Monthly Archives: October 2009

Skywatch at Marblehead Lighthouse

Friday morning during the Midwest Birding Symposium, we visited one of locations mentioned on the MBS program’s list of local birding hotspots: Marblehead Lighthouse State Park. We arrived before dawn and first watched the sun rise over Lake Erie.

SUNRISE at Marblehead Lighthouse State Park

SUNRISE at Marblehead Lighthouse State Park

SUNRISE at Marblehead Lighthouse State Park

The 9 acre park is home to the oldest lighthouse in continuous operation on any of the Great Lakes. Marblehead Lighthouse dates from 1822; the park became Ohio’s 73rd state park in 1998.

Unfortunately the park was not too birdy that morning, although we did see this Red-bellied Woodpecker and got one lifer (Carolina Wren).

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Before we left, I remembered to take a photo of the lighthouse itself. The sunrise at this lovely little park marked the start of another gorgeous day at the Midwest Birding Symposium.

Marblehead Lighthouse

Visit Skywatch Friday to see other stories of the sky from around the world.

Share the birds, share the love!
Posted in Midwest Birding Symposium, Skywatch Friday | 5 Comments

My visitors came from *where* in September?!

Here are some of the more interesting search terms that brought visitors to this site during September. You can see previous editions of this monthly post here.

There were lots of unusual searches for t-shirts & tops last month: 3 ad bird t shirt; spoon hoodie; hard core tank top; i live in oklahoma t-shirt; you hoodie; identify bird silhouettes t-shirt; spoon shirt beefy; and proud hawaiian tank tops. I don’t know what some of these mean, but these type of searches are often a good source of inspiration for designing new t-shirts for birdwatchers.

A few other apparel searches came up: owl sweatpants and womens panties penguin. Happily, one of those is already available in my shop.

At first I thought the search for hat bird house was another apparel search, but the person was probably actually looking for this funny novelty bird house.

Another oddball product search was child mountable binoculars. It would be handy to bring a young sherpa with you when birding, I guess.

I always find a lot of searches for terms related to Magnificent Frigatebird, but the term magnificent frigid bird was a first last month.

My favorite questions for last month were what birds hang upside down to feed? and what’s the difference between hummingbirds and penguins and how to carry a bird id guidebook? I really like that last question because I’m going to post a review of my birding bag very soon, so stay tuned dear searcher!

My old friend foto butts made another appearance. *sniff*

And finally someone searched for stuffed barred owl toy, which does not seem to exist anywhere. That’s too bad; the Barred Owl is my favorite owl and I think it would make a great stuffed animal. Have you ever seen a Barred Owl toy?

Share the birds, share the love!
Posted in Search Terms | Leave a comment

Emerging Monarch

Along with several of their resident raptors, the wildlife rehabilitators at Back to the Wild brought along some rescued, permanent resident snakes, turtles and frogs to the Midwest Birding Symposium. There was also a display with Monarch caterpillars, chrysalises and butterflies, representing various stages in the amazing life cycle of the Monarch. Several of the butterflies were tagged, and we learned about the process of monitoring Monarchs as they migrate south.

The neatest thing here was that several of the chrysalises were very dark, meaning the butterflies were nearly ready to emerge. I was very excited to be there to witness a Monarch coming out. I just missed it on the video, but you can see this is a very fresh little butterfly.

BEFORE
Before – just breaking out!

FRESH
Fresh lady Monarch!

I don’t believe I have ever seen this before, and I was totally amazed. Have you ever seen a butterfly emerge from a chrysalis?

While at the BTTW display, we met a couple from California who asked if we could take their photo by some of the birds. They then returned the favor and captured the only photo of the both of us taken at the Midwest Birding Symposium!

US
Arthur, a Red-tailed Hawk, and me

Share the birds, share the love!
Posted in Midwest Birding Symposium | Leave a comment