Subject: [Birding at Track Speed]
Date: Apr 2 11:42:20 2000
From: vicki biltz - Sawwhet85B at netscape.net


Roger, hate to disappoint you, but twitterpated is a term used by the wise
old owl in "Bambi" to describe the event of falling in love in the spring;
only he refers to is as more of a disease one catches from a conniving
female.Perhaps you were kidding and already knew that! Vicki Biltz
Bonney Lake
sawwhet85b at netscape.net


rcraik at home.com
Hi all,
To start things off the Engineer that I was working with is a Falconer.
This made for some informative discussion on breeding, training and
selling the birds. It seems the selling price of a female Gyrfalcon
brings a return on investment slightly better than that of the best
performing stock on the NASDAQ. In the Arab world these birds are used
extensively to hunt Houbara Bustard which are just starting to be bred
for sport hunting.

He also mentioned that it was a good year for eggs. He said that
everything seemed to be twitterpated this year. This is, no doubt, a
highly technical term used by bird breeders around the world to signify
the laying of large numbers of eggs or something like that.

We also checked out all the Bald Eagle nests along the route so that he
could note the locations for a friend who is doing a population study
of these birds. His friend had remarked that the local population seems
to be on the upswing lately and that overcrowding could start to occur
at some point in the near future. Out of five nests along the route we
could see a white head in only two of them but remember we are moving
all the time.

I also had the rough locations of several Peregrine Falcon nests, high
up on the canyon walls, pointed out to me. We also swapped unusual
raptor stories and covered the subject of squirrels as we trundled
along. He was unaware that we could encounter the odd flying variety in
certain areas of our run.

It was a daylight run but there was not a whole lot happening as far as
birds were concerned. There were, however, two notable sightings. The
first being a Redhead in a small slough just west of Agassiz that always
contains some interesting ducks. It was in the same location as one I
saw last year at this time.

The second was a male Rufous Hummingbird that almost wound up being a
hood ornament. I don't know just what this bird was doing hanging out
around the mouth of a tunnel near Yale but as we approached suddenly
there was this little rufous blur coming straight at us from out of the
darkened tunnel mouth. His gorget was flashing in the glow of our
headlights which are left on all the time. Who knows? He may have even
been trying to check us out as the colour of our engines is a bright
red. At the last moment he shot straight up between us and the canyon
wall. I hope he didn't get his feathers singed in the exhaust.

All in all it was an interesting trip that lightened up the normal
routine which can be rather mind numbing at times. As always there is a
balance between staying alert and getting distracted so caution is
exercised when birding at track speed.

Roger Craik
Maple Ridge BC


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