Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

While sitting in my living room with my laptop and coffee this morning, I heard a bird squawk in the vicinity of my chimney. OH NO, I thought. Not again.

It’s been raining, just like it was two years ago when a bird fell into our chimney pipe.

I walked closer to the chimney pipe, but the bird’s steady squawks lasted less than a minute and there was no horrific, frantic scritching sound to indicate that it had fallen down the pipe. I stood there for a minute, then returned to my laptop.

Dear Google,

northern flicker call

The top two sites were the ones I expected to see: whatbird.com (makers of the bitchin’ app that is the main reason I want an iPhone) and the All About Birds, the most totally awesome online bird guide from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that I’ve used quite a bit. It only took one sound bite to confirm that the visiting bird was indeed another Northen Flicker. Or maybe the same one, just dropping by to say hello? It was using the “kyeer” call that sounds really creepy when emanating unexpectedly from the chimney of my old, never used wood-burning (or is is coal-burning?) stove fireplace.

In any case, it’s been an hour and there have not been any other sounds. So the bird was probably just sitting at the top of the pipe, hopefully not using it as a port-o-potty or anything, before it flew off.

We should really get a cap on the top of that chimney…

*I should note that just about every time I’ve attempted to type “Flicker,” I initially spelled it “Flickr” like the photo-sharing site. Stupid companies being cool and jacking up my typing integrity.

The fledgling barn swallows have learned to fly. Only two were in the nest this morning after my class, and one more came fluttering in while I was standing there.

They are still smaller than their mother and their feathers are muted suggestions of more brilliant colors to come. Their beaks were tiny little pinpoints; so different than the baby bills they had just last week. Well, that was my impression until mama bird swooped in with some extra nutrition—they can still open their mouths to a proportionally frightening size. If they’re still that flexible in the chompers next week, I’m guessing they’ll just eat the mama bird to satisfy their hunger… for… BRAINZ!

Hrm. Sorry about that. I just read the first issue of North 40 (comic book published by Wildstorm) so there are some zombie and Cthulhu-like ideas floating around in my head right now. I can be very impressionable when I’m paying attention.

***

The weather was perfect this evening. After a short date at the crowded library (not quite the geek-romantic scene you might be picturing), Ben and I drove into the foothills near our house and discovered a little lookout at the end of a road. I’d cleverly placed that camera in my purse for moments like these, so you can share our view:

Not too shabby for a Tuesday night. The sunset, the twinking lights, the lake, the mountains… the opportunity to procrastinate instead of doing homework.

I’ve been watching this barn swallow all summer on the campus of Utah Valley University. She swoops around, chirping happily with a couple other swallows. Her nest sits atop a junction box in the rafters of a covered breezeway on campus.

Last Thursday, I heard teeny squawks coming from the rafters and looked up to see teeny bird heads poking out! I pulled out my Canon Powershot camera from my purse (which I’ve been carrying around expressly for times like these) and held an impromptu photo shoot. I’m sure it looked weird to people walking by since the nest is somewhat hidden in a back corner about 10 feet up. What can I say… I’m fascinated by nature’s little things. Like those tiny adorable all-beak little birdies!

The mama swallow knew I was there, but that didn’t stop her from darting by every minute or two to cough up some food for her babies. I got a couple decent shots of her hummingbird-speed movements and was surprised by the prominent white spots on her tail. I haven’t had the opportunity to really study barn swallows before… shows how much of a poser birder I am. These birds are “the most abundant and widely distributed swallow species in the world” according to the (helpful and recommended) Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Today (Monday) was the next chance I had to see them, and they’ve already grown to look like actual birds rather than slimy gerbil babies with beaks. I didn’t have my camera this morning (it was sitting on my desk so I would remember to upload the photos) but I confirmed that there are four fledgling birds who don’t all seem to fit in the nest together anymore. One was sitting on the pipe just above but it doesn’t look like they’ve flown yet. I’ll try to get some photos of them tomorrow.

(Maybe I’m a little less of a poser birder since I created a separate birds set on Flickr?)

I forgot to mention the whole POINT of our trip to Boise, which was going to Colleen’s housewarming party on Saturday evening! Their house is adorable, with a backyard full of foliage and a very nice deck. We met their cool and laid-back Boise friends, snacked on snacks, drank some beer, and disappointed Colleen’s ten-year-old by not bringing Mario Party 8 with us so he could play it on his new Wii. Sorry, kiddo! We’ll bring it next time if you don’t have it by then.

Okay, so. Sunday morning, after being a little disturbed by how well I could hear the male and female voices in the hotel bathroom next door, Ben and I walked a few blocks to Boise’s Basque Block on Grove Street. Say what now? That’s right, Boise is home to the largest community of Basques (approx. 15,000) in the United States. We met up with Colleen, her hubby, her son, and her mom for brunch at Bardenay, a very cool restaurant and distillery.

