Mokka mit Schlag

Mystery Sparrow

2012-05-17T04:48:21Z

Anyone recognize this bird? There were two of them at the Mcllellan Ranch feeders this morning and I didn’t bring a field guide with me on this trip:

Maybe a Lincoln’s Sparrow? a Juvenile Swamp Sparrow? a hybrid? Nothing seems to quite fit.

It was distinctly rufous, with white outer tail feathers.

JetBlue/Hotels.com Fail

2012-04-14T16:30:54Z

I’m glad I don’t rely on JetBlue to book my hotels:

Do you see the mistake? Hint: Bermuda is not known for its tulip fields. :-)

Apparently JetBlue outsources hotels to hotels.com. Not sure who screwed this one up, JetBlue or hotels.com.

Mokka mit Schlag is Back

2012-04-08T19:19:21Z

Sometime over the last couple of weeks while I was in Cuba, MySQL corrupted the wp_posts table in my WordPress database. At first I thought I was hacked, but it looks like the database was just corrupted:

mysql> check table wp_posts;
+---------------------------+-------+----------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Table                     | Op    | Msg_type | Msg_text                                                                         |
+---------------------------+-------+----------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| elharo_wordpress.wp_posts | check | warning  | Table is marked as crashed                                                       |
| elharo_wordpress.wp_posts | check | warning  | Size of indexfile is: 1148225      Should be: 467968                             |
| elharo_wordpress.wp_posts | check | error    | Can't read indexpage from filepos: 56320                                         |
| elharo_wordpress.wp_posts | check | Error    | Incorrect key file for table './elharo_wordpress/wp_posts.MYI'; try to repair it |
| elharo_wordpress.wp_posts | check | error    | Corrupt                                                                          |
+---------------------------+-------+----------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> repair table wp_posts;
+---------------------------+--------+----------+----------+
| Table                     | Op     | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+---------------------------+--------+----------+----------+
| elharo_wordpress.wp_posts | repair | status   | OK       |
+---------------------------+--------+----------+----------+
1 row in set (0.34 sec)

mysql> check table wp_posts;
+---------------------------+-------+----------+----------+
| Table                     | Op    | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+---------------------------+-------+----------+----------+
| elharo_wordpress.wp_posts | check | status   | OK       |
+---------------------------+-------+----------+----------+
1 row in set (0.08 sec)

I think I’ve fixed this now, but do let me know if you see any lingering problems. Hmm, it does look like the categories may be borked too. I’ll look at that next.

Yep. Categories were broken too:


mysql> check table wp_term_taxonomy;
+-----------------------------------+-------+----------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Table                             | Op    | Msg_type | Msg_text                                                                                 |
+-----------------------------------+-------+----------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| elharo_wordpress.wp_term_taxonomy | check | warning  | Size of indexfile is: 818482      Should be: 17408                                       |
| elharo_wordpress.wp_term_taxonomy | check | error    | Can't read indexpage from filepos: 6144                                                  |
| elharo_wordpress.wp_term_taxonomy | check | Error    | Incorrect key file for table './elharo_wordpress/wp_term_taxonomy.MYI'; try to repair it |
| elharo_wordpress.wp_term_taxonomy | check | error    | Corrupt                                                                                  |
+-----------------------------------+-------+----------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> repair table wp_term_taxonomy;
+-----------------------------------+--------+----------+----------+
| Table                             | Op     | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+-----------------------------------+--------+----------+----------+
| elharo_wordpress.wp_term_taxonomy | repair | status   | OK       |
+-----------------------------------+--------+----------+----------+
1 row in set (0.02 sec)

mysql> check table wp_term_taxonomy;
+-----------------------------------+-------+----------+----------+
| Table                             | Op    | Msg_type | Msg_text |
+-----------------------------------+-------+----------+----------+
| elharo_wordpress.wp_term_taxonomy | check | status   | OK       |
+-----------------------------------+-------+----------+----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

#803-#805 in Old Havana

2012-04-15T22:30:30Z

We arrived in Cuba today almost before we left Miami due to the difference in Daylight Savings Time (though this won’t be posted until some time later due to the lack of Wifi access in Cuba). Of course I got held up by the second most annoying customs inspection I’ve ever had to go through. The inspector looked at almost every piece of optics I had, most of which I had to explain to him. I had to put the spotting scope together and show him how it worked. He took photos of most of it. I’m not sure why. He was very impressed with my 17″ MacBook Pro. Apparently even in Cuba, Apple products are considered cool. Although I was the first one in our group through the metal detector (not sure why, but in Cuba they X-Ray you coming off the plane; looking for contraband I guess) I was the last one to exit customs. Still not as bad as flying back into Miami though.

