"This place has such good vibrations, dear!"

Pigeons nest in the strangest places.

Happy home under the SkyTrain tracks. Where the train rumbles overhead every 10 minutes, 20/7.

Flicker nest

In an alder and blackberry strip of bush, in Semiahmoo Reserve, looking down on us from a fungus-ridden snag:

A flicker, on the nest.

It was very curious, and never took its eyes off us. Otherwise, it barely moved. We'd never have seen it, except that we were checking out the fungus, a bit greyer than our usual bracket fungus.

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Party at Uncle Merl's! (I and the Bird # 76)

Hi! And welcome to our "Beginning of the Season – Victoria Day – It's Not Raining Day" Garden Party and Potluck! Glad you could make it! Come on in, join the fun; there are tons of people here already, birders all!

(Yes, I know Victoria Day was last week, but everybody was at the park or watching the parade then; besides, you were busy, weren't you?) So I'll just show you where you can leave your jacket, … in here … and then we can go out back and I'll show you around, introduce a few of the people. ... Ready? Out this side door, then. We just follow this little trail under the trees for a bit.

Oh, look, here's Island, scoping out a Red Breasted Nuthatch nest; Hi, Island! Beautiful bird! But we'll tiptoe on past and leave you to your photography. See you at supper later!

Out of the trees, and here's the garden. A bit on the wild side, but an excellent birding spot. On this side, there's a tiny creek and a bit of a pond. And there's the Ridger from The Greenbelt, photographing May birds; look at those cute goslings!

Up against the house, here on the patio, are the edibles. Buffet over here … bar over there … at the far corner, the BBQs. Lots of comfortable chairs. And Rob, resting after a good hike. Stop by in a bit, and he'll tell you an exciting tale of a trip in Yellowstone Park. Ospreys, Sandhill cranes, a wolf hunt, and … but I'll let him tell it.

And here's Duncan, discussing the intelligence of ravens, and the origins of the saying, Stone the crows!. Hey, Duncan, if you'd been dive-bombed by crows because you were supposedly invading their territory, you might think that was a good idea. But they are smart, I'll give you that.

At the bottom of the garden, standing by the rhododendrons, that's Hugh, of Rock, Paper, Lizard. He's probably listening to the birds. The other day, he was asking, Who's singing at the park? What bird says, "cow-cow-cow-cowp"? I didn't know. Now I do.

Ok, what else? Over there, down that trail, is the staircase to the beach, 'way below us. I saw Cis heading down a while ago; it's a long haul, but she's quite the walker. Ask her, when she gets back, to show you her photos of a pair of Gray Jays.

And now, the house. Did I tell you about the house? No? I hardly know what to say; I was flabbergasted when the lawyer told me about it. I just inherited it from my uncle, Professor (and mad scientist, really) Merlin J. Featherbottomley. It's a moldering ruin, mostly; he's been living here alone for over 50 years. But we've managed to clean and refinish the lower floor, so if (or I should say, when) it rains, we'll have shelter. It's basically empty; we'd have to bring the outside chairs in.

Come on in, through the patio doors; I'll show you.

Well, here's Amila, of Gallicissa! I wondered where he'd got to. Oh, you're setting up your photos along the wall there! Good idea! What colours! What names! And you've labelled the display: Birds in my local patch. Certainly exotic for us, though.

And the rest of you; now I see what you're doing! You're turning the room into a gallery of bird photos. Oh, marvellous!

Let's see, here are Troy and Martha, with tips on ID'ing Short-billed dowitchers. Very useful. And Liza with a bird report from Albion trip, complete with a bird-watching seal. And this is Pam, of Tortoise Trail, with a Yellow-eyed Junco on Mt. Lemmon. Great photos; and such a nice idea, putting them up like that!

We'll be back to look at the rest of the photos in a minute or two, but first, let me show you… down this hall, this is Uncle Merl's old laboratory. We've left his workbenches in place; they were pretty solid still. Oh, hi, Zen! Already hard at work? What are you doing?

Oh, I get it. Testing the effect of a hammer hitting a tree at 13mph. Better a hammer head than a bird head, anyhow. Unless that bird is a woodpecker, eh?

