Sometimes there's a wildlife adventure in your backyard.

It has been an overcast day here and I let the semi-darkness lull me to sleep this afternoon in the Family Room. When I woke up my black-and-white cat Samantha was chittering with an unusual intensity at something outside the sliding glass doors. I got up in time to see a Cooper's Hawk perched atop my bird feeders. The thought to grab my camera occurred when the nap induced fog lifted from my brain. But as with all things in wildlife, only the fast are rewarded and the slowest are denied. I was too slow and I missed my opportunity. The Hawk lifted and was gone.

The Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) is a medium sized bird of prey in the Accipiter family. They inhabit woodlands, parks and even urban areas. Their food of choice is other birds, preferably those that are dove-sized. Their smaller size and wing shape allow them to zip through trees and shrubs to pursue their prey. Once they capture their prey, this Hawk will squeeze it to death, rather than biting to kill, as Falcons often do.

About 30 minutes later I passed through the Family Room and found the Cooper's Hawk in the neighbor's tree in the yard directly behind us. She (I'm calling the Hawk a "She" based on the size. Females raptors are generally bigger than their male counterparts. Of course size is difficult to determine when you cannot compare two of the same birds together side by side) was perched among a handful of Cardinals standing guard.

I was surprised the smaller birds were so close to the Hawk, but reasoned she could not easily reach any of these birds just out of talon's reach. I was also surprised that the activity at my bird feeders resumed, despite the Hawk's presence. But when it's cold and you need to consume as much food as possible to survive, you take your chances. I decided to sit and watch the Hawk. For awhile, she perched comfortably, unmoving and uninterested in her surroundings. But then she began to perk up, looking up at the sentinel Cardinals, surveying the yard before her and then looking back at my feeders.

When the Hawk shifted to face my feeders, some of the birds in my backyard scattered and the Goldfinch still at the finch feeder barely had enough time to escape with his life by the time Cooper's Hawk launched from the tree.

It has been my experience that most people tend to believe the exciting wildlife drama happens outside of suburbia and I was once one of those believers. You may not always witness the excitement of a Cooper's Hawk hunting for food at a bird feeder, but if you pay careful attention to your surroundings, you can see the predator-prey food cycle at work. You may find a Praying Mantis sitting on a flower stalk, waiting to ambush the unsuspecting bee, or find a Harvestman with a dying butterfly in its grasp (True story! I watched this!).

I experience mixed feelings each time I have an encounter with a Cooper's Hawk. The presence of this raptor is usually the demise for some poor songbird, but I can't help but admire their beauty and adaptations for hunting. She was a beautiful bird and I'm grateful she livened up my afternoon.

Numbers

Holy crap. Has it really been 2 months since I've last posted an entry? Wow.

Well, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I've been following my favorite blogs and have even thought about posting but I've been a bit...preoccupied.

The Bird Sanctuary is hosting the Inland Bird Banding Association conference this year and yours truly is presenting a paper. As most of you know, I have spent the last 2 summers studying the songbird populations on a piece of restored prairie(Entries here and here and here). I narrowed my focus (because there are a few things I'm studying) on the nest boxes on the prairie and whether or not prescribed burns affect the predation rate on the nest boxes. Eurasian Tree Sparrows were the birds predominantly using the boxes

I began writing the paper in August, right around the time I stopped blogging as a matter of fact. Academic pursuits bring out the worst of my neurotic tendencies. The paper started easily enough. I breezed through the introduction and procedure portions of the paper but the difficulties began with the results section. I had to review and interpret 2 years worth of data: numbers of eggs that hatched, chicks that survived to leave the nest box, predation numbers. So...many...numbers. The panic began to trickle in but it was quelled with a call to Shark Girl (who is now in Grad school I might add :) )

"There's so many fricking numbers!" I exclaimed during our first of at least 3 calls

"Indeed. A lot to interpret." She agreed.

I know that first call lasted at least 3 hours. I'm not exaggerating. But we did get a lot done.

The hill of difficulty progressively got steeper over the weeks, as did my level of anxiety. What was I going to do with all of these percentages? How did I make sense of and organize the numbers? The words "T-test" began to float around and I panicked. T-test? I didn't even remember how to do a T-test. Then my self esteem tanked. What kind of field biologist was I that I couldn't do a T-test, much less think of running one? What the hell was I doing? I felt like an impostor. I had no business preparing a presentation! Danno's dad came to my rescue that time and helped me break down my numbers into a more manageable size. He also walked me through some simple calculations that could be performed on Excel. Heck, he almost made it look like fun!

