Alaska Republicans Get What They Wish For. Aaaand it sucks.
TALL TALES from Juneau Eyes on the Babcock/Dunleavy Administration ‘Take it easy there, big fella’ Edition REPUBLICANS, BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU TELL EVERYONE YOU WISH FOR We’ve been hearing for years now from Republicans in the legislature (after Parnell gave away the farm to the oil companies, and signed budgets that drained our billions in savings) about how we need to cut. Cut, cut, cut our way to prosperity, they said! The budget was cut by 40 percent, and STILL they said more cuts! Well, guess what? Republicans now have that balanced budget they’ve been yelling about, and…
Return of Bird of the Week: Fork-tailed Flycatcher
This is a pretty wretched photo; WC includes it only because it’s the best image WC has of this distant cousin to last week’s Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, the Fork-tailed Flycatcher. It’s a vagrant species in the United States, but fairly common in Mexico and Central America, and much of South America. The tail is even longer than the Scissor-tailed’s. It’s difficult to confuse the two species: the Scissor-tailed has a white head; the Fork-tailed has a black cap and lacks the buffy wash on the sides of the body. This is a bird of open habitats, including forest edges, secondary vegetation, savannas,…
Return of Bird of the Week: Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
North America boasts two very long-tailed flycatchers. The first is the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. It’s found in the summer throughout he southcentral United States, and year-round in Mexico and Central America. It’s a bit of bug-eating specialist, targeting mostly grasshoppers and beetles. The male’s tail is longer than the female’s and the colors on the female are duller and drabber. While this species is reasonably adaptable – they are often seen perched on wires and fences – it prefers the mesquite habitat and there is some concern that loss of that habitat through human activities is jeopardizing the species. But, at…
Return of Bird of the Week: Tufted Flycatcher
The Tufted Flycatcher is another beautiful, elegant bug-eating bird. It’s fairly common in Mexico and Central America, ranging into northern Columbia and occasionally into Texas and Arizona. WC wouldn’t usually post a strongly backlit image like this, but this male was guarding (or distracting possible predators) from his mate and their nest. As you can see, the nest itself is almost perfectly camouflaged against the mossy tree trunk. This pretty little lady decided WC wasn’t a threat and hunkered down on her nest. Classification of Tufted Flycatchers is an ornithological train wreck. Depending on who you talk to and what…
The Commies did it!
TALL TALES from Juneau Eyes on the Babcock/Dunleavy administration The Commies did it edition (Re-posted with permission by the Alaska Democratic Party) I DIDN’T THINK ANYONE WOULD SEE ME ON THE INTERNET Well, the latest float in the parade of caustic, hyper-partisan, and ill-advised appointments by Governor Babcock has already come and gone. Tammy Randolph, we hardly knew ye. Yes, she has removed her name from consideration to be appointed to the University of Alaska Board of Regents. She said she was shocked and surprised that anyone would see her “private” (not private) Twitter account. We need…
Return of Bird of the Week: Long-tailed Silky Flycatcher
Missed a post. Sorry about that. WC has by no means exhausted the genus Empidonax, but he suspects he has long since exhausted his readers’ patience with little brown jobs that look pretty much the same. We’ll stay with flycatchers, but shift to some more visually interesting species for a while. Late on one afternoon, birding along a dirt road in the cloud forests in Costa Rica, almost by accident, WC found his first Long-tailed Silky Flycatcher. What followed was pretty maddening. My Olympus E-5 DSLR camera simply could not acquire a sharp focus. It turns out that all autofocus systems have…
TALL TALES from Juneau – The Catastrophic Failure Edition
**This post is reprinted with permission from the Alaska Democratic Party** If you miss the musings of Jeanne Devon, creator of The Mudflats, the good news is that she’s still writing – only this time it’s for the Alaska Democratic Party. She’s got a weekly (sometimes more) newsletter that will fill you in on all the “you can’t make this shit up” goings on in the great state of Alaska. If you originally came here for the Palin shenanigans, let’s just say you’re going to feel right at home. This is like the old “Oyster Roundup” Mudflats’ feature on steroids….
Return of Bird of the Week: Cordilleran Flycatcher
WC warned readers that flycatchers of the genus Empidonax were difficult to tell apart. And perhaps the worst case is the Cordilleran Flycatcher, which is pretty much indistinguishable from its cousin, the Pacific Slope Flycatcher. WC doesn’t have any really good images of this species – they are all backlit. But here’s a side-by-side to illustrate the problem. Good luck telling them apart. Which is why everyone but Peter Pyledepends on song and geography. These photos are both from September, so WC relied on geography. Flycatchers don’t sing that much in the autumn. Cordilleran Flycatchers are primarily found in the Rocky Mountains,…
Return of Bird of the Week: Pacific Slope Flycatcher
Once upon a time there was a bird species called a Western Flycatcher. Another member of the Empidonaxgenus. But ornithologists decided in 1989 that what had been called Western Flycatchers were actually two different species, distinguished by song and geography. Not by appearance. Birds of North America, the on-line databases of North American birds, says (paywall): In the hand, Pacific slope and Cordilleran flycatchers may be identified with extreme caution; many individuals must be left unidentified. Sex and age differences exist within each species. That’s right, a difficult to identify bird species was split into two almost impossible to distinguish species. To…
Return of Bird of the Week: Alder Flycatcher
Identification of flycatchers can be hard. Really hard. But now that we’re warmed up with all those yellow, black and white flycatchers, let’s continue our examination of some reallyhard birds: the infamous Empidonaxgenus, the “Emps.” Because after you’ve done Emps, nothing will seem as hard. Last week we looked at the Hammond’s Flycatcher. This week we’ll have a look at the Alder Flycatcher. This species has an impressive migration: it winters in South America, mostly in Brazil but as far south as Argentina. It’s a later arrival in the boreal forest, where it joins other Emps to torment birders. Here’s the…