EIKI and SNOW

What a great bigby, albeit a very windy one. I walked down to the Art Museum to see if I could catch the King Eider. Thanks to Chuck Hegner, I found the Eider, a first year male. . Quite amazing to see him ( the Eider, not Chuck) steaming toward me like a troop ship,quite broad in the beam. We watched in amazement to see the Eider swallow a clump of Qahog mussels, shell and all. After watching for a while, I walked to Lakeshore State Park to see if I could catch some snow buntings. I was alerted by the noisy mobbing of crows and found a Snowy Owl on the rocks adjacent to the piers in the first lagoon. The rest of the park was quiet and battened down due to the strong winds. When I turned north to return home, I was amazed at the strength of the wind and had great fun fighting it until I got to the bike path. On the bike path I saw an immature Cooper's Hawk with a black band on its left leg, and an aluminum band on the right.

On another note, I would be much closer to Tim if I had not been so kind to tell him in exquisite detail where to find the birds. It really rankled that he got back to the computer to record the two before I did.

R. Squier

My 2011 Wisconsin BIGBY count (so far)

FINALLY got around to entering my species list on the Wisconsin Green Birding Challenge spreadsheet!!

My current species count is 180 BIGBY species in 2011. That would put me in fourth place among the folks who have added their counts to the spreadsheet. I figure it might be worth mentioning that I'm doing a WALKING BIGBY (i.e., no bicycles, kayaks, canoes, etc....just my own two feet).

It's been a slow summer though. My last new 2011 BIGBY species two months ago (Yellow-billed Cuckoo on June 21).

Bernie Sloan
Milwaukee

Doubt

Okay, so here's the thing. I know I saw and heard a Wood Thrush, but it's too early. I have been known to turn any bird, (really any bird), into a bird I want. I also "saw" a meadowlark flying away from me. Broad white outer tail feathers. Again, not enough time to study it. So, I am going to begin posting the "might've, could be's" here." I took off the Wood Thrush from the Bigby count, so I am tied with Tim. Drat. (I'm not even mentioning the Sedge Wren.)

Gullin'

Us madisonians don't get a lot of gullin' in, but Maggie and I were able to tandem bike to Lake Waubesa tonight and scored a nice look at a foraging Lesser Black-backed GUll! Cha-ching!

Andy Paulios
McFarland, WI

Madison - Milwaukee, put the heat on?

so these new upstarts from Madtown seem to think that they can get more birds than those of us in Brewtown. They talked about wagers. Thoughts?

Oh - and Robin just helped me find 3 new BGBY birds outside her house CAWR, COME and SOSP. What's with all this cooperation? Something in the drinking water? (Thanks ROSQ!)

Newbie to BIGBY

Hello all -

My name is Daniel Schneider and this being my rookie BIGBY season, I thought I would introduce myself. I work for UW-Madison doing grassland bird research. I will be basing my BIGBY from my house on the eastside of Madison which fortunately, is within striking distance of many of Dane county's hot spots.

I took up cycling last year and have been a lister for years so I thought I would combine the two and go Green. Combine that with my guilt for all those winter time airplane rides to warm, tropical birding destinations and there's no way I could resist when Andy P. mentioned the group sometime last year.

Glad to be aboard!

-Daniel

HOME, RWBB, GHOW

After seeing Chuck's post regarding his sightings at Estrabrook, I decided to set out first for that park. There were quite a few Buffleheads, Mallards on the river, and finally, one lone Hooded Merganser. There were also female Common Goldeneyes (about 7), but no males (why?). I spent a long time watching and studying the birds (and took field notes a la Richard Crossley's suggestion) and then continued on through the park. Right before the dog park, I noticed two RWBB in the brush. They were perfectly still. So still that I looked around to see if any predator (besides me) was nearby. The birds had a brown mottling at the nape, and the epaulet only showed yellow. I wondered if they were immature males and hunkered down to avoid any confrontations. I continued on to the Shorewood Nature Preserve where there were 11 crows in a raucous party around a tall fir. Stomping through the snow, I finally got my glasses on the fir and saw a GHOW sitting amidst the branches. The crows finally flew away, but the GHOW never twitched a feather. The ice is quite far out at the preserve, but you can see rafts and rafts of Bufflehead and Scaup at Atwater. Still looking for a Brown Creeper, I continued on to Downer Woods, but all was quiet. Two Peregrines sat on the Engineering building at UWM, and two RWBB called along Lake Drive. Species total for the day was 20.
Just now I looked out at my feeder to see a White-crowned Sparrow.