It was a beautiful morning, but we opted to eat inside. After living in Utah for a few years, Ben and I were perhaps overly impressed by the beautiful bar taking up the length of the restaurant without any barriers or weird liquor laws. But we were rightfully impressed by their selection of breakfast cocktails on the menu. I opted instead to drink coffee and eat “Bardenay French Toast,” which was a miracle breakfast food dipped in orange/cinnamon batter and dusted with powdered sugar… served with a side of Basque-style chorizo and rosemary red potatoes. Except I substituted eggs for the potatoes because, truth be told, I’m not a huge fan of potatoes. So, no, I didn’t eat any Idago potatoes.

The meal was still delicious, and the company was lovely. We parted ways, promised to come back to Boise, and took a nice stroll back to the hotel parking garage. The Basque Museum and Cultural Center was right across the street from Bardenay, but it was closed, so, with a sigh of relief from Ben, we kept walking. He hates going to museums with me because I find EVERYTHING interesting. Sor-ry!

According to Colleen, the sheep-friendly Idaho hills attracted the Basque people. I can see that. I visited my grandfather while he was still alive and living in Hossegor, which is a resort town in Southwestern France very close to Basque country. I’ve tasted Basque cuisine and driven through the hilly countryside, where at times the car was stopped on the narrow road by a herd of sheep passing by with a lone (and very tan) sheepherder. Like to the point where we couldn’t open the car doors because the sheep were thumping against the car on all sides. So I can see how the Idaho countryside would attract people from that area.

(When I was 13 and stayed in Hossegor for a few weeks, my step-grandmother took me to a Basque museum/store where I learned about the culture and famous tradition of high-quality weaving and subsequently fell in love with the style of traditional Basque linens (linge Basque in French). It was something like the Basque Eco-museum in St Jean de Luz, but that was established in 1999 which was a few years too late for me to have visited. Maybe I saw an early version of Jean-Vier‘s headquarters before it was an official museum. My mom gave me a set of linge Basque table linens a few years ago after her last trip to France, but I’ve never used them because there hasn’t been an occasion special enough, you know?)

Right. Boise’s Basque Block evoked some older memories beyond the cool factor. Another cool thing in Boise was this faux-crack on the side of this building (maybe Colleen can enlighten us in the comments section with what building this is?). It had little misting jets to cool down passersby—not to worry, we did not let them dampen our spirits, hardee har har!

We finally made it back to the car and returned to Interstate 84 less than 24 hours after arriving in Boise. Based on the information we received at the Twin Falls Visitor Information center on Saturday, however, we elected to take a detour along Route 30, the “Thousand Springs Scenic Byway,” which followed the Snake River. So we ditched I-84 at Bliss, population 275.

Bliss was podunk and sadly desolate; truly the antithesis of its name. Its few businesses were in disrepair or perhaps closed forever. If it ever had a prime as an amusing stop for motor tourists like us, that time has long past. We saw one resident while we stopped to stretch our legs and take a photo of the welcome sign, and he was driving a bright red truck with two happy dogs in the truckbed, kicking up clouds of dust from the dirt road next to the silent railroad tracks. There was also a shrieking killdeer bird hanging around the sign that clearly wanted us out of his insect territory, dammit. So we drove on and left Bliss in the dust, so to speak.

We stopped at a “Fossil Beds” National Monument outside the tiny town of Hagerman—which boasted “Library of the Year” on a sign outside its library that was seriously smaller than a bookmobile. The “monument” consisted of a roadside sign and a gorgeous view (my photos do not do it justice). I’ve never seen black rocks before, and these looked particularly brilliant against the bright green hues from a rainy spring. Back in the car, this is what the road ahead of us looked like. Not too bad, eh?

There was another fossil bed scenic view not too far away, with a wooden plankway to a spot overlooking a crook in the Snake River. It was serene and quiet and I kind of wanted to build a house on top of all those fossils (that were supposedly somewhere in the striations of the cliffs; they were too far away for me to make anything out) just for the view. Oh, and the birds. There was a pelican in the water and what we determined (with the help of a sign nearby) was an osprey flying overhead. But it might have been an American White Pelican based on what Teh Internet is telling me today. Either way, that thing was huge.

There was a smaller bird that kept shrieking at us from the top of a telephone pole to leave his habitat, just like the killdeer in Bliss, so we moved on. We wanted to stop at Shoshone Falls and get back on the freeway before dark.

Shoshone Falls, according to the Twin Falls Visitor Center Man, has been dry for the last six years because of drought. This year there the falls were running again, and we happened to be driving through during the peak three weeks of rushing water flow. So we veered down a windy road lined with rocky cliffs and ponied up three bucks to enter a park… and suddenly found ourselves facing the 212-feet-high “Niagara of the West.” Once again, my photos do not do this place justice. There are lots more on my Flickr photostream.

