The Offical WFF BS Thread!

[Anotherone]

Mothra season opens Saturday at LST. Get the TSS ready.

[Ricky Spanish]

It's been anxiousness around here.
Got lazy about cooking so I made home made noodles but with a rotisserie chicken.
I'm lazy.

Looks not that bad.

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[Anotherone]

Let the traffic crowd it all. Bring it!

[PorkChop]

It's been anxiousness around here.
Got lazy about cooking so I made home made noodles but with a rotisserie chicken.
I'm lazy.

Looks not that bad.

16805590242129192207951082199320.jpg

I would eat that looks good

[Anotherone]

….

[Ricky Spanish]

Colored eggs...
Meh whatever

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[Anotherone]

And peeps:

[Ricky Spanish]

Missed it but we're watching jack Benny show.
Ancient tv...
Ever see Mel Blanc and the Tiajuana Strings?
"Si".

Antenna TV.
Up next it's Hazel.
Oh no.

[SpinnerMan]

As I mentioned, our goose club got a few specks. I have never laid hands on a speck in my life. I was really surprised how small they are compared to the honkers we shoot. This is a picture one of the guys that got a speck posted up on our club's facebook page. I hope the upward trends on specks in our area continues. It's probably my number one wanna-get species after seeing thousands during spring snow goose trips over the years and not being able to do anything about it.

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[Rick]

First our mallards, then our specks...

Friend of mine owns Riceland Calls, and he's been selling speck calls in Illinois for some years, now.

[SpinnerMan]

First our mallards, then our specks...

Friend of mine owns Riceland Calls, and he's been selling speck calls in Illinois for some years, now.

Southern Illinois has plenty of specks and snows. Northeast Illinois they are rare but definitely getting less rare. The southern most point in Illinois is only about 50 miles from Arkansas. Where I hunt is only 50 miles from Wisconsin and Michigan.

[SpinnerMan]

Drove by the redhead roost yesterday.

The redheads love that water reclamation pond. They are almost all redheads. I saw 4-5 bufflehead, half a dozen bluebills, 1 shoveler, and a couple ruddies. Every other one was a redhead.

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Still gets my attention walking at the park and some of the southern wildlife swims by. Pretty good sized one for the city park lake.

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[Rick]

Just a subtle reminder of where you are.

[SpinnerMan]

Just a subtle reminder of where you are.

Yep.

[SpinnerMan]

This place has gone silent.

I've been doing a different kind of bird hunting.

Added three new species recently. The last was a painted bunting. Really cool looking little bird. That's my 213th on my life list. I'm no Kenny Bostik, but it is fun to go "hunting" for new species of birds.

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[Rick]

New one on me.

But when it comes to bird taxonomy, I'm with what was an annual crew of mine from NJ for whom if it wasn't a duck or goose, it was a GU11 or LGB. The latter of which being either a large gray bird or a little gray bird.

[SpinnerMan]

New one on me.

The number of birds species was shocking to me. The official Audubon checklist has over 2,000 species of birds that can be found in North America. I believe it's like 1,200 in the U.S.

There's a whole lot of new ones on all of us.

But when it comes to bird taxonomy, I'm with what was an annual crew of mine from NJ for whom if it wasn't a duck or goose, it was a GU11 or LGB. The latter of which being either a large gray bird or a little gray bird.

We have a lot of shorebirds down here. That's about all I can usually tell. Are they LBSB, SBSB, or RSBSB. Large brown shorebird, small brown shorebird, or really small shorebird. They don't get into their breeding colors until after they leave, so I can rarely tell what they are.

After I came back from Croatia last spring, my wife's greatest fears of me on work travel were realized when I had pictures of tits on my phone.

Who can resist taking a picture of a great tit?
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Great_Tit/

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[Rick]

We have a lot of shorebirds down here. That's about all I can usually tell. Are they LBSB, SBSB, or RSBSB. Large brown shorebird, small brown shorebird, or really small shorebird.

It was my understanding that when avian flew became a thing, folks charged with shoo..., er, "collecting" shorebird samples didn't just have trouble hitting some species but identifying them, even with bird in one hand and book in the other.

Were I you, I'd be careful about how far down the birding hole I slid, as you're apt to find waterfowling gear cheap compared to birding glass...

[SpinnerMan]

Were I you, I'd be careful about how far down the birding hole I slid, as you're apt to find waterfowling gear cheap compared to birding glass...

I don't think that's too much of a concern. It's my offseason, get out into nature thing when I'm not fishing or doing other things.

What makes it particularly fun for me is there's the Merlin app put out by Cornell Bird lab which has the site I linked to below.

First, the app has voice recognition and is pretty amazing at identify birds by sound. So if they are making noise, you can usually identify what it is. However, the part I fine that is a lot of fun as a waterfowler, is that they have a lot of recordings of the various birds. So I crank up the volume on my phone and turn it into a mini e-caller. I find it a lot of fun to call the birds.

The other weekend, there was one of those countless brown shorebirds, but it had yellow legs. The size and yellow legs. There were two options, with over 2,000 species in North America, a lot of the names are not very creative, it was either a lesser yellowlegs or a greater yellowlegs. It was only about 15 yards away. I could actually hear a greater yellowlegs about 50 yards away, but I thought this was the lesser based on the pictures. So I played a recording. He perked up and strutted a bit. Played a different one, same thing, but didn't make a sound. Then I played the third tune. Yep, that was the one. He gets all pissed off, takes off circles around me making all kinds of noise, exactly the same as on the recording. Lesser yellowlegs, check. Then he flew back and landed in the exact same spot and went about looking for dinner.

We looked at other birds and talked with people for about another 15 minutes. We were about ready to walk to a different area, but I couldn't resist and I had to play the tune one more time. Same response. One pissed off lesser yellowlegs circling and raising quite the ruckus looking for the mysterious interloper that insulted his mother or whatever was being said in lesser yellowlegian.

I've called in quite a few difference species that way. Some get very territorial. Others just curiosity. Some sing back to you. Most couldn't care less. Pretty much like duck and goose hunting.

But I do see a lot of folks with cameras that have to be in the $10k range. Not likely, although I am in the market for a better camera, but not so much for birding.

[Rick]

Used to spend a lot of time digging around in the waterfowl audio sections of Cornell's Macaulay Library. That, and the much more extensive http://www.veno-canto.org sound collections.

[Duck Engr]

This place has gone silent.

I've been doing a different kind of bird hunting.

Added three new species recently. The last was a painted bunting. Really cool looking little bird. That's my 213th on my life list. I'm no Kenny Bostik, but it is fun to go "hunting" for new species of birds.

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First time I’ve even seen a picture of one of those. That’s neat.

[Mike Jargon]

Imagine that, Verticalscope buys the refuge due to traffic generated by 2 guys that impersonate 11 different people. America, my kind of place.