Comments on: One for Sherlock

By: themarvelousinnature

themarvelousinnature — Sat, 03 May 2008 05:36:01 +0000

Thanks, Tom - having the bird in the hand certainly helps!

Missed your comment! WordPress has a slightly irritating habit of taking what appear to me to be perfectly normal, reasonable comments, and chucking them in the spam bin, which I don’t check every day.

By: themarvelousinnature

themarvelousinnature — Sat, 03 May 2008 04:10:13 +0000

Lavenderbay: The Rusty Blackbird isn’t one of the species affected by coffee-drinkers, it doesn’t winter far enough south (coffee is grown mostly in the tropics, whereas the Rusty winters in the southern US). So its declines are independent of the coffee trade. However, there are a lot of neotropical migrant species whose declines are in fact in part or entirely due to loss of habitat on the wintering grounds - and some of these are in serious decline. Not to mention the resident tropical birds.

You’ll want to make sure that the coffee you’re buying is shade grown, which is not as easy to find as you’d think. The bigger catch-phrases when it comes to coffee are organic and fair trade. However, you can pretty easily find Kicking Horse coffee in major supermarkets which, in addition to being Canadian, is shade grown, organic, fair trade coffee. Other specialty (eg. Wild Birds Unlimited, some coffee shops) or online stores (eg. Bridgehead, Birds And Beans - also a store on Lake Shore in Toronto) also carry shade grown. You can also get shade grown tea, though it’s much harder to find.

By: lavenderbay

lavenderbay — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:08:36 +0000

PS I hope you like the theme song I chose for your blog on Tuesday.

By: lavenderbay

lavenderbay — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:36:46 +0000

I’ve heard other reports of deforestation being linked to “diminishing returns” in the bird populations. I feel bad about it — but I still haven’t quit drinking coffee. But 95%!!! I’m gonna hafta at least research which coffee producers are more bird-friendly, and stick to their products.

By: themarvelousinnature

themarvelousinnature — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:15:12 +0000

Thanks, Ruth. I’m sure if they were as common as Red-wings we’d all be more familiar with them. On the other hand, they’d stick out like a sore thumb if you were watching a group of blackbirds. Despite a really nice swamp at my parents’, my mom has never seen them here, and I’ve only ever detected one, which called as it flew overhead. I think that TTPBRS, being a peninsula and therefore a migrant trap, gets more than most areas usually do.

By: Ruth

Ruth — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:55:11 +0000

Very interesting post about a bird I am not familiar with at all. I seldom look too closely at the various black-coloured birds.

By: Tom @ Ohio Nature

Tom @ Ohio Nature — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:46:08 +0000

Seabrook-

Very cool shots, I’ve never been able to see the rusty colored feathers on these birds, thanks for the extreme closeups, so much detail, they’re great.

Tom