But we finally got to the hotel around 11:30. The drive from the airport was interesting: Cuba certainly isn’t a rich country but somehow it doesn’t look like a poor one either. In many ways, it looks in better shape than parts of the United States. Poor but not rundown or abandoned. Many, perhaps most, buildings look a little shabby, but that’s common in any tropical country where you need to paint and repair annually or the jungle takes over. It took me a while to put my finger on the real difference I saw between Cuba and other places I’ve visited in the developing world: everyone’s in the same boat. In Panama or Puerto Rico, and to a lesser extent Beijing, there’s an obvious contrast between quite wealthy people and extremely poor people. I don’t see that here because I don’t see wealthy people, or big houses, or apartments, or mansions, pretty much anywhere we’ve been so far. We’ll see if this holds up as more of the country is explored. It’s often in rural areas where most tourists don’t go (but birders do) where you find the deepest poverty.

We grabbed a carb-heavy lunch at a local restaurant, and afterwards explored old Havana. Even before lunch I caught a glimpse of my first lifer, #803, Cuban Blackbird. on top of a building. However I didn’t get a good luck, and couldn’t swear it wasn’t a Greater Antillean Grackle. But we found several again after lunch with much better looks.

Old Havana itself is quite pretty. It’s quite reminiscent of the French Quarter in New Orleans and Old San Jose in Puerto Rico. No coincidence: they’re all examples of Spanish colonial archicteture in the New World. However thanks to the Revolution and 50 years of embargo, Old Havana is much closer to the original than the other two examples I’ve seen. On the one hand it’s more rundown. On the other hand it’s almost (though not quite completely) free of T-shirt shops and Starbucks and other international brands.

In fact, there’s almost no advertising at all; only a few basic signs on shops. It took me a while to notice what was missing, but once I did it made a typical American or European city look garish and tasteless by comparison. Havana isn’t rich, but it’s dignified. The only billboards are government propaganda (Tenemos y tenederos socialismo!) but there isn’t any more of that than in any typical American city. It’s just that in our swamp of commercialism the government propaganda is such a tiny fraction of available space it barely registers on our consciousness.

Old Havana is not a park, but it’s got a little green space and in one square we found Rock Pigeons by the dozens, Eurasian Collared Doves, Cuban Blackbirds, Northern Mockingbirds (Damn, I was hoping for Bahamas Mockingbird), House Sparrows, Yellow-throated Warbler, Palm Warbler, and #804, Loggerhead Kingbird, perched on a television aerial on top of a nearby building:

The Loggerhead Kingbirds were far away and hard to distinguish from other flycatchers; but they’re common here and I should get a lot more practice with them throughout the trip.

From there we walked over to the water and out a kilometer or so. We added Laughing Gull and Royal Tern to the day list, but the real treat was toward the end where we found #805 Antillean Palm Swift:

By this point the clouds were looking ominous, so we headed home. But in a Lion King themed playground along the way, I spotted a Red-legged Thrush; and this was followed by Common Ground-Dove and another Palm Warbler, as well as a Yellow Warbler I never got on. ~20 species including three lifers, not bad for a leisurely walk in the middle of a major city. I later learned that I had missed both Red-shouldered and Tawny Blackbirds. I think I might have had one of those at one point, but I didn’t get a clear look at it; and afterwards all the blackbirds I could find were Cubans. Both of those species should reappear later in the trip, so no major loss, but I do need to pay more attention to blackbirds around here.

Tomorrow we drive west into Pinar del Rio, and a couple of national parks.

#802 Barrow’s Goldeneye

2012-03-25T23:21:57Z

A Barrow’s Goldeneye has been hanging out in the West Pond at Jamaica Bay since at least the Christmas Bird Count, and likely earlier. This more northerly species is very similar to the locally frequent Common Goldeneyes, but with a scope it’s distinguishable. Various birders including myself had tried and failed to find it, while others had succeeded. After several weeks it had become clear that the difference was timing. The bird tends to take off from the West Pond and head out into the bay within an hour or less after dawn, and return maybe half an hour before dusk. This makes it somewhat challenging to find, but not impossible if you get up early enough.

So this morning I pulled myself out of bed at 4:00 AM, grabbed my scope and binoculars and started the long trek out to Broad Channel: #2 to Hoyt Street, transfer outside the subway to the A train at Jay Street, which was unfortunately running local; and then all the way out past the airport to Broad Channel, and then walk in the dark to the refuge, where I arrived just as light was starting to peep out into the morning air.