The roaring water, the fine mist swirling around faces and through parched desert-lungs. People of all kinds lingering, drawn to this place for their own reasons. We hung around for a while, enjoying the day, enjoying the view, and enjoying each other’s company. We haven’t celebrated the anniversary of our first date since we were married, but May 11, 2009 marked ten years of us being a couple. As the sun started to set, we returned to the road—one decade of adventures, misadventures, accomplishments, and changes of direction behind us, and hopefully many more in our future.

Yesterday’s Mystery Bird that was stuck in my chimney is no longer a mystery! It was a female red-shafted Northern Flicker (photo from Cornell’s ornithology website, taken by Keven T. Karlson).

I was impressed with Cornell University’s ornithology website (which is what you’ll visit if you click on that first link) both for the multiple photos and the ability to listen to a clip of the bird’s song/noises. I’ve definitely heard that bird outside our house before, and it’s really cool to know what I’m hearing now.

I’d been sitting on that blog post for a few days, all the time wondering what kind of bird that was and trying to figure it out from online searches and my two birding books (National Geographic Field Guide and Birds of Utah). I finally decided to email Sharon Stiteler over at Birdchick.com to humbly request assistance, and was surprised by her lightning-quick response with a positive ID of the bird! She said that she was checking email at the time and thought my question was a fun challenge. And then she linked to this blog and challenged her readers to ID the bird…. cool!

Incidentally, Sharon’s profile claims her blog’s purpose “To show the world that you can be a birder without being a geek.” Well, I’m a geek, so I hope it’s okay that I want to be a birder!

I started reading Sharon’s blog at some point a while back when Neil Gaiman linked to her. They’re friends who pursued (and subsequently blogged about) a joint beekeeping adventure. And since I’m a wannabe birder, I stuck around and love looking at all the pretty birdy pictures and hearing about her adventures.

I’m a wannabe birder thanks to my good friend Susan from college. She was a fellow zoology major (until I switched gears and majored in English) and ended up in the field of ornithology after graduation, where she’s been ever since. Susan introduced me to pishing, which I’d like to try more often. I am jealous of all the exposure she’s had to owls. Because I think owls are neat, even when they’re being fed frozen mice.

While hunting for an ID for my mystery bird, I also came across the Utah County Birders, who apparently go on field trips (field trips! wheee!) and have monthly educational meetings. I don’t think that I will ever be a hardcore digiscoping birder, but I am definitely interested in learning more about birds. And since I neglected my natural interest in college by only attending one or two Naturalist Club meetings (before the field trips! boo!), I might just check them out.

The cool thing about learning is that even if you become a primo expert in a certain field, there’s somehow always more to learn. I don’t expect that I’ll become an expert in birds. I just want to know more about them!

And maybe find out which birding book should be the next addition to my library?

Awesome: Wild birds.
Not Awesome: Wild birds that fall down a derelict stovepipe chimney and become trapped.

Once upon a time, last week, I was sitting at my computer wondering why it was so hard for me to start blogging again. It was a dim, cloudy day, and rare (welcome) storms were approaching my Utah home. At 3:50pm, I heard a horrifying scriiiiiiiiitch-ing noise and thought that something was scraping maniacally against a window–or I was about to become a front page newsworthy victim of some horrible suburban home invasion.

Gushing adrenaline pushed me out of my chair and into the living room, where it became apparent that the noise was coming from the chimney of our never-used wood (or is it coal? We don’t even know) burning fireplace. A poor bird was stuck in there. (Can you help identify the bird? See below.)

Panicked, guilty horror washed over me, which in my brain goes a lot like this: ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshit!

Why guilty horror, you ask? Because a few months back the same thing happened with sad results. The scritching noise started as I was heading out the door, late for work. I called Ben, who had a similar reaction. We weren’t really sure what to do, and I had no idea how to disassemble the fireplace or the chimney, so I went to work. I called a chimney sweep, who quoted me $100 to come out. I called Ben again, and he came home as soon as he could to attempt a rescue… which was successful. But the bird wasn’t moving much when he pulled it out, so Ben set him down gently in the garage near the open door where he staggered on his feet for a minute before falling over. Sadly, it died right there in front of its big-hearted rescuer.

And here’s the part where I look like a neglectful homeowner and horrible person: we realized that there must not be a cap on our chimney, or it had broken, thus allowing a bird to fall down in the first place. But we never fixed it. So yeah, the whole story you’re about to read could have been avoided… but at least this time there was a happier ending. So I’ll get back to that now.