Uncle Merl was studying seagulls here; he was certain that they were extremely intelligent, and he spent a lifetime trying to teach them to nest in "proper" boxes so that he could observe their care of the chicks. Not much luck, I'm afraid. I don't think they were interested.

One of Uncle Merl's photos

That reminds me; Seabrooke had photos of Barn Swallows building their nest; I wonder if she brought them along? What, Zen? Around the corner in the study? Oh, thanks! And here she is; look! Seabrooke's photo series, A mouthful of mud!

And this is Adrian from the Bird Ecology Study Group putting up photos of hard-working Black-naped Monarch parents incubating, feeding and … potty training?

I see, you guys are setting up a bird-nest exhibition! Oh, this is great!

Here's Nina, with a partly-sad, partly-hopeful story in two parts: Not a pretty picture and 1...2...3 Chickadee...dee...dee.

And over here by the window, this is Max. Hi, Max! Still not raining! We might just get used to it. What do you have here under Spring Emergences? A humming-bird nest? And flocking starling nestlings! (You know, I think they're a beautiful bird! Beautiful the way purple loosestrife is beautiful. Or Japanese knotweed.)

Look, Snail brings us an edifice that dwarfs all other bird structures. And, yes, I believe you, Snail, but … but … are you sure? Your Orange-footed renovators really do that? Wow!

Uncle Merl would have liked this one: Burrowing Owls - Will They Survive In North America?. Larry tells of buried nest boxes. For birds that live in burrows, of course.

We seem to be missing one of our guests; let's leave these people to their work, and see if we can find him.

Back to the hallway again; there's the foyer where you came in, the walk-in closet, the side door, the washrooms, the kitchen. That's about it. Oh, the stairs? We haven't refinished up there, yet; it's just a bunch of empty rooms. Come to think of it, though, I saw PetMonologues going upstairs with a flock of birds and a camera; he said something about doing a video for Sex and the Single Bird. "Birds do it", he said.

Oh, and I'd totally forgotten Greg. He's probably still in here, in the sound-proofed room where Uncle Merl analyzed seagull mating calls. Let's see ... Still working, Greg? Good for you, but it's party time! Come on out and get a drink before supper!

Greg's reporting on enigmatic sex ratios in a nearly extinct bird, the Magenta Petrels. I hope they can bring them back from the brink.

Anyhow, I'm looking for N8, of The Drinking Bird; he has a report on a pelagic outing, Slippery when wet. Poor guy, he gets so terribly seasick. And he got drenched, as well. All in a good day's birding, though! Oh, there he is, down on the landing, looking at the water. Come on, we'll get you a drink on the way … what'll you have? … and he can tell you about the Storm-petrels.

The landing, looking out to sea

And I've got to run; I hear another car in the driveway. It's probably Charlie, just in from his South Africa trip. He's bringing photos from the Zaagkiuldrift gravel road, the road to Kgomo-kgomo. I bet I pronounced that wrong.

So I'll leave you to your own devices now. Make yourself at home!

Hey, I almost forgot; this travelling house party and potluck will be over at Great Auk - or Greatest Auk? in two weeks, the 12^th of June. If you have some goodies to bring, give Carrie a shout at labenc AT gmail DOT com by the 10^th.
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Gimme an "e"

Crow's nest, at our local Chapters store:

I think that's a pigeon's tail poking out from the bottom piece of the "r".
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Mother Goose, and maybe Father, too.

The Reifel Island bird sanctuary is a maze of waterways and lagoons, tide flats, islets and hummocks, criss-crossed by narrow spits and dikes for human visitors; we walked for 3 hours on Tuesday without covering half of it.

One of the larger lagoons. Observation tower visible on far side.

At intervals, we pass observation posts; a tower or two, a few raised platforms, three or four blinds, the odd bench for resting weary legs.

On one of the platforms, a goose dozed, standing one-legged on the railing. (Great sense of balance!)


At the far end of the platform, I put a handful of the bird seed we had picked up at the Reifel entrance. The goose woke immediately, turned and walked over to check it out ...



... hissing as he (or she; they look alike) came towards me; "Out of my way, and don't touch that food! It's mine!"

Head-on like that, he looks different; round and fat. And menacing.

I didn't move away, but he wasn't going to miss out on the handout. He came right up within arm's reach.