Despite this I was not the first one there. I found a couple of women already out on the trail with scopes. After a little while scoping through the flocks, we finally located the bird. The difference is subtle: a very slightly kidney shaped chin patch instead of the more roundish patch of the Common Goldeneye, and less white on the upper flanks and back; but it was distinctive. We watched it for about 25-30 minutes, periodically losing track of it and then refinding it, before it took off into flight with two Common Goldeneyes about 5 minutes to 7:00.

No photos I’m afraid. It was pretty far away, and in the morning haze I forgot to bring my camera. :-(

Marjorie 1997-2012

2012-02-13T13:26:44Z

October 1997-February 13, 2012
We will miss you.

FluidMask Not Quite There

2012-01-21T15:36:50Z

For some time, I’ve been trying different techniques for extracting animals from photos and isolating them on white backgrounds. (Note that these are wild animals. These are not studio shots, and backgrounds and lighting are what they are. White boxes and umbrellas are not an option. This is not product photography. Photoshop works, sometimes, but it’s tedious. Topaz Remask also works, and can usually get the job done; but is extremely time-consuming: an hour or more per photo. OnOne PerfectMask is buggy and crashed on me, losing my work. Today I discovered Vertus’s FluidMask, downloaded the demo, and fired it up. Capsule summary:

Promising, but not yet good enough to replace the more complicated tools.

Vertus’s UI is interesting different form the other options in this space. It shows you the edges of the regions it’s divided the photo into, and then lets you keep or exclude individual regions. You can control how many regions the photo is divided into, and how sensitively edges are detected. You can also draw in edges around areas of low contrast it doesn’t auto-detect. This is much simpler than Remask, PerfectMask, or Photoshop; though not quite up to the standard set by PowerPoint 2011. The initial mask is pretty damn good, but like all such products when used with real world photos (i.e. not green screen studio shots or carefully cherry picked trade show demos) you need to do some touching up to the mask; and that’s where FluidMask stops being so fluid.

Most importantly, you can’t edit the mask in the cut-out mode. That makes it very hard to see what is and isn’t included, and where you need to fix things after the initial mask.

Second, I was not able to say, “these pixels must be included” or “these pixels must excluded.” The keep exact and delete exact brushes are supposed to do this, but they don’t actually work. The program insisted on coloring particular parts of the mask blue (marking it as a border) and sometimes green (keep) or red (delete) no matter how many times I went over it with the relevant brush. This is so obviously contrary to what’s supposed to happen that I wonder if I’m doing something wrong, and misunderstanding how the program works? But if so, the best I can say is that the program, manual, and tutorials are confusing and incomplete since they offered no clues as to what might be going wrong.

This is disappointing, because Fluidmask got me to a plausible start much quicker and with less effort than Topaz Remask, or OnOne PerfectMask, but it wasn’t able to finish the job. :-(

#800! and #801! Post CBC

2012-01-02T23:58:09Z

The Northern Suffolk Christmas Bird Count (CBC) found a Mountain Bluebird at Rt 25A and Hulse Landing Road near Wading River over a week ago. However I just hadn’t been able to convince myself that it was worth driving that far to pick up a rare but regular vagrant, especially after very nearly striking out on much closer birds two weeks ago after Brooklyn’s CBC. Then yesterday on the Southern Nassau Count Doug Gochfeld found an incredible Grace’s Warbler much closer at Hempstead Town Park in Point Lookout. This is a first state record, and probably the northernmost and easternmost record ever for this species, which otherwise you’d have to travel to Arizona to find. I still wasn’t convinced though, since the bird disappeared yesterday around 1:30 after being very cooperative for about three and half hours. It felt like a one day wonder, and the weather today wasn’t looking good. But when Steve Walter reported a “warbler sized bird” around 8:30 AM, I started packing my bag; and when David Speiser reported a definite sighting shortly after 10:00 AM, I clicked the “reserve” button at zipcar and headed out the door for Point Lookout.

When I arrived at Hempstead Town Park about 60 minutes later (after narrowly avoiding being sideswiped by a car full of women birders who did not know which way they wanted to turn off the Loop Parkway –check a map before starting out folks) the bird was staked out but not showing itself. A couple of times someone thought they saw movement, but couldn’t say what it was. About 15 minutes later, Lenore Swenson and Starr Saphir showed up in a taxicab after taking a train in from the city. Memo to self: when possible stand behind Starr. She found the bird in less than five minutes. However I was a few meters down the road from her at the time, and by the time I got over to where she was and pointed into the same tree, the bird had dropped down and out of sight again. At least it wasn’t hunkered down completely in all the wind as I had feared.

