Kitfox
Mexican Grey Wolf Member
Posts: 149
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Post by Kitfox on Sept 19, 2004 21:57:19 GMT -5
Wow, that's a cool story. Can't say any of our peacocks have done anything like that. Although one of the young ones did fly into my room one time and poop on my bed. :frog:
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Stinger
Mexican Grey Wolf Member
Cowboy Up!!
Posts: 183
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Post by Stinger on Sept 20, 2004 16:14:20 GMT -5
Crow, that is an awesome story about your peacock, you have an amazing way of telling stories! Sometimes I feel as though I was right there with when it happened! KitFox, that is pretty funny about you peacock pooping on your bed. Hopefully you saw it before you layed down?! Yesterday during one of the breaks in the rain, I saw a Mountain Bluebird flying around my apartment. Thanks Crow for helping me identify it!
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Post by eaglewoman on Sept 21, 2004 0:02:51 GMT -5
It was 2pm, and I was digging around in the toolbox on one side of the work truck. It was pretty hot, and the shade of the oak and ponderosa were my new favorite friends. In the midst of my mindless activity, I heard a bird call falling from the trees to land on the ground just the other side of the truck. At the time, I thought...hmmm, West Nile just claimed another one of my Tonto feathered friends right before my eyes. I decided to walk around to the other side of the truck to uncover the recently decest, when a hawk reared up from the ground bearing a mouse in talons. I couldn't believe how still and quiet the hawk had been as it hovered above me in the trees watching the tiny rodent. I was so taken back by the event, I didn't get a chance to ID the guy. What a neat sight though, I'll tell you! I love working in the woods.
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Kitfox
Mexican Grey Wolf Member
Posts: 149
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Post by Kitfox on Sept 22, 2004 0:54:14 GMT -5
KitFox, that is pretty funny about you peacock pooping on your bed. Hopefully you saw it before you layed down?! Fortunately I did. Unfortunately after it pooped on my bed I had to remove it from my room by hand (it couldn't find the door by itself, and would only fly around the room and risk injuring itself) and as a result it also pooped on me. Heh...it wasn't quite as bad as when a baby emu pooped on me. We have lots of birds. :mallard:
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Post by Whiskey Jack on Sept 22, 2004 16:19:56 GMT -5
Eaglewoman.......... You have a way with words. Thanks for your amazing story. Your a true storyteller indeed.
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Stinger
Mexican Grey Wolf Member
Cowboy Up!!
Posts: 183
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Post by Stinger on Sept 24, 2004 9:47:23 GMT -5
I think I saw a White-Breasted Nuthatch yesterday creeping down one of the pines by my apartment. Crow is that a possibility? Is it only the Nuthatches that go head first down a tree? And then it flew and hung on the stucco wall, it was pretty cool.
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Post by Whiskey Jack on Sept 24, 2004 18:36:29 GMT -5
Stinger, Awesome man, your getting pretty good at this bird identification stuff. Yeah, The White-breasted Nuthatch is one of the more common nuthatch around here, all though you'll also see the Pygmy Nuthatch (especially on campus), and even the Red-breasted Nuthatch on very rare occasions. And your right, the nuthatch will defenitly cruise head first down a tree, and it will also feed while hanging upside down on a branch. The best way to tell the White-breasted though, is defenitly it's white breast and face and black cap on the head. The noise it makes is pretty distictive too, it kind of sounds like a bicycle horn. (heres a link: www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i7270id.html if anyone wants to hear the call, just click on the "Call" portion of the page.) Sometimes too if you think you see a nuthatch cruising up and down a tree, take a closer look, because it could also be a Brown Creeper. Nice one man!
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Post by eaglewoman on Sept 27, 2004 14:01:47 GMT -5
Studying statistics in a cooped up room on a beautiful Fall day can really drive me nuts, and the person I trust most knows this. So, we headed on out to Ashurst Lake to throw the poles in and go lakeside with our stats learnin'! I had just picked my stats book back up after catching two eaters, when my pole reared anotheren! This guy was just a bit to small for me...so I let em go. About two minutes later, I noticed, quite unfortunately, that the little baby had gone belly up in the water. Frantically, I stuck my pole out in the water to try to bring the guy back in. (I'm a firm believer in eating something I've killed...no wasting life damn it!) So I was pretty upset that I couldn't reach the fish. He was too far out there. I was pretty upset at myself, when I heard the flapping of wings strum through the wind. I looked up and saw a young bald eagle fixed with a transmitter on back hovering above me and my fish. Immediately, I realized the gracious bird wanted my kill. Humbly, I backed away from the shore to give the fish to my friend the Eagle. He hesitated awhile, even leaving me a few minutes before he dove down to take the fish from the water. I thank the Eagle for redeeming my spirit. Thank you for needing the life that I could not save.
