Bohemian Waxwings

Yesterday the Bohemian Waxwings descended on our back yard again. We have two crabapple trees in our backyard. Both produce a large number of apples but one apparently produces much better tasting apples. The tree producing the good apples is older and is loosing a few limbs. The birds will eat all the apples off this tree and the ones that have fallen on the ground before they will begin eating apples from the other tree. As we get latter in the spring the apples left on the not-so-good tree become more appealing as other source of fruit disappear. We usually get large flocks of Bohemian Waxwings about three or four times a month from November through February (maybe more as I am not around during the weekdays) to work over the remaining fruit and have a drink or quick bath.
Yesterday I estimated there were about 600 individuals either eating on the dried apples in our backyard or waiting in the neighbors cottonwood tree.

This species is quite common in the Fort Peck area during the winter with thousands feeding on Russian Olive and ornamental fruit trees in town and along the Missouri River. It may even breed in the northwestern part of the state. Early records, which have been carried forward into recent range maps and accounts, suggested that this species was an occasional breeder but recent reviews of these records show that no nests were ever actually found and the supposition of breeding in Montana was based on a lot of conjecture and little fact. They do nest not that much farther north into Canada but for now there is no hard evidence of this species breeding in the state.

First, one side.

then the other.

Thagomizer

"Ooooh" I said as I was reading Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of all Ages. I had opened the book to the Stegosaurus account and my eyes were drawn to a caption for an illustration depicting a Stegosaurus thrashing at a Tyrannosaur type meat eating dinosaur with it's spiked tail. The caption stated "The thagomizer of Stegosaurus provided a powerful defense...."

I thought "that's a curious word - thagomizer. I wonder where that came from?"

A little searching through the text found that it indeed was a curious word with an even more interesting etymology. It turns out that the Thagomizer was named after the late Thag Simmons. Who was Thag Simmons? It appears that, according to a good source, Thag Simmons was an unfortunate pre-historic human who first discovered the dangers of a Stegosaurus tail first hand. OK you say, now this is getting weird. Everyone knows that dinosaurs and any sort of pre-historic human did not exist during the same time! Would it help if I told you my source was Gary Larson?

Apparently paleontologist Ken Carpenter thought the thagomizer was a good name for the business end of the Stegosaurus tail and he used the term in a 1993 presentation in which he described the most complete Stegosaurus ever found. However, Ken may have originally been joking a bit. He did not use thagomizer to describe the Stegosaurus tail in a subsequent paper (Carpenter 1998) describing what was probably the same specimen but the book states that it is now accepted scientific nomenclature.

Here is the cartoon which I found at the Wikipedia site that describes the thagomizer and it's origins a bit more. This was too good to pass up.

So is the Dinosaur encyclopedia. I bought it for my son Benton's fifth birthday and he loves it (thanks to Darren at Tetrapod Zoology). I really like it too. It has great illustrations and I look forward to reading more, particularly on the Avialians (of course).

Reference:
Carpenter, Ken. 1998. Amor of Stegosaurus stenops, and the taphonomic history of a new speciment from Garden Park, Colorado. Modern Geology 23:127-144.



"Now this end is called the thagomizer, after the late Thag Simmons."

Some new favorites

Earlier this month Trixie at Trixie's View gave me a nice compliment and listed PrairieIce as one of the blogs that "makes her day". Thanks Trixie. I commented to Trixie that the feeling is mutual and I enjoy reading about her life in Alaska - bears, Boreal Chickadees, a biathlete, and a beginning reader to name a few subjects I enjoy from Trixie. Check out her recent post about her family training program for her daughter's biathlon competitions. I like the indoor firing range Trixie.

This was pretty good timing as it gave me a bit of a nudge to link to a few blogs that I have recently discovered or posts I particularly enjoyed that I have been meaning to pass along.

First is a post from Pohanginapete with stunning photos of New Zealand's Blue Duck or Whio. One of my favorite groups of birds in the world are the ducks that inhabit fast moving waters - the Harlequin Duck in North America, the aptly named Torrent Duck in South America, and the Blue Duck of New Zealand. I have yet to see the Whio but this is pretty close to being there. Pete always has very well crafted posts with great stories and photos.

This is one of my photos of a Torrent Duck in Torres Del Paine NP,
Chile in November 2007

Next is a new blog that I found via Fretmarks and Querencia (again). Talking Pictures is another blog in the same vein as Pohanginapete, well done posts with great photography and thoughtful essays. I really like it and have added a link to my sidebar. Natasha vicariously feeds my traveling and birding wishes for India.

