Movie time!

 Kenn Kaufman and his buddy Bobb.

 There's another new birding themed film on the way! "A Birder's Guide To Everything" is about a 15-year-old birding fanatic, that thinks he's made the discovery of a lifetime. On the eve of his father's remarriage, he escapes on an epic road trip with his best friends to solidify their place in birding history. Along with the young actors and Sir Ben Kingsley, Kenn Kaufman will be among the extras somewhere in the film. If you check out the films blog, here, there's a post about Kenn on the films location.

I'm sure everyone has seen "The Big Year" by now...at least if you're a birder. The character Jack Black portrayed was based on Ohio birder Greg Miller. He also managed to appear in the film in the boat seen. Look quickly for him wearing an Ohio State ball cap...and check out his great blog.

 The Doodles with Greg and some other goof ball...

 The happy Doodles preparing to see "The Big Year."

 The screening of "Opposable Chums" during the Midwest Birding Symposium at Lakeside.

Here's another birding film you may not be aware of..."Opposable Chums, Guts & Glory at the World Series of Birding."  Kenn is also featured in this along with Pete Dunne, who said "...the best film I've ever seen about birding." I think he just enjoyed seeing himself on the big screen!

If you've every wondered about the craziness involved in that contest, this is a definite must see.

On the big screen!...speaking of Lakeside and the Midwest Birding Symposium...another is coming up September 19th through the 22nd! Check out the ads in your copy of Bird Watcher's Digest for more info and a very scary photo!

There's quite a few films out there...besides Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds." You can also find "Pale Male" about the Red-tailed Hawks of Central Park in New York City, "Winged Migration" a fantastic documentary about bird migrations all over the world and of course, David Attenborough's "The Life of Birds." That has to be my most favorite documentary of all time.

Stock up and prepare for next winter...it will be back before you know it!

Ho-Ho-Ho...ho hum...

 It's The Doodles Christmas Bird Tree!

It's all sparkly and shiny and full of birdy type ornaments, including one large Snowy Owl!

 Hard to believe, but no ranting today! Just a Merry Christmas wish to all of my bird lovin' buddies!

Hopefully in the new year I'll start posting again, just to annoy you. Mwahahahahahaha!

 For this, my apologies! No one should have to look at my goofy likeness.

I keep asking Bird Watcher's Digest to publish one of my photos.

I think they misunderstood me...

Silly people.

 On a totally unrelated subject...

 It's a little hard to see, but that large acrylic panel in the center of the stage is mine.

Yep, that's what I make for a living, drum shields to shut up drummers.

This is a close as I'll ever get to being on stage at Severance Hall!

 

That's The Doodles face in the left corner.

She's getting autographs from Thomas Lauderdale, China Forbes and Ari Shapiro(yep, the guy from NPR!) of the little orchestra, Pink Martini.

If you ever hear of them coming to your area, you really need to pay a visit!

...oh...by the way, Happy New Year if I don't see you!

Guests in the Garden...and..Bookin' with Bobb!

I gotta get rid of that window screen.
Our first Black-and-White Warbly Thing!

September turned out to be quite a good month. We went out birding for the first time since May now that things are settling down on the home front and the major chores are finished. We saw many of our good friends at the Midwest Birding Symposium that we missed this past summer...AND...ELEVEN, yep 11, new birds in the garden! Eastern Kingbird, Chimney Swift, Blackburnian, Black-throated Green, Chestnut-sided, Black-and-White, Magnolia AND Wilson's Warblys! That brings us to 14 Warbly Things! I really should do more yard work...

We're up to 79 total species spotted from our front and back gardens. It pays to keep your habitat as natural as possible. Food, water, shelter, it's as simple as that. Now if I could only convince the people coming to look at our home of that...

Hidden in there is a Cape May Warbly.
Hard to see...and this photo is cropped...a lot!

We had 5 new warblys in the garden while we were making dinner.
I ran outside to try to get a few shots...and only a few is what I got.
Who'd have thought I would get Warbly-neck in September?
By the way, that's a Chestnut-sided Warbly up there.

This Great Blue Heron isn't new to our garden, but he definitely was the lowest flying!

Good by little buddies! See you in May at Magee!

AND NOW...more of...
BOOKIN' WITH BOBB!

Bobb likes the birdy books...
and he's nice enough to read them to Doodlette and Bobbette!

First I need to send a big thank you to Jessica of Princeton University Press for keeping me well read while I was on hiatus from the blogosphere. If you're not familiar with their great selection of natural history books, please click on the link and check them out.

A well read birder need more than just field guides and my new favorite book is "Avian Architecture, How Birds Design, Engineer and Build" by Peter Goodfellow.
If you have any questions on how birds can manage to make such amazing structures, and NEW ones almost ever year, this is a great start for you!

The book is arranged by nest type with descriptions of materials, illustrations, photos and even blueprints...just in case you decide to BE a bird. Learning how our feathered buddies do such intricate work mostly with their bills and beaks gives one a better appreciation of that little nest in the shrubs.

Also new on my shelf is "Birds Of North America and Greenland" by Norman Arlott, part of the Princeton Illustrated Checklist series. This surprisingly small and inexpensive book covers the Nearctic region of North America and even includes Greenland (a place that Bobb thinks is really green.)

This guide covers the more than 900 species that you may be fortunate enough to spot while on your birding adventures. This would be a handy book to have along while you're working on your "BIG YEAR" as well. It has great color art work of each species as well as range maps and very concise descriptions.

Though it's not a substitute for a standard field guide, it's a great book to have along for those unusual vagrants that pop up now and again. And if you're visiting North America for the first time, this would be a great study guide to familiarize yourself with our feathered friends.

I'll have a couple more reviews next time...if I can get the books back from Bobb...
Stoopid Chipmunk...

