Secret Of Bird Island

About a month or two ago I was asked if I would review a new CD-Rom game called Snapshot Adventures -Secret Of Bird Island. It has taken me this long to finally give the game a try.
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It turns out that it is a CD- ROM game which sort of surprised me because I thought it was going to be a traditional board game. I haven't played a video game for a long time. I was really into an arcade game called asteroids that came out in the late 70's. The object of the game was simple. You had to blow up rocks and spaceships. I found it to be both entertaining and therapeutic.

The Secret Of Bird Island is a little more difficult to explain than Asteroids but I'll try to keep it simple. The main focus of the game centers around the player taking photographs of birds using the mouse and clicker. There are 20 different geographical locations where you can search for 130 different species of birds. At the arrival of each location, you are given a photography assignment to complete by one of the games cartoon characters.. For example-The assignment might be- "Larry-give me 5 four star photos of birds in flight"

The most interesting part comes after each assignment is completed. You get to choose the best of your photos in side by side comparisons. You are also provided with many tools throughout the game to help improve the quality of your photos-longer lenses, night vision, external flash, bird callers, a magic-mirror thing that makes a bird want to preen, etc.. etc...-all kinds of stuff. I never got to the end but I imagine the surprises keep coming.

Oh yes-I almost forgot. Part of the game is that your grandfather, who is a naturalist, has been missing for six months. You are given clues during the game as to the secret behind the mystery of his disappearance. There are also lots of other features in the game. You get to list birds, keep a field journal with photos, and invent your own species of bird, to name a few.

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Even though I don't have much interest in video games, I found this one to be fairly entertaining. The graphics may not be on par with the video games that are put out by the gaming giants these days but the bigger game companies probably don't offer a game that has to do with birding. I think that it would have een beter if the characters in the game were a bit less silly and cartoonish looking. Also, some of the tools provided to the player are outdated. For example, the bird caller they provide is one of those old-fashioned twisty bird-callers instead of a Birdjam. Overall though, I would say this is a very creative game that might be worth a look for those who are interested.

Comet Lulin Visble Through Binoculars

A double tailed comet named Lulin will be visible through binoculars this week if you know when and where to look. If you look east-southeast in the sky at 9pm the comet should be very close to Saturn. It will follow a path between Saturn and the bright star, Regulus in the constellation Leo from February 23-27. Here is a link to Sky And Telescope .com that can give you more details. I plan to search for it tonight.

From what I heard on NPR, the comet was discovered by a 19 year old student in China. The comet is unusual in that it has a tail at both ends. It is also traveling around the sun in a direction opposite that of the planets in our solar system.

Searching For Soft Targets

I spent my morning on Saturday searching for birds in the Durham area. As I was driving along, I noticed a large flock of ducks swimming in a swampy portion of the Coginchaug River. Most of them were Mallards, but I could see a small group of Wood Ducks, including two brilliantly colored males. I was excited at the chance to finally get a decent photo of a Wood Duck but I would have to sneak up on them through some brush in order to accomplish that. I wasn't two steps into the woods before every duck in the area had taken to the air and disappeared. This sort of thing happens to me all too often.

It was that moment I remembered an article by Mike Atkinson. In part of his article he used the term "soft targets" -birds that are easy to photograph. I decided that for the remainder of that morning, I would only take photos of birds that were willing to pose for my camera.

My first subject was the Northern Mockingbird in the top photo. Mockingbirds are notorious for protecting their winter food supplies. Once they've found a bush full of berries, they will stick to it like glue. When I moved closer to the mockingbird for a better photo did it fly away? No, instead it gorged its mouth full of sumac and then hid in the center of the bush. It seems that the mockingbird was worried about me getting at his food source!
My next stop was at Lyman's Orchard in Middlefield. They have a man-made pond that is always loaded full of waterfowl but it was the pigeons that first caught my attention. I enjoyed watching some of the courtship behavior of the male pigeon.

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This male pigeon is performing a courtship display called bowing in which he puffs up his neck feathers, drops his head down, and turns around in circles. I think it is also doing some tail-dragging . This is when he fans out his tail and drags it on the ground while following close behind a female. I was surprised to learn that Rock Doves mate for life.