Five minutes later, as almost everyone including me was scanning and rescanning the same tree where it had recently appeared, hoping to see something move, Lenore spotted it in another tree off to the left; and I got on the bird this time for maybe a full 30 seconds or so as it moved up and down and around the pine, scavenging for what insects it could find. At first I thought I might be looking at a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. The back was sort of blue-gray with wingbars. However eventually it turned its head toward me, and I could clearly see a bright yellow throat, and yellow superciliary, and no kingletish eye ring. Bang! #800 Grace’s Warbler.

Normally I’d stick around and try for a photo and maybe scope views. However it was damned cold and windy out there. More importantly, as long as I had already rented a car and driven all the way out into Nassau County already, I wanted to try for the Mountain Bluebird too. So I said a quick goodbye, and hopped into the Sentra and headed up the Meadowbrook to the Southern State. I was hungry but I decided to skip lunch until I had at least tried for the Mountain Bluebird. If it wasn’t being cooperative, I could grab lunch in Suffolk County, and then try again before dark.

I got to the intersection, right around 2:30 PM. There were several other cars pulled off the road at various spots around the field where the Bluebird was most frequently seen. The driver of the first car kindly told me that the bird was still present in the expected location on the snow fencing paralleling Rt 25A. I walked back along the side of the road, carefully scanning the top of the fence with my binoculars. Well not that carefully, because I walked right past the bird without noticing it. Fortunately a driver in another car, pointed me back at the bird he’d been watching from the comfort of his vehicle. After convincing myself the bird was in fact a powder blue Mountain Bluebird and not an Eastern or Western Bluebird, I walked back to my car and grabbed my scope and camera gear. I tried digiscoping the bird unsuccessfully–I need to improve my digiscoping rig–but I was able to get some good if small photos of the bird with my 400mm f/4:

Two life birds in my home territory. That’s a pretty good way to start a year. I haven’t had more than one on the same day in New York since July 2007. I had tried for three after Brooklyn’s 2010 CBC but I whiffed on two of them.

My New York State list is now at 268 species, and that doesn’t include a few I recorded only before I started entering data into eBird. This is second only to California at 298. I wonder how high I can push that this year? There are several gull species that show up regularly around Niagara that I don’t have yet. Maybe four or five more from the Adirondacks: Boreal Chickadee, Gray Jay, Black-backed Woodpecker, Three-toed Woodpecker, and Bicknell’s Thrush. There are also some pelagics I don’t have yet that might be found especially off Montauk: King Eider and various Skuas and Jaegers. Black Rail and Yellow Rail are still possible on Long Island if you know where to look (or more likely listen.) Last year Richard Fried set a new New York State Big Year record with 352 species, so there should be a couple dozen more somewhere to chase. I do generally take a pass on birds that I’ve seen elsewhere though. For instance, I didn’t bother to chase last year’s Tufted Duck at Cold Spring Harbor or 2010′s Hermit Warbler at Sunken Meadow State Park since I’ve seen both of them on their home territories before now. I did manage to twitch the Rufous Hummingbird at Lenoir Preserve in November though.

#799: Northern Shrike

2012-01-15T17:40:47Z

Saturday’s Kings County Christmas Bird Count was great weather and spectacular birding. 132 species, only three short of our alltime record. Three of those were species never before seen on a Kings County Christmas Count: a Barrow’s Goldeneye at Jamaica Bay, a Red Phalarope of all things in Erie Basin (between the Ikea and the Fairway!), and a Black-and-white Warbler I spotted in Prospect Park (not unusual for Brooklyn but shocking for this time of year). Add in the continuing Northern Shrike at Floyd Bennett Field, and there were three life birds to chase on Sunday. With choices like that, where to start? I guess you have to go for the rarest of the rare: the Red Phalarope. This is an ocean going bird rarely seen from land, and it’s not that easy to find on a pelagic trip. I’m not sure whether it’s ever been spotted in King’s County before. So at 7:00 AM I hopped in a Mini Cooper and headed down into Red Hook to look for the Phalarope.

As I arrived at the tip of Van Brunt Street, Shane Blodgett was just leaving. He hadn’t found it there and was driving over to IKEA to scope from the other side of the basin. I walked up and down the promenade, but didn’t find it. I then drove over to the IKEA myself. Steve Walter also showed up at IKEA, but none of us could locate the bird, so one-by-one everyone gave up and decamped for Floyd Bennett Field to look for the Shrike.

