 8 or so. We'll be talking about Hummingbirds.

Please send me an email (Education@braudubon.org) if you plan to come!

Come see the migrating hummingbirds!

If you're like me, you have one or two hummingbirds at your house right now if you have feeders up. But there's a place, a very special place, just north of here where there are HUNDREDS of hummingbirds and we have been invited to come see them! Here's a sample of what we might see: Migration Madness (go to this link to see video)

Mr. Dick Lancaster hangs 50 feeders on his patio and his house is on the Ruby-Throat Highway because hundreds of the little birds stop by here on their way to their wintering grounds in Central America. Next Sunday, September 13, from 5:00 to 6:30 pm, you can come spend some time marveling at all the birds. You're welcome to bring other family members or interested friends! Be sure to bring your camera!

If you think you'd like to come, please send me an email and I'll send you the directions! Hope to see you there!

Come see our booth at Earth Day!

We'll be featuring a Bird Identification game in the Earth For Children area. Come try the game and win a prize!

Check out Adventures of a Bird Girl

Helena is a 14 yr old girl from Maryland who is a birder and a nature photographer and a blogger. Read about her birding adventures:

http://helenalovesbirds.blogspot.com/

March meeting date set -- March 18

Come one, come all -- back to Amy and Logan's house for another Kids Who Bird meeting. Wed, March 18, 6:30-8ish. Email me if you need the address. I think, in honor of the fact that the Ruby-throated hummingbirds are showing up back in Louisiana, we're going to be talking about hummingbirds this month!

Ever seen an owl yawn?

Is this a yawn? Or did she hear a great owl joke?


Lovebirds snuggling in the swamp


These photos of the resident barred owls were taken in Bluebonnet Swamp in south Baton Rouge in January 2009. Pictures taken by John Hartgerink who calls these owls "Barbara and Barry".

February meeting 2/18

This month's meeting will be at Amy and Logan's house...email me for the address if you think you can come and you missed it. We'll be talking RAPTORS. Not the dinosaur kind, but the birdish kind with talons and sharp pointy beaks who eat other critters. Eagles, hawks, owls and the like. Hope to see you there!

Click here to see the video of a Bald Eagle's nest near Baton Rouge! If you want to see it in person, ask me for directions...

Hummingbirds!

Happy New Year to all the Kids Who Bird!

Come out this weekend and see the winter hummingbirds in the Baton Rouge area. Baton Rouge Audubon Society is sponsoring a field trip to several homes in the area that are known to host hummingbirds. These are "western" hummingbirds that are only found in our area in the winter time. This is a half-day outing to three or four Baton Rouge homes to observe wintering hummingbirds this Saturday Jan 17, 2009. The trip will focus on homes that are hosting hummingbirds that have a high probability of being easily seen. Hopefully we'll see 4 or 5 different species of hummingbirds! We will meet at Coffee Call on College Dr. at 8am. They're asking folks to pre-register. You can either let me know you're coming and I'll contact our field trip coordinator and let him how many will there, or you can contact Robert during business hours at 926.2223 or by e-mail at fieldtrips@braudubon.org.

Last time we met we decided to change our meeting night to the third Wednesday of the month. As such, our next meeting will be Wednesday, Jan 21 at 6:30pm. We'll again meet at Melanie Driscoll's house (same place as last month). Please reply to this email if you need directions to Melanie's house. We're going to continue the Hummingbird theme and talk some more about Hummingbirds...

Got Owls?

(Barred Owl at Bluebonnet Swamp - photo by John Hartgerink)

Whooo, whooo, whooo goes there?? It's owl time in Louisiana! This is the time of year that owls start pairing up to nest and breed. As such they do a lot of talking to each other, so they're easy to hear. Of course, they may not be so easy to see, as most owls are, of course, nocturnal. You might get lucky though. The other night my husband was taking out the trash and a Barred Owl landed on a sweet gum tree right over the driveway and stayed there while he walked right underneath with the trash container! Barred owls are one of the few owls that come out during the day. Click on the link below to see a video of a Barred Owl that I was lucky enough to see in broad daylight at Bluebonnet Swamp. She was hunting for crawfish and if you look closely you can see her catch it, take from her talon with her beak and then swallow it whole! Do you suppose it crawls around in her stomach and pinches with its claws??

http://seejanebird.com/Owls (click on Barred_Owl_hunts.wmv)

How do you know which owl is which...or whooooo? Here are a couple of good online sites for Bird Identification - http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/ or http://whatbird.com . You can see pictures as well as listen to the sounds they make.

Good luck gettin' owls!

Barred Owlets at Bluebonnet Swamp - photo by John Hartgerink

Winter duck haven right here in town

In the winter, many of the ducks that live and breed in the far north of our continent come down to the gulf coast area.   In many parts of Louisiana, you can find thousands of ducks and geese collecting on flooded fields, harvested grain fields, and lakes.  But, right here in Baton Rouge, we get a  fair variety of these winter birds on our city lakes.  At the Capitol lakes, for example, we get several species....mostly Ring-necked Ducks and Lesser Scaups, but we also get some more exotic species, like Canvasbacks, Hooded Mergansers, Ruddy Ducks, Gadwalls, and this year...Buffleheads.  If you get a chance, head down to the lakes with your binoculars and see if you can pick out the different types of ducks.  Oh, and those black birds with white bills??? Yeah, those aren't ducks.  See if you can figure out what they are!