Of course I wouldn't leave you without a bird butt!
You can actually tell this is a RED-bellied Woodpecker!
He was just barely hanging in there.

See ya soon!

Meadowbrook Marsh...close to, but not part of...

Going South!
A Magnolia Warblys version of 'carb loading' for his long voyage
to his winter home...or is it his summer home below the equator...
now I'm really confused...

Close to the Lake Erie Birding Trail, but not (yet) part of it, Meadowbrook Marsh on the Marblehead peninsula is a fantastic place to bird. Great marsh and wetlands, woods, meadows and LOTS of birds, even though they don't count towards The Doodles great goal...

"The Big Birdy Decade!"

We spent last Saturday looking for fall warbly things out there and to pop in at the Midwest Birding Symposium that was going on at Lakeside. We ran into so many birdy friends that we haven't seen in quite a while and we(mostly me! yakyakyak!) ended up talking more than birding. Even still, we had a good birdy day.

This is a view of the marsh.
The clouds passed us by and the sun came out for all of the visiting birders.

You never know what will pop up inside the marsh!
This time it was an American Redstart.

Speaking of things popping up in the marsh...
Hey kids, it's our buddy Greg Miller!
Jack Black's character in the upcoming movie "The Big Year" is based on Greg, though not as crazy as the real thing
(that's a compliment by the way.)

No respect...this is Ernie...doing his impression of "Loopy From Behind"...wise guy...
Bird Watchers Digest had a booth as MBS taking photos of attendees and placing them on the "cover" of the magazine.
Ernie will never make it...

Okay...back to the birds...
Love those fall warblys!
It's another American Redstart.

This is a difficult one, until you notice the feet.
Blackpoll Warblys have loud legs!

The Doodles and Rondo Rick were on the other side on this shrubbery chasing the birdies to me.
Then I would chase them back so Rick could get a few shots.
By the way, this is a Black-throated Blue Warbly.
Ain't birding fun?

I've never seen cabbage as white as this Cabbage White Butteryfly.
I don't get it.

Cedar Waxwings.
Not in a Cedar tree. by the way.
Wings made of feathers, not wax by the way.
I think the bird namers were overly medicated.

Speaking of overly medicated..
I think his Downy Woodpecker looks ready for rehab.

No jokes left.
Pretty flower break...

Hmmmm...
I think it's a Philadelphia Vireo.
I know, we're not in Philadelphia, but I still have my opinion.
It's my blog and I can call birds anything I want.
I think I'll call this one Bob.

Red-bellied Woodpecker in shock.
He shook all of the leaves off the tree.

This photo should be part of "International Crappy Photo Day" which will be coming soon.
This little Ruby-crowned Kinglet was right above two well hidden Marsh Wrens screaming their brains out.

Sub species of the Tufted Titmouse...
Tousled Titmouse.
Really, look it up, I dare you.

White-breasted Nuthatch.
Nuthatch...where I will be going one day.
The Doodles already has the paperwork.

Pretty flower break...again.
Ooooh...ahhhh...

Guess that booty!

License Plates of the MBS...

"EVL TWN!" Everybody has one...where's yours?

You can tell you're running low on blog material when you resort to anything that comes even a little close to birding!

You can click on the photos to enlarge them for easier reading, or you can just close out of the blog and wait for something better. Ha. This is what happens when one(that would mean ME!) is in a silly mood. Yep, I'm sitting here just cracking myself up...and deleting the captions so as not to offend anyone, living or dead, past or present, in this or any other dimension that you may inhabit or believe in.

I'm really looking forward to "Themeless Thunday" thith week...

"EYRIE" The Lake that was so scary they called it "ERIE!" Coming soon to a theatre near you!

That's a local joke, sorry...

"EIDERS" *joke deleted for your protection.

"SHOVLR" Hmmm, gravedigger, gardener or a simply duckie gal?

"BIRDING" Bird Girl, you need to wash your car...

I had to edit the writing in the back window, oops.

HEY!!! TURN AROUND!!

The WRBLRZ behind you!

Silly birders...who's car is that anyway?

You didn't think I would do a whole, entire, complete, exclusive, comprehensive and nearly perfect bloggy without one bird photo did you?

It would have been a total butt shot, but he peeked!

Name that Empidonax...

Sailing the bounding main...

...Or something similar to that!

On the first evening of the Midwest Birding Symposium, a little over two hundred of the over eight hundred birders registered went on a boat ride out to the Lake Erie islands and back. We all had high hopes to see some of the many migrating birds winging across the lake, maybe have one land aboard ship for a photo op! And most of all, we hoped for a calm lake...sea sickness...bad...very bad.

Lake Erie has a reputation for getting very rough very quickly, as it is the shallowest of the Great Lakes. The temperature was great, the winds were calm, but the birds were scarce. They need the winds to bring them across the lake to our shore. In any case, we all had a great time!

Me and the Doodles were running late, go figure, and we didn't have time for dinner. To our surprise, there was a buffet on board! The evening was spent socializing, birding and sight seeing.

This is the Goodtime I, good name! That's Ernie and Rondeau Ric waving.

Our hostess with the mostess, Cheryl Harner, aka Weedpicker.

One of the beautiful islands of Lake Erie.

Shipboard birding...looking for something other than a Ring-billed Gull.

Oh my gosh! A Ring-billed Gull! Cover your head...

Chumming for...uh...Ring-billed Gulls with popcorn, yep, popcorn.

What would you use?

We have a large entourage of, you guessed it, Ring-billed Gulls.

Apparently popcorn is one of their favorite foods...

And on your starboard side...a Ring-billed Gull.

Name that bird!

Here's an odd sunset...Ring-billed Gulls of course and the smoking tower in the distance?

Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant, just down the road from the BirdMobile.

BOOM!