Weird Truck Accidents

Small Compilation of Weird Truck Accidents.

In the aftermath of a fender bender a few Ford truck body kits from American Trucks can make your truck look like new again.

Rainforest gets protected status

"The segments of land in the northern Para state together cover 16.4 million hectares (63,320 sq miles), an area of land that is bigger than England. Thousands of wildlife species inhabit the pristine forest, including jaguars, anteaters and colourful macaws. Campaigners say the decision made by Para Governor Simao Jatene is one of the most important conservation initiatives of recent years."

Link: Full article from BBC News

Link: Forest creatures - in Pictures (BBC News)

Japanese Manhole Cover Art

A good answer to all those who thinks that manhole cover is a piece of trash and Japanese people has turned it into a thing of beauty.

Birding in a Winter Wonderland

Getting ready to call it a day

The snowstorm that moved through southeastern Wisconsin on Friday decorated the landscape to a winter wonderland. Katie Fitzmier, Jesse Peterson and I planned to bird Lake Michigan from Sheboygan to Milwaukee on Saturday, so we were glad the storm was a day earlier. I love the way a fresh snowfall leaves trees and fields so beautifully decorated. While nothing compares to spring birding, there is something fun about bundling up for cold weather and finding neat birds to watch in December.

Our target birds included pretty much anything unusual along the lake, but I was really hoping for a Purple Sandpiper, having not seen one in three years. Our stops included Sheboygan's beaches, Andre-Kohler State Park, Harrington Beach State Park, Port Washington, Doctors Park and Milwaukee's Lake Park. Though we had to save Purple Sandpiper for another time, we found some incredible birds. Katie got 5 life birds: Glaucous Gull, Long-tailed Duck, Barrow's Goldeneye, Black Scoter and Red-throated Loon. She's presently at 505 on her ABA list and her 500th bird was the Pacific Loon on Lake Monona in Madison.

Here are all the bird species we found yesterday:

Canada Goose
Gadwall
American Wigeon
American Black Duck
Mallard
Canvas Back
Scaup (we didn't distinguish)
Black Scoter
Long-tailed Duck
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Barrow's Goldeneye
Common Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Red-throated Loon
Common Loon
Horned Grebe
Red-necked Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
Red-tailed Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
American Coot
Killdeer
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Glaucous Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Rock Pigeon
American Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
Hermit Thrush
European Starling
American Pipit
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
American Goldfinch

I'm not planning on making any more birding trips for the remainder of the year, so it looks like I'll finish 2006 with 262 species - down from last year's 271. I did bump up my Wisconsin state list from 308 to 315 and added a few life birds as well. Still, the year isn't over! On separate note, I highly recommend Spenco RX series insole inserts. They really saved my feet yesterday!

All images © 2006 Mike McDowell

Approaching the Birds

Have you ever observed bird behavior relative to how they respond differentially to to the presence of people who are not paying any attention to them, versus those who do? Why is it that dozens of walkers and joggers on a trail can pass under a Northern Shrike perched on a telephone wire and it stays, but when you try to sneak up on it to take a picture, it flies away? Anecdotally, from years of photographing birds, I believe it's instinctual that they recognize types of stalking behavior, regardless of what's doing it. Perhaps this is a case of counting the hits and ignoring the misses, but I've witnessed this too many times for it to be a coincidence.

One late afternoon at Harrington Beach State Park, I was walking along the beach toward a rocky point and noticed half a dozen Sanderlings on the rocks ahead of me. Unfortunately, I was on the wrong side of the light but couldn't help imagining the nice pictures of Sanderlings I might capture if I could only get to other side of the point. I wanted to make the most of this opportunity – everything was right except for the angle I had on them. To capture exceptional detail, I needed them to be comfortable with my presence, be on the right side of the light and also be a fairly close distance to them.



This diagram that recreates the scene - you can see I had to walk toward them to get around the point to have good lighting. Watching the birds from (1), I knew they would become nervous the closer I got to the rocky point. I quietly but casually approached. When I got to (2) I could see they were beginning to hop across rocks a little further out to the tip of the point. From then on, I turned my face to the right, continued walking (3) and avoided eye contact with them until I made it all the way to (4). Once there, I meandered a bit and then sat down in the sand. Walking that far beyond them was intentional - I think it reinforces to the birds that you're not interested in them.



Optimistically, I glanced over my shoulder - the Sanderlings remained. I looked back to my right and pretended to be content just sitting there in the sand. Carefully watching them out of the corner of my eye, the Sanderlings slowly made their way back toward the middle of the rocks. I continued to pretend I had no interest in them whatsoever, but occasionally sidled toward them a foot or two at a time.



It took several minutes but I finally made my way up to the rocks. Avoiding sudden moves and eye contact, I entered the water (yep, sometimes ya gotta get wet) in a crouched position until I found a nice rock to sit on and went to work. I must have taken over 200 images of the Sanderlings and these ones are a few favorites from the session. They knew I was there, but...they didn't seem to mind. Perhaps the most amazing part of this story is that I was wearing a bright yellow winter coat!

All images © 2006 Mike McDowell