3:50 I first heard the sound and concluded that it was a bird.
3:51 Ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshit
3:52 I realized the rain had started, so I ran upstairs to close the skylights.
3:53 I ran back to the living room, but the noise had stopped. Loki was sitting two feet away from the fireplace, staring intently at where the noise was but also looking somewhat bored at the same time. How do cats do that?
3:55 I called Ben to tell him about the noise, and that it had stopped, and that I was pretty certain there was a dead bird in our chimney. Or maybe it was alive, and I should try to rescue it? But what if it was really dead? He asked me what I wanted him to do, and I pulled out my seldom-used Girl Card and squeaked, “Can you come home and take care of it?”
4:01 The bird scared the shit out me as I was about to hang up the phone. “I’m coming home now,” Ben said. I spent the next few minutes clearing things away from the fireplace area and pulling out small-ish cardboard boxes and a flashlight.
4:22 The bird went crazy in the chimney again and scared the bejesus out of Phoebe, the scaredy-cat who had been downstairs up until that point.
4:42 Ben arrived. We closed the doors to the bedrooms, wrangled the cats into the basement and shut that door, and opened all the windows on the first floor in hopes that the bird would be able to fly through one after its release. We have double-hung windows so we could open the top portion, assuming that the bird was more likely to fly high. Ben had the forethought to turn off the ceiling fan in the living room.
4:46 Ben pulled off the top lid-thingy on the stove to peek inside. I felt like an idiot, because I think I could have done that. But all we could see was a tail, so I happily relegated myself to flashlight-holder and picture-taker.

The next several minutes were nerve-wracking because in my head, the bird could die at any moment. The shrill sound of frantic talon-scratching on metal was welcome because at least we knew that the bird was still alive. Ben shook the stovepipe to encourage/force the bird to put its feet at the base of pipe, which caused it to climb up a foot somehow. So we waited patiently, and eventually it came down far enough for us to see what its body looked like.

Ben had the genius idea of bending a wire coat hanger to use as a scooping prod. No, of course he didn’t use the hook end to poke the bird! The first time the hanger touched the bird, it freaked out and climbed out of reach again. In the meantime, we scraped away some of the ashes at the base of the hole to allow more of the bird’s body to show. Eventually it slid back down and this is what we saw:

It was a much bigger bird than we thought it would be, which made it impossible to rescue in the same manner as the other bird (which had been small enough to fit underneath that flue bar in the middle). Ben tried one last time to coerce it over the flue bar, but its beak was at least 1.5 inches long and it retreated again.

Then Ben had another genius idea… to try opening the metal flue. Once open, he could see the bird in the pipe and was confident the bird could fit through that opening! I suggested he put on some gloves before sticking his hands up there in case the bird pecked or clawed or there were sharp edges inside.

So I took over as the holder of the flue handle to make sure that the flue didn’t slam shut with Ben’s hand or the bird inside. Ben used the coat hanger and something cute like “Hey there, little bird, we’re here to help you!” and pretty quickly told me to stand back.

And then the bird flew out! It flew up toward the ceiling immediately, paused for a fraction of a second, and then flew out the closest open window. I was very thankful that the top half was open… the last thing we wanted after freeing the bird was for it to slam right into a window.

We ran outside to see where it went or if it faltered, but it flew a straight course over our neighbor’s house and disappeared into the neighborhood. It was sort of anti-climactic… I mean, would have been nice if the bird had perched on the lonely nectarine tree in our backyard and chirped a little thanks before flying off, right? Needless to say, we were relieved and happy that the bird made it out alive and apparently well. A thousand kudos to Ben, my animal-loving hero who’s not afraid to get dirty:

It took a total of 45 minutes to get the bird out from the time Ben came home. Not too bad, I guess… I would say that we’ll now be able to do it faster next time, but I’m hoping there won’t be a next time. We’re getting a cap on that chimney ASAP. Also, a sign that says “No Birds Allowed.”

Can anyone help us identify this bird? From the long, conical black beak (not pictured, but it was around 1.5 inches, I’d say) and the striped pattern on the wing, I think it could be a female woodpecker of some sort, or something similar, but I can’t find a close match in my bird books or online. Those spots on the belly and the orange feathers (underneath the tail and it thin stripes on the wings) are really throwing me for a loop–not that I’m a really seasoned birder or ornithologist.

Head to tail the bird was perhaps 10 inches long and upon a quick glimpse as it flew out the window, I remember the trunk being a little fatter, kind of like a pigeon’s. The eyes were a solid black-brown. I didn’t use flash on the photo of the head because I didn’t want to scare the bird any more than it was at that point. Also, and I don’t know if this will aid in identifying the bird: it didn’t seem to like being stuck in our chimney.

[After posting this blog entry, I sent an email to Sharon over at Birdchick.com. I caught her online and she replied swiftly (it's a birding pun!) with a positive ID on our little mystery bird. Because she linked to this entry as a challenge, I'm going to hold off on my follow-up post for now... but you can see what people are people are guessing here.]