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Stinger
Mexican Grey Wolf Member
Cowboy Up!!
Posts: 183
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Post by Stinger on Sept 27, 2004 15:02:13 GMT -5
Damn Eagle!!! That is one heck of a story and an awesome sighting!! You are the queen of all story tellers! What a great way to study too, why have I never thought of that? Oh yeah, probably because I would never study, being too busy reeling in all those fish! ;D ;D ;D Yeah right!
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Post by Whiskey Jack on Oct 4, 2004 15:59:49 GMT -5
Out in the glory and rapture of Red Mountain (a place that you have to go to if you haven't already been), a bunch of us got to see a Red-breasted Nuthatch drinking from the pools in one of the slot canyons. (Stinger - Weren't we just talking about these guys??) We also saw some Dark-eyed Juncos (first of the Autumn season for me), and heard a Spotted Towhee, and a few Mountian Chickadees.
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Kitfox
Mexican Grey Wolf Member
Posts: 149
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Post by Kitfox on Oct 4, 2004 23:43:12 GMT -5
How would I get to Red Mountain? And, once I'm there, are there any trails or things you would reccomend?
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Post by Whiskey Jack on Oct 13, 2004 18:39:32 GMT -5
Sorry that it took me so long to post Red Mountian directions Kitfox! It just now dawned on me that I forgot. I put directions up on the 'Great Areas for Wildlife Viewing' thread. It is worth the trip to go out there.............
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Post by Whiskey Jack on Oct 18, 2004 18:28:26 GMT -5
This weekend I Cinder and I wandered to Wildcat Canyon to check out some petroglyphs there, but along the way we managed to see a few birds. Steller's Jays, Chipping Sparrows, Spotted Towhees, Dark-eyed Juncos and a flock of Red Crossbills too. Man, those crossbills are amazing examples of a bird with a niche....
On the homefront (the backyard that is) we have a new group of Dark-eyed Juncos hanging around, as well as a pair of Townsends Warblers and a Butter-Butt (Yellow-rumped Warbler in fancy talk).
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Stinger
Mexican Grey Wolf Member
Cowboy Up!!
Posts: 183
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Post by Stinger on Oct 25, 2004 0:33:28 GMT -5
Chrom and I were driving back to Flagtown this evening and we cut through Anthem which is just north of Phoenix when I saw an owl swoop up and land on one of the light poles on the other side of the street. I did not get a good look at it but it was pretty big so I am guessing it was a Great Horned! Oh yeah, we went shooting today with the intention to possibly hunt quail if we saw them but of course no birds...did not even hear them! That is until we got back to my sisters house and that is when I heard some calling in the distance...then I saw some movement close by and there walking right across the front landscape were about 1/2 dozen or so full grown Gambles, I swear I even heard them laughing at me!!!
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Post by Whiskey Jack on Oct 27, 2004 17:07:02 GMT -5
Well, I had a bird in the hand a few days ago. It was a Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon subspecies) that had flew into a window and knocked itself out. Occasionally when this happens the bird will recover from the shock of it momentarily and fly off, or, at worse, it will die from a broken neck, broken beak or it will never recover from the concussion and die due probably to loss of body heat. This one was on the road to dieing from loss of body heat. It suffered from concussion as well as a burst blood vessel in its eye. When I used to take care of birds we would have to inject the bird with adrenaline to clean out the blood in the eyes, but since none was available, water did the trick (but the bird may find it hard to see out of that eye for the rest of its life). Anyway, after it got cleaned up a bit, Emily and I took turns trying to keep it awake, which was hard to do. Eventually though it recovered (it took abot a half-hour), and realized it was sitting in a real ugly and hairy human's hand (yours truely), and it took off flying. Whew! That was a close call! Here is just a remider to folks to put something on their outside windows if they are in areas where birds frequent. There are decals of falcons that kind of work, but what I have found that works the best is hanging a CD on a string in front of or on the side of a window. The CD will move and cause light reflection, and this usually does the trick to show birds that a window is right in front of them.
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