An odd combination of excitement, panic and low self esteem formed and filtered into my thoughts, sleep and stomach. I often fell asleep only to wake up with thoughts about the numbers, what they meant and wondering how to put them all together. Eating resulted in heartburn and looking at my data on Excel only drove the panic.

It wasn't long before Beetle Guru and Shark Girl became my Sparrow Champions. They listened to my thoughts and ideas on the paper, critiqued my paper and researched potential stastitical tests that could be run on my data. They also offered a great deal of emotional support. They became common recipients to the "I can't do this I give up" panic, (received either through email or texting before the subsequent phone call) They told me I was doing Graduate level work without the help of a professor or a university.

I LOVE field biology but the math really does turn the anxiety up for me. Honestly, it's the main reason I won't touch graduate school with a 10 foot pole. I'm not sure I could pass any population statistics or other class devoted to interpreting ecology-oriented numbers. It amazes me the number of people (like Beetle Guru and Shark Girl) who believe that I can accomplish the feat of Grad School.

After 2 agonizing months, the paper is finished and the presentation is ready. I'm happy it's finished and I'm already wiggling in anticpation of beginning my work again in the spring. It's funny how the paper took a life of its own and how much I learned in the process. I learned a different way or two how to interpret data, improved my scientific writing skills and discovered there are a few causes that need to be ruled out in terms of predation for next summer. But the biggest thing I learned is that it's ok to seek help and obtaining that help doesn't mean I'm no less intelligent

My next goal is to secure funding for next year's research. I still need to write another report for the mistnetting and bird census results. Put your seat belts on ladies and gentlemen. We may be in for a bumpy ride.

Adventures in (mis)reading

I don't like cooking. Most people who know me are aware of that fact. However, because of some silly New Years resolution I made about losing weight, I'm faced with the fact that I will need to cook. Home made dinners are better for you than the premade TV dinner type stuff. For the last 6 months, I've tried finding loopholes around the home made dinner fact and I'm giving up. What really broke the last straw was the book In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. Foods prepared without all the added vitamins and minerals are really better for you. There's nothing wrong with plain, wholesome vegetables.

I let my dirty secret out at work (that I hate cooking and don't really cook all that much) and there are at least 2 of my coworkers who have been peering over my shoulder on occasion on my progress of cooking, or lack thereof. (You know who you are and I know you're reading this. *Grins*)

I don't enjoy cooking because the directions usually intimidate me. I have ADD and sometimes reading directions is challenging for me. If directions are written simply and each step has a separate line, that is great. I'm a happy girl. (The 4-Ingredient Cookbook is AWESOME in that regard. That's my favorite cookbook) However, most cook books write their directions in paragraph form and that's where I run into trouble. I lose focus after the second line of the paragraph and I more-or-less need to read the same paragraph several times before it sinks in. That makes me feel stupid and I hate that...so I avoid cooking.


But I need to get over that. For my health, I need to work past my little idiosyncracy. So...I cooked today. And as with most of my experiences with cooking, I had...ahem...an adventure.
I made Chicken Enchiladas. The recipe called for chicken, sour cream, chopped chilies, cheese, chopped onion...all of the usual ingriedents for enchiladas. I read the directions several times before assembling the ingriendents and needed utensils.

Step one, saute onions in skillet. Check. Step two, add chicken and chilies. Hmmm, the chicken is still raw, but ok. I paused to reread the directions. It did not mention stirring this concoction under heat. How long was this going to be in the oven? Is that what cooks the chicken? I scanned down to the end of the directions. The directions read to cook for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees. Is that going to long enough to cook the chicken? It IS cubed, but still...

So I continue mixing the second half of the ingriedents (mostly sour cream and cream of chicken soup) and pour it over the chicken and chilies. I glob a spoonful of the mixture on to a tortilla before I stop again. Really? Raw chicken? What am I missing? Maybe I should COMPLETELY read the directions again. So I begin to read the recipe again from the beginning and I see this in the ingriedent list: 2 cups of cubed COOKED chicken. Geezus.

I drop the glob back in the skillet and proceed to pick each and every piece of chicken out of the mixture. I shook off as much of the sour cream concotion as I could before dropping the chicken into a new skillet to COOK.

Once the chicken was cooked I reassembled and placed the enchiladas in the oven. I just finished eating one and it wasn't too bad. A little on the bland side, but considering the fact that I can't cook something right the first time, it was pretty good.

I won't allow the mistake to stop me. It's not the first time I've goofed something up in a recipe. If anything, my adventures in cooking will be blog fodder.