When I was out there this weekend, there was a family getting their pictures taken -- family portrait type stuff.  While the grownups were getting done, a couple of the boys were down at the water's edge.  There is a woman who feeds the ducks every day (and has for 30 years!) so some of the ducks come to the shore when people are there.  One of the boys started throwing rocks at the ducks.  The ducks scattered, but other ducks from the other side of the lake came flying in because they thought there was food.  The boys were pretending to shoot the ducks, and the adults were encouraging them.   They didn't even seem self-conscious with me standing there watching.  I know that hunting is very much a part of our culture here, but that just seemed wrong to me.  Hard to say something when the whole family's there egging on the kid. 

Field trip scheduled - Nov 22, 2008

Next field trip planned for Kids Who Bird and their parental-types will be November 22, 2008. We'll try the Capitol Lakes area again, since there's been an influx of winter birds. We'll meet on the northwest side of the big lake between the Court building and the Insurance (Poydras) building at 7:30 am. We'll probably be on that side of the lake for a while, so if you can't make it right at 7:30, come on anyway.

If you plan to come, send me an email (Education@braudubon.org) so that I can be looking for you and give you my cell number.

You do not have to be a club member to come -- come to try and see if you like it! I'll have binoculars and field guides to share.

Project FeederWatch 08-09 has started!

Here's an idea to give you an even better reason to watch birds in your back yard. You can not only learn something about birds, but also participate in Citizen Science. Find out more here:

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw/

Gifts for Kids Who Bird

The holidays are fast approaching and everyone's trying to come up with gift ideas. Here are a couple of gift ideas for kids who are interested in birding:

Binoculars

What to look for:

• Good quality glass (multi-coated, BAK4)
• Close focus - less than 16 feet
  
• Field of view > 330 ft @ 1000 yds(over 350 is even better!)
  
• 8x, 9x or 10x zoom (recommended: 8x42)
• Waterproof, fogproof

Good sources are Binoculars.com or EagleOptics.com. If you're looking for something under $100, the Bushnell H2O Waterproof/Fogproof Roof Prism binoculars would be a good choice ($70-$80). Nice feature is the attached lens covers -- rare in a low-end binocular!

Field Guide

A field guide is a book that helps you identify birds and is small enough to carry around in the field (although, frankly, they are too big for most pockets!). There are many available and each birder tends to have their preferences. There is a new one out in 2008 that is designed for young birders. It's called The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of Eastern North America (Peterson Field Guides ) by Bill Thompson III and Julie Zickefoose. Great for starting out. Biggest problem may be that it might not include all of our Louisiana birds. The standard field guide that I reach for is David Sibley's The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America. I do like Kenn Kaufman's new field guide too -- Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America. And then, of course, is the updated classic Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America by Roger Tory Peterson, father of American birding field guides.

Software

Thayer birding software produces a great product that every birder should own (IMHO). Not only is it an electronic field guide with all the features of a printed guide, but it also has multiple pictures and often video for the birds listed. It also has sounds for each bird, and even has a function for uploading the sounds to an ipod. This software features aids to figure out bird identities and dozens of quizzes that can be used for improving birding skills. It's quite complete and very useful.

City Birding

Report from birding field trip to Capitol Lakes on Nov 8, 2008.

Beautiful crisp clear fall day in downtown Baton Rouge. The Kestrel was observed harrassing the Cooper's Hawk which has been hanging around for a couple of weeks. Not positive if there are 3 or 5 Hooded Mergansers -- saw a group of 2 males, 1 fem on big lake near Poydras, then later saw a pair 1m/1f at DOTD lake. Geese were distant flyovers and lucky catch. RNDucks and Scaup were difficult to count as they were flying from side to side in the lake -- numbers are estimates, but Ring-Necked outnumber the Scaups. The Wilson's Warbler was on the north side of Poydras in the brushier stuff. Sav. sparrows were located on the north and east side of the lake in the warehouse area (car birding only!). Ibis, gadwalls, and H. Mergs on DOTD lake. Oh, and there was an alligator in the little lake -- first time I've ever seen one at these lakes...

Number of species: 47

Greater White-fronted Goose 6
Snow Goose 41
Muscovy Duck (Domestic type) 9
Wood Duck 17
Gadwall 5
Mallard (Domestic type) 3
Ring-necked Duck 50
Lesser Scaup 20
Hooded Merganser 5
Ruddy Duck 5
Pied-billed Grebe 6
Double-crested Cormorant 5
Anhinga 2
Great Blue Heron 2
Great Egret 6
Snowy Egret 13
Tricolored Heron 1
White Ibis 8
Turkey Vulture 3
Cooper's Hawk 1
American Kestrel 1
American Coot 53
Killdeer 4
Least Sandpiper 9
Rock Pigeon 8
Eurasian Collared-Dove 2
Mourning Dove 6
Belted Kingfisher 2
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 2
Downy Woodpecker 2
Northern Flicker 1
Eastern Phoebe 3
Loggerhead Shrike 1
Blue Jay 12
Carolina Chickadee 1
Carolina Wren 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 8
Northern Mockingbird 13
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 14
Wilson's Warbler 1
Savannah Sparrow 2
Swamp Sparrow 4
White-throated Sparrow 5
Northern Cardinal 7
Brown-headed Cowbird 12
House Finch 1
House Sparrow 14
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/)