JP48

Interesting behavior. I have heard of hawks (Sharp-shinned and Cooper's) following walkers and joggers because they have learned that small birds can be flushed by these people. I've never heard of other birds learning this behavior, but certainly humans could be expected to stir up the local bug population, and I can imagine a phoebe taking advantage of that.

You're making puns out of bird's names? Am I Heron right?

Haven't we all been there.

Looks like an injury to me.

@oharamasonry@yahoo.com, I think the picture shows for you because you are pointing to a link on your own computer. You would need to drag the photo into the box when you post (or choose the file, which is actually easier for me).

These are very useful charts. I especially like the undertail drawings. Often enough the only thing you see is a fleeting glimpse of that angle. For those not averse to electronics this is all very usefully presented in app form, under the title The Warbler Guide, as a companion to the book.

I tend to use plain old suet, with nothing added. I read somewhere that squirrels don't really like the plain stuff, and I was having trouble with squirrels at the time I started using it. I can't really tell you if it works to avoid those pesky rodents. I've got a better bird feeder arrangement now, but I still buy the plain stuff, probably out of habit. It's probable that different sets of birds would use it if there was something added, but I get nuthatches and woodpeckers, and a Carolina Wren who is very fond of the stuff.

Interesting question. I've been noticing that I haven't many RWBLs on my bird lists for a few weeks. Today we were sitting next to a slang eating our lunch and casually noticing the birds that we spotted, when we realized that we were seeing flock after flock zooming by, far enough away that we couldn't really see what they were. I put my binos on a spot where I figured that they would cross, and verified that they were indeed RWBLs, groups of 25 to 100, mostly all headed in the same direction, probably at least 1000 in all. Some adult males but mainly either adult females and young ones. Getting into flocks and preparing to migrate. Typical behavior for this time of year. I suspect that's where yours are.

Were there any ants on that log? Birds sometimes disturb ants, something about formic acid and mites, I think.

I find it difficult to see why such a rule would be limited to owls. Almost all birds are aware of our presence, whether we are photographing them or not. I can think of many instances where I didn't know a bird was there until it flushed from a probable nest and sounded its alarm call. Compounding the problem by stalking it to try to get a picture is, of course, something different, but that's not at all limited to owls. To me it seems like a strongly worded general ethics statement should suffice. Perhaps using owls as an example would go at least some way toward satisfying that particular person's pet peeve.

This would be the answer. A .aup file is a piece of a project in Audacity, and can't be opened on its own. The audio file can be exported as a WAV, or other formats from Audacity.

.AUP appears to be an Audacity file. I just tried to open it with Audacity to see if I could convert it to mp3 or something else, but failed for an unknown reason. I'll try it again later.

Long-eared Owl, #419.

Sounds like House Wrens.

Sort of on the edge of it's summer range, but that's a Black-crowned Night-Heron.