Another blog that I have somehow failed to add to my sidebar until now is Rebecca O'Conner's Operations Desert Dove. This is, directly from Rebecca, a falconry blog... and more. Much more.

Pete at Midway is next on my list. I discovered Pete's work via a link at Trixie's View and I have been able to get my seabird fix while in Montana via Pete's photos and stories of working with albatrosses, tropicbirds, and petrels. Check out the photos of the sea turtles here.

I also like the irreverent Martin and George Bristow's Secret Freezer. Martin always provides a great perspective on birding and more importantly birders. Martin never fails to make me laugh particularly when he hits close to home like here:

I actually think the birds can be a bit boring on a blog. Does anyone care how many gannets I saw today?* Even me? Really what I'd like to do is to fill it up with petty libels, anecdotes, woodpecker news**, Heroes of the Birding Revolution etc. Can't manage that at the moment, hence the disappointing lack of peripherals.

Thanks Martin and I agree. I promise to try to do less of the "what I saw today or what I took a photo of today" posts but they are so much easier than actually writing a decent post. I will try though.

Fridays usually mean that John Betham at A D.C. Birding Blog has his Loose Feathers roundup posted. I look forward to Fridays just to see what interesting bird related links John has gathered from the internet via blogs, the news, and other sources (I even made his blog roundup once!).

My last new link to mention is Birdchick. Sharon is probably best described as a bird ambassador. Her enthusiasm for birds is contagious even via the internet and I always enjoy seeing what she is up to. Anyone who would organize an event called "Birds and Beers" at a local pub is alright in my book. Hey Sharon, want to come to Montana and speak at our local bird festival one of these years?

Rough-legged Hawk

One of the most common raptors wintering in Montana is the Rough-legged Hawk. They are often found perched on telephone poles in sagebrush habitats or perched in the small branches of trees. Even at a distance it is easy to identify this hawk by two behaviors not exhibited by other raptor species of this size in Montana in the winter. The first is the habit of perching on small branches as noted above. No other hawk of this size will perch at the ends of small branches like this. The other is their habit of hovering while searching for prey. Again, they are the only large raptor found in MT that will hover like this. Here are a few photos of a Rough-legged Hawks from Montana. In a few months they will be heading north to breed.

More Montana Signs

Here are some more Montana signs. Glad you liked the first bunch Trixie! I have a bunch more on film and I hope to get them scanned one of these days.

Billings, MT 2006
Great Falls, MT 2006
Great Falls, MT 2006

Montana Signs

Chinook, MT 2006

Dodson, MT 2007

Lewistown, MT 2006

Raptors Across Montana

I returned yesterday from a two day training in Butte, MT, an eight hour trip (one way) from Fort Peck. Although it is a long drive, it was a nice, albeit fast, traverse of the state with a good deal of windshield birding. On Tuesday when I woke up, it was -25 degrees outside without the windchill and after a day of blizzard like conditions on Monday, attending the training was in question. After consulting the weather reports and road conditions on the web I decided that I would go. It turned out to be a rather uneventful drive for winter in Montana as far as road conditions and weather go. The most obvious birds I found during my drive were raptors and there were lots of them along the way (probably because it is tough to observe smaller birds while traveling down the interstate, much less identify them). Rough-legged Hawks were the most widespread bird I found from one end of the state to the other. I probably observed between 50 and 80 individuals each way. Bald Eagles were the next most common and widespread bird I observed, from the more traditional habitats along the Yellowstone River to perched on small buttes and feeding on roadkill. Ravens and Black-billed Magpies were pretty common too but only west of Billings. Black-billed Magpies are still much less common in the eastern part of the state after a precipitous decline that occured about the time that West Nile Virus came through here and I suspect that much of the population around Fort Peck was wiped out at that time. Horned Larks were common in scattered flocks along the highways north and east of Billings. The most species I observed the most individuals of was the Canada Goose, with many large flocks wintering along the Yellowstone River from Billings to Livingston. I saw one haystack near Reed Point along the Yellowstone River that was covered with Wild Turkeys like a wildebeast carcass covered with vultures. Other raptors observed along the way included two Merlins in Billings, a number or Red-tailed Hawks along the Yellowstone, two American Kestrels, and a Northern Harrier.

This photo depicts a typical scene in Eastern Montana this time of year. Although this happens to be a Bald Eagle, more often it is a Golden Eagle perched on these knobs.

This immature Golden Eagle was soaring in the updraft at the edge of a small hill along the highway.

This adult Bald Eagle was perched in an old Ponderosa Pine along the highway. I appeared to have just finished a dinner on the roadkill Mule Deer in the ditch on the opposite side of the road.