At Floyd Bennett Field, An American Kestrel was incredibly cooperative. I found six Hooded Mergansers and a Common Loon in Dead Horse Bay. There were also some nice House Finches, a couple of Northern Flickers, and lots of Northern Mockingbirds that look vaguely shrike like if you aren’t careful. I also ran into Tom Preston, Rafael Guillermo-Campos, Rob Jett, and Heydi Lopes, all of whom were out looking for the Shrike; but none of us found it after a couple of hours of searching. Strike 2.

Around noon, I gave up on the Shrike and headed down the Belt Parkway to Jamaica Bay for the Barrow’s Goldeneye. There were over a thousand ducks on the far side of the West Pond, mostly Ruddy’s but with a few American Wigeons and Scaup mixed in. However if there were any Goldeneyes there, Common or Barrow’s, I couldn’t pick it out. Strike 3. I’m out. The wind was blowing, and it was cold, so after multiple scans across through the duck raft through my scope, I gave up and headed home around 1:00. Whiffed Again. I thought with three staked out birds I really had a shot, but you just never know.

Then, just as I was getting ready to turn onto Eastern Parkway (almost all the way home in other words) my cell phone goes off in my pocket. I pulled off to the side of the road, and miraculously managed to get the phone answered before it went to voicemail. It was Shane and the Shrike had reappeared right where it had been the previous day on the Christmas Bird Count. They had found it about midway between the two locations we’d previously been looking. Damn bird! I wasn’t sure exactly how to get back to Floyd Bennett form that location, but my GPS knew and soon I was speeding down Kings Highway to try one more time. 25 minutes later I arrived back at the runway from which the Shrike had been seen. Rob, Heydi, and Shane had left but several other birders were there; and they told me that the Shrike had been making regular appearances every few minutes for the last hour. I walked down the runway, and about kept scanning the southeast tree line looking for anything perched. And yes! There it was! No, damn it. That’s a Mockingbird. Back to the scanning the tree line. Hey! Something moved! And it’s grey! And it’s a…damn it another Mockingbird.

Then I turn around and notice the group behind me is looking at something on the Northwest side of the runway. I turn around and look right at a bird that’s so backlit it could be anything. But before it flies away, I get my scope on it for about three seconds and sure enough, it’s a Northern Shrike. And after last year’s miscall with the Loggerhead Shrike at Jones Beach, I’ve made sure I know what I’m looking for in advance. In my head I check off the field marks in about half a second. Narrow dark mask with white markings around eye? Check. Large bill with obvious hook? Check. Paler gray above? I don’t know. The bird was too backlit and without a direct side-by-side comparison, it’s hard to distinguish such subtle shading; but the hooked bill and white around the eye are good enough to make the ID. #799 Northern Shrike!

I’ve got 11 days left to make 800 this year, but there are no obvious candidates. The only places I’ll be for the next two weeks are New York City and New Orleans, but I’ve already seen everything that’s regular in either location at this time of year. I tell you, I’m really missing those last two birds I could have seen if I hadn’t been incapacitated in the truck on my last day in Panama and the Green-tailed Towhee I missed repeatedly in Texas. But all I need is one rarity. The New Orleans CBC is coming up on Boxing Day. It’s had some great rarities in the past including my life Mangrove Cuckoo. There’s still time yet. It could be worse. I could still be trying to find 10 more rarities this year like John Vanderpoel. :-)

Should I Go To Florida?

2011-12-26T00:58:55Z

I’m debating whether to make a trip to Florida next year. There are still a few life birds for me down there, most notably the endemic Florida Scrub-Jay. Near endemics in the ABA area include Limpkin, Bachman’s Sparrow, Swallow-tailed Kite, and Snail Kite. Also possible are Leconte’s Sparrow, Henslow’s Sparrow, Black-whiskered Vireo, Swainson’s Warbler, Shiny Cowbird, Black Rail, and Yellow Rail. Greater Flamingo is arguable but only if I get down to the Everglades. None of these are easy to find, but most should be doable if I plan for them specifically.

There are a couple of festivals I could attend. The Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival in Titusville in January might be my best shot for species that winter in Florida, but January isn’t a good month for me. Florida’s Birding and Photo Fest in April might pick up a few of these, but it’s further north than I’d like. There’s also a good Central Florida Photo Workshop with Jim Neiger and James Shadle I’m thinking about.

To try for all of these might take a week tacked on to any of these events.