Most of the waterfowl at Lyman's Orchard is comprised of Mallards and Canada Geese. There are large numbers of these birds and occasionally reports of interesting species such as Cackling Geese. There are also a number of domestic species that can be seen here including Graylag Geese, funky-colored domestic mallards, and Muscovy Ducks. The facial pattern on the male Muscovy-(seen above)-is strangely unique. It looks like a chicken-duck to me. One thing I noticed about the pond at Lyman's is that there doesn't seem to be much of a mess considering all the ducks and geese that hang out there.They fence the pond in which helps but I'm thinking that someone must regularly clean the grounds. I'll have to ask next time I go there. They also have a nice country store called the Apple Barrel which has fresh fruit, baked goods and a great deli. There is a nice picnic area that overlooks the pond.

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Here is a video of two male mallards fighting it out. One was clearly dominant over the other. This video actually contained another minute of footage but I had to trim it down in order for it to upload onto the blog. I can assure you that as brutal as this footage seems, the beaten duck flew away without any apparent physical injury. I have to wonder if anything is going through his mind after such a humiliating defeat though.

A drove a few miles down the road to Mckenzie Reservoir in Wallingford. Earlier in the Fall a Barnacle Goose was seen there by many birders. The reservoir, which is intersected by a road, had a small area of open water at one end. There was a nice mix of species condensed into a very small area which included Canada Geese, Greylags, Mute Swans, Mallards, American Wigeons, Common Mergansers, Hooded Mergansers, and Gadwall.

The Hooded Mergansers semed to be braver in the company of Canada Geese.

This is the first close look I've had of a male Gadwall (left). I saw a distant flock of them along the western shore in January but it wasn't until Saturday that I was able to see some of the subtle detail of their plumage.

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I may have started out taking photos of "soft targets" but I was able to see a variety of species and observe some interesting bird behavior in the process.

An Acre Saved Is An Acre Earned

After all that intense birding I was left with about as much energy as Superman after eating a box full of chocolate covered Kryptonite. The month of January was all about seeing as many species of birds that I could find. From now until the end of April I will focus on quality not quantity. I will be selective about where I go and spend more time observing birds in one place rather than jumping from one place to another.

One of the ways that I search for new birding places is to do a google search of an individual town. I will enter keywords like hiking trails or nature preserves along with the name of the town. It was in this way that I came across the Middletown Trail Guide. Most of the trails listed in this guide were familiar to me but I had never heard of Ravine Park. It was listed as only 8.8 acres with a trail only 1/10 of a mile long. This sounded like an easy way for me to start the month of February. If I can't walk a tenth of a mile then I might as well not leave the house. When I came upon the location of the park, I realized that it was nothing more than an insignificant little mud hole of a pond that I had passed by so many times over the years. I almost turned around and left the minute I saw it.

Almost, but not quite. Upon checking the trail, I was slightly encouraged to find that it led through a steep ravine. It wasn't long before I started to hearing and seeing lots of birds. There were Northern Cardinals singing semi-automatic drip-drip-drip-drip-drip notes. Dark-eyed Juncos were feeding underneath the tangles, while others bathed and drank water from the shallow stream. Hairy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers hammered away at trees while a Northern Flicker perched high on a branch and cried out a series of squeals. If this place was insignificant, someone forgot to tell the birds. Just a few minutes before I looked at this so-called park as nothing more than a patch of urban trash . Now I was seeing and hearing dozens of birds making full use of the food, shelter, and water that was provided here.

This stream is so shallow that I could probably walk through it barefoot and not get my feet wet but it was the perfect depth for songbirds. In the short time I was there I saw Juncos, American Robins, sparrows, and American Goldfinches drinking and bathing in this pipsqueak of a brook.

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Check out this video of a bathing goldfinch and notice all the bird chatter in the background.

On Sunday, I visited one of the Taylor/Palmer preserve-(entrance is across from St. Clements on route 66 in Portland)-, which was acquired by the Middlesex Land Trust in recent years. Lately, I've been noticing more and more parcels of land that have been marked as preserved by the Middlesex Land Trust. The members of that land trust should be commended for the great job they are doing! The preserved areas of land vary from quite large to just a couple of acres in size but you know what they say-"An acre saved is an acre earned". I'm glad that more and more landowners are considering donating land for preservation as an option.

I followed the well laid out trails marked in red through the Taylor/Palmer preserve. The skies were blue when I started so I was surprised when it started to rain. I took shelter in this old railroad culvert until the showers passed. It sort of looks like an entrance to the church of nature, doesn't it?

The highlight of this was was observing a dozen or so Eastern Bluebirds foraging through some leaves on the ground that had recently thawed. As I was jotting this down in my journal, one landed just inches from my foot. It's amazing what you can see when you slow down long enough to look.