Mokka mit Schlag » Birding

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden‘s Titan Arum, the Corpse Flower of Simpsons fame, just started blooming last night. This is the first one to bloom in New York City since the 1960s.

It wasn’t nearly as stinky as I (or the garden staff) expected. However I did get strangely nauseous while looking at it. The power of suggestion, perhaps? Anyway, it’s blooming now. See it (and smell it) while you can. It should continue blooming through Saturday, and maybe Sunday (but probably not). The garden’s open till 6:00 P.M. and opens tomorrow at 10:00 A.M.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, August 4, 2006

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, July 26, 2006

Have you ever noticed how many bird song mnemonics involve beer?

White-eyed Vireo: Chuck, pick up the beer… Quick!
Olive-sided Flycatcher: Quick! Three Beers!
Common Nighthawk: Beeer
Black-throated Blue Warbler: Beer Beer Beer Beeee
Alder Flycatcher: Free Beer!

I don’t think this says much about the birds, but it may say something about the birders.

Last week’s ABA convention was a lot of fun. I made new friends, learned a lot about birds, saw quite a few species, and heard more. Interestingly, although I got twelve new life birds, I whiffed on all my target species: Boreal Chickadee, Gray Jay, and Black-backed Woodpecker. All three birds were seen by various attendees at various times. I just managed to always be in the wrong group, on the wrong bus, or looking the wrong way to spot any of them. Life birds I did get included:
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Lately I’ve been learning about the Boreal Forest, a large area of Northern Canada (with small pieces extending into Maine and Minnesota, depending on exactly how you define it) that is the breeding grounds for billions of birds every year. (That’s not a made up number by the way. There really are billions that breed there.) For a long time the inaccessibility of the boreal forest protected most of it, but that’s beginning to change. They’re a number of pressures on it. One of the most significant is paper production, mostly for consumption in the United States.

There are several things you can do to help reduce the pressure on the Boreal Forest. The first is to unsubscribe from catalogs you don’t want. Instead of just tossing all the unwanted catalogs you receive in the trash, take a few minutes to call up the company and tell them you don’t want their catalog any more. The way I figure it, every catalog I unsubscribe from equals approximately one bird saved. (That is a made up number, by the way; but it feels about right.)
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