 Birders harass dog people in Prospect Park saying they disturb ground-nesting birds. But only six species nest on the ground here, none exclusively. Some aren’t even in the park in the summer. Keep reading Dogs Don’t Eat Warblers–in Prospect Park or Anywhere  Can you not stand sitting feet away from amusing hummingbirds as they steal sweet nectar from your feeder? Inventor Doyle Doss solved the age-old problem by devising a red face shield that serves the sugar water from a tube between your eyes. Since 2008 he says he’s sold about 700 of these. So while people may be freaked out to see one, hummingbirds may actually begin to recognize what they are and come right over. Doss has some serious, boring inventions and then a side-line in goofy stuff like the face feeder, which he came up with after a hummingbird hovered in front of his red bird. “A hummingbird came out of nowhere and just hung there, two inches from my nose,” he says. “My immediate response was, I froze. I never forgot the experience. It was such a magical type of thing.” Decades later, Doss took a professional welding face shield and covered it in a red pattern that hummers love. Then he put a rubber tube between the eyes to be filled with sugar water. The birds came. This isn’t the first attempt at a hummingbird helmet. This adorable video shows a little girl watching hummingbirds in the more popular variety–and initially flinching and scaring them away. The face shield serves to draw hummers in (they love red) and to make humans confident they won’t get their eyes poked out. Hummingbirds are so agile, they’re not going to go bumbling into your face. Doss says the tube was the hardest part to figure Keep reading 700 Helmet hummingbird feeders floating around North America  Kabukiri Wetlands, where farmers flood their fields to serve migrating ducks and swans, hopes birders will return to the area about 100 miles from the nuclear disaster. Keep reading Japan’s Kabukiri Wetlands, a Ramsar site, hopes birders return  How many bird species have you seen in New York City? Dennis Edge, an East Village photographer, has scored an amazing 88 species in and around Tompkins Square Park. Keep reading Dennis Edge, wildlife photographer, shows Tompkins Sq’s 88 bird species  The basic strategy–aside from being there to spook the hawk–is to make sure your little birds have an easy escape route. Keep reading How to keep hawks from devouring your bird feeder friends 
For four days starting Friday, anybody can be a birder and a citizen scientist. The Great Backyard Bird Count, now in its 13th year, is the first bird census of its size to have its tally be all online. Unlike more hardcore events like the Christmast Bird Count, which requires all-day spotting, the GBBC is for all levels and you only have to commit to 15 minutes. You can bop around anywhere you want in the four days –February 12-25–and then submit your report online. “It’s a neat way of getting school and scout groups,” involved, says Audubon’s Geoff LeBaron, , [all] kids a way of get them going Worried you won’t know your birds well enough? They have some pointers on how to tell apart tricky pairs. To me, they look like those games where you try to tell one seemingly identical picture from another. If you’re competitive, check out their photo contest, which has several categories. I thought the “People Enjoying Birds” would be a lame one, but I was wrong. Check out last year’s winner, Harry Mueller of Manitoba took an amazing shot of a woman pouring thistle into a feeder while four eager sparrows perched on her hat and mitten. Just shows how much fun you can have with even ordinary backyard birds. Read More Bird Stories To see more animals go to Keep reading Got 15 Minutes? Become a Citizen Scientist This Weekend  Dr. Robert “Birding Bob” DeCandido leads birding tours around New York City. Usually he takes people to see owls in Central Park, which he helped reintroduce. This week he lead a tour of the Empire State Building at night to see birds migrating by–and the peregrine falcons who want to eat them. Here’s his report to his followers this week. Not from this trip, but here’s a picture of a peregrine seen from the Empire State Building.Photo here courtesy of Mike ZienowiczHello All, Sunday Evening, 30 August (Night Migration at the Empire State Building) – as I stood outside the Empire State Building (ESB) at 6:25pm, I cursed the weatherman, the wind direction and life in general. The forecast was for westerly winds by 7pm or so, but the few scattered clouds above us sure looked like they were coming up from the southwest. Such winds would insure we would see no migrants. As the hopeful gathered, I offered the option of just canning the trip up to the top – we could use the tickets any time in the next two years. However, there were no takers – people had psyched themselves into going up there, and many had not made a trip in several years (decades). One of us (a native New Yorker) had never been up there yet… So up we went – along the way, I met Security Guards who remembered me (“hey birdman“) and we exchanged smiles and hugs – they telling me excitedly Keep reading Birders Watch Peregrine Falcon at Empire State Building Watching Migrants |
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