Goose feet, and the top of his head, too close to focus.

Eating. See the seeds in his bill?

We went on our way. On several of the islets, geese were sitting on their nests.




These don't seem to be all that well protected, but there is no human access to the islets; no boats on the water, no paths leading to them. They're probably too big to have to worry about eagles, which would be a threat to smaller birds.

From the U. of Michigan "Animal Diversity Web", I learn;

Female Canada geese pick nesting sites that are isolated but have good visibility. This allows them to readily see danger approaching and to be difficult to get at. The nesting area also must have open water with low banks so they can have access to water plants and places to get into or out of the water.

They sit on the nest for 3 to 4 weeks, so within a month the goslings will be on the water. At the entrance they told us that the sandhill cranes are nesting, too. Their incubation period is just slightly longer, but under 5 weeks. We must come back next month!
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Looking at an egg again

Last Monday, I posted a photographic challenge, borrowed from an article in WaveLength Magazine; take 36 Photos of an egg.

A few of my readers indicated that they planned to try. So far, one, at Cicero Sings, has posted her photos in the Flickr group I set up for the purpose. (I hope that there will be more, later.)

Robin's egg, collected after the chick had flown.

Well, I took my 36 photos, and more, and learned something in the process, enough, maybe for several blog posts.

First, though, Cicero's eggs:

We each looked at the assignment from our own perspective; however, a couple of shots are remarkably similar; both Cis* and I photographed the freckles of the egg shell with light behind it, both of us showed the eggs in the carton, both broke and cooked the eggs. There the similarities end.

Cis saw the eggs from a warm domestic perspective, cooking, garnishing and serving them. Her photo of a breakfast laid out on the placemat, eggs with a cinnamon roll, water in a glass, coffee, brought back happy memories of Cariboo kitchens, with the coffee fragrant and the conversation relaxed; thanks, Cis!

I am weird, though. And not domestic, at all. Frying an egg was the limit. (And besides, I got hot oil on my lens and had to clean it. Not good.)

I spent some time just looking at the egg. Paying attention. Asking myself questions. And then almost randomly, wandering around to see what seemed to have some association in my mind to the "eggness" of the egg.

One of those associated objects was a bowl of rocks.


An egg is fragile. One crack on the side of the frying pan, and it breaks wide open. A few pecks from the baby -- how tiny and weak he is! -- from inside, and the shell gives way. We crumble the shell in our hands to spread on the garden to discourage slugs, smush a half-dozen into a handful to throw in the trash.

But an egg is incredibly strong. Grab one just right, and you can squeeze with all your strength without breaking it. Cut two egg shells in half, and you can stack books on them, even sometimes stand on them without crumbling them. (Internet Encyclopedia of Science, para.4)

Therefore, rocks.

What makes an egg so sturdy without sacrificing its open-sesame policy for the chicks? The shape. The round sides transmit stress evenly along the walls; it is only when the egg is impacted from a cross-wise direction that it breaks easily. Therefore, we crack the egg against a bowl or the frying pan; the chick pecks at one spot, against the inward curve.

Googling for formulas (how strong is eggshell strong?), I found other fascinating facts:

Did you know (I didn't) that the reason sea-going birds can lay their eggs on narrow rock ledges, without a nice deep nest, is that their eggs have pointy ends?

Murres lay one egg on a bare nesting ledge. Their egg is very pointed. If bumped, the egg is more likely to roll in a tight arc than to roll off the cliff. (Royal Alberta Museum)

I wonder if that applies also to pigeons that lay eggs on building ledges, held in place with only a loose stick or two? Seagulls, cormorants, etc.?

RAM goes on to explain the eggs of those marsh birds with the nests right down on the wet ground:

Shorebirds normally lay four pointed eggs. In the nest, the eggs are oriented with their pointed ends towards the centre. This minimizes the amount of space needed to form the nest and increases the efficiency of the heat transfer from parent to egg during incubation.

Of course, a spherical egg is more economical, conserves heat better, is stronger. But they do roll. Great Horned Owls lay spherical eggs; I think I can assume from this that their nest is deep enough to prevent loss.

So much to learn! What fun!

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*Cis: not her name, but derived from the blog name.