Obsessed with the weather

I have a nightly ritual that I perform Sunday and Wednesday evenings. I check the weather, sometimes repeatedly, until I go to bed. I come home from work Sunday afternoon and hop on weather.com to check for the chances for rain and the temperature for Monday morning. I watch the early evening and night news, scarcely paying attention to the news until the weather pops on. Then I'm all eyes and ears, turning the TV up and keeping my eyes glued to the map of the city and the radar, searching for rain clouds or other weather warnings that may keep me indoors.

You're probably thinking I'm a little on the OCD side and maybe I am. You're probably wondering why I'm obsessed with the weather too. It's a mistnetting thing. As you know, I mistnet on Monday and Thursday mornings and the rain and even the temperature dictates whether or not we put the mistnets up for the birds. In the spring, if the temperatures are too cold (below 35 F), we either postpone our mistnetting session until the temperature rises or we cancel. The birds use an incredible amount of energy to stay warm (I read during the winter, a chickadee can lose 5% of its body weight overnight.) and as much as we love mistnetting, we do know that it can be stressful on our feathered friends. No sense on adding stress to a bird running on limited energy.

And the rain. Rain is our foe for many reasons. Human safety is the biggest reason we obsess over the weather. As you know, lightning often accompanies a good storm and our mistnets hang from aluminum poles. Many of our nets are also located on hills and in valleys where you often climb up and over nature-made obstacles like fallen trees and bushes. Imagine dashing to close a net in the pouring rain where there is mud and limited visibility. It wouldn't take much to slip and fall or twist an ankle. And of course there is the birds. Imagine yourself hanging upside down, tangled in a net with the rain pouring down your body. Birds have hollow bones to enable flight. As you can imagine, it can be difficult, if not impossible for a drenched bird to fly. A wet bird also has a lowered body temperature. So now the bird has to use twice the energy to raise that body temperature and attempt to fly to a safe place.

So I watch the news and check the internet before retiring to bed. In the morning I get up and look outside the window before sitting in front of the internet again to check the radar. Most mornings you know without a doubt whether or not you're mistnetting. But there are those mornings when you see a patch of rain looming on the radar horizon, but it looks far enough away that you could probably get a mistnetting session in but it's a gamble. I've been on the wrong side of the dice on that bet but I'm sure most field biologists have miscalculated their odds on the weather. There have been a few times my cohorts and I have gone running in the rain to close the nets.

Then there are the near misses. Last year a thunderstorm appeared from nowhere with a tornado in tow. That was an exciting morning. Fortunately the tornado went a different direction and we got the nets down before the rain hit. Just last week a cold front blew in while we were mistnetting on the prairie. Initially we marveled over the beauty of the clouds that accompanied the front, but when the temperature dropped, the wind picked up and the thunder began to rumble, we got a little worried. While debating on whether or not to end the morning, the clouds continued to swirl ominously and the wind blew, but the rain was scarce. We took a gamble and only took down 2 nets, leaving 3 nets open. We won that gamble. We received a smattering of rain before the scary clouds passed on. Turns out the storm hit just north of our location.

Yes indeed the weather is a frequent topic of discussion amongst us field biologists, especially the bird biologists. Bird watchers are also obsessed with the weather but the parameters are different, not to mention tolerance for things like temperature and rain. That topic is also a whole other blog entry.

In the meantime, I just got my weather report. Tomorrow will be sunny and pleasant. Perfect weather for mistnetting.

Until next time...

Happy Birthday Sis

Today would have been my sister Penny's 33rd birthday. On November 19, 1995 she was killed by a drunk driver. While time and life experiences have helped me tremendously to heal, the grief never leaves. There is a scar and some days it aches. Today it ached.

I woke up with the ache and fought it off in decluttering and cleaning. But I thought of her amidst the sorting, recycling and vacuuming. I wondered what she would be like today. She certainly was a pistol from day one. She was born 3 weeks prematurely and created such a ruckus in the operating room (she was born c-section) that a few nurses ran down the hall to see what was happening. She was cute, but full of fire and knew how to push everyone's buttons.


She had a way with words, facial expressions


and gestures...



Happy Birthday Sis. I think of you often and miss you just as much. I still search for any resemblance of you in unfamiliar faces and look for hints of your personality in interactions with strangers and friends alike.


Here at home we keep your memory alive looking at old photographs, reminiscing over times past and keeping a few your things out in the house. I may not talk about you often, but know you're always in my heart.

The Young Ones Among Us

There are two times of the year that I favor for birdwatching, one being spring, the other, summer. Songbirds from the tropics fly in a flurry of color and song to pause in our trees for respite before traveling to their breeding grounds, giving us birdwatchers a welcome break from the drabs of winter. Mid to late summer is my other favorite time of the year because of the young birds, who have recently left the nest. It is here you see the efforts of the adult songbirds come to fruition; the defending of territory, effort in attracting a mate, nest building, incubation, feeding the young and defending the nest when necessary. The adults spend all this time and energy with the goal of insuring the future of their own kind and the young birds (aka juveniles) are now out and about, learning the ropes of survival.

Young birds are entertaining to watch. I have often found on the restored prairie and even in my backyard, a group of young birds hopping or flying after a harried parent, begging for food in a series of rapid wing flutters and high pitched chips. Everything in this world is new to these birds and I have found some of these youngsters are just as curious of you as you are of them. With patience and care, it is possible to come within a few feet of these young birds for several moments, allowing you the opportunity to study or photograph them.

The juvenile American Robins are my absolute favorites.



They are clumsy but unabashed in their attempts to explore their new abilities and the world around them. I have seen young robins bounce and flop among the top limbs of trees. I have seen a robin or two awkwardly hover in mid-air before doubling back to return to their original place in a tree. I've watched juvenile robins eye the ground before making an exaggerated pounce to obtain a worm, or a blade of grass. I've listened to these birds try their new voices that sound like squawks rather than the pleasant warble of the adults. Just last week I had 4 young Robins, probably all siblings, nearly collide into me because they were not paying attention to what was in front of them.

I think I like these young birds because in an odd way, I can relate to them. Every time I see a juvenile robin, I reflect back on some of the more awkward learning stages of my life. These young birds remind me that it's ok to not do a task perfectly the first, or even fifth time. It's the process that counts. And it's nice to see that reminder in action, rather than hear it from a friend or colleague.

Keep on learning my little Robin friends. You'll get the hang of life and before you know it, you'll be teaching your tricks to the next generation of your species.

I'd pass out but my legs hurt so bad I'm not sure I'd be able to get up! Week one of the new exercise class

Monday I started a resistance/cardio exercise class that I heard about through a classmate I reconnected with on Facebook. She mentioned it from time to time and recently my curiosity got the better of me. With nightmarish flashbacks of High School PE, I sent her a message, asking what the exercise class entailed. She reassured me that the class was designed to allow each person to do the exercises at their own pace.

The last time I took an exercise class was probably 5 years ago, maybe longer. Any exercise I've done in the recent past has been in the form of walking or hiking. With a recent lecture from the doctor still ringing in my ears, I decided that it was now or never with getting in shape. So Monday I showed up at the city park where the class was taking place.

To my relief the class was small and predominantly women. (There were 2 men) The instructor greeted me warmly and repeatedly told me to take the class at my own pace and to listen to my body. There were bench squats, body lunge walking, jogging and pushups. There was arm lifting and curling with weights, modified sit ups (plain ole' situps are too easy) and leg lifts. It was hard work but I did ok keeping up. I was a little sore when I finished, but it was manageable.

I got the first inkling of pain in the middle of the night. I woke up when I shifted in bed and every time thereafter and when morning finally broke, my thighs hurt so bad I had to roll out of bed. Roll out of bed.

All of Tuesday I hobbled around at a snail's pace. Sitting and standing were difficult to say the least. I had no idea how much you depend on your thigh muscles to sit and stand! When getting ready to sit, I would lean on objects and then arrange my body in such a position that relieved my thigh muscles of most of the work. I usually landed with a hard thud in a chair, or...ahem...on the toilet. (I will spare you the details of how much work it was to use the bathroom) And stairs...oh geez. Stairs were not in the cards on Tuesday. I could not walk down the basement stairs.

The class was a discouraging experience for me Wednesday evening. The instructor started out with cardio exercises and right off the bat I got tired and winded. We weren't into the class 15 minutes when I felt light-headed and maybe, if I pushed myself too hard, I would faint. I immediately stopped exercising. If I fell over, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get up because my legs were still so sore! I did what I could but took it easy. I worked out harder Monday night than I did Wednesday night. Again the instructor was supportive, telling me a lot of beginners take a period of adjusting to the class and also to exercising in the heat. But I was discouraged, very discouraged.

This morning I mistnetted at the Bird Sanctuary and talked with Bird Whisperer. She's an exercise fiend. Despite the teasing she gave me, she told me her husband had the same experience of sore leg muscles and the inability to walk up and down stairs (thank goodness!) when he started exercising with her. She offered advice that ranged from leg stretches to the suggestion of eating protein after a workout in the thoughts that it builds muscle and perhaps cuts down on the soreness.

I felt a bit better after our talk, but I'm still feeling, well, discouraged. I'm not giving up on the class, but I've got a lot of work ahead of me to get back into good shape.