Info Burung Kicauan

Here's the final chapter in the 2011 Big Sit report from the Indigo Hill Birding Tower, home of The Whipple Bird Club. As the day wore on toward afternoon, the bird activity really tailed off, as you might expect. Our list was at 66 at 11:00 am. By 11:30 am we'd added a distant osprey (67) and northern harrier (68).

Just before noon I saw a bird flying to the northeast of the tower. It was a mid-sized bird, with an undulating flight pattern—definitely a woodpecker. Then it dipped sideways in flight and I caught a flash of large white wing patches! YES! A red-headed woodpecker! My favorite bird species of all and it moved our Big Sit list into a tie with our all time record. And it was not yet noon!

At 12:05 pm a red-breasted nuthatch called from the pines along the meadow. Jim and Julie heard it and Julie called it in—red-breasted nuthatches must be lonely little souls since they always respond to imitations of their calls. That was species number 70! A NEW BIG SIT RECORD for our circle!

There was copious jocularity and riotous rejoicing!

Then came hours of no new birds—plenty of neat birds to see, but no new species for the list. These were the wasp-swarming hours I mentioned in my previous post. Most sitters left the tower to eat, rest, rest stop, refit, leave, or go bugging in the meadow.



By 3:30 pm our eyes were starting to blur and the beer in the cooler was starting to sing its siren song. Just when we though we were stuck with a tie, I hear the familiar rattle of a wren from the brambly wildflower meadow to the east of the house. I heard it several more times—enough to recognize it as a house wren. Julie and Shila went out from the house to ground-truth it and caught glimpses of the bird and heard snatches of its rattle. That was yet another new record: 71 species, breaking the old record of 70 which had stood for, ummm, about 3.5 hours!

Sometime between 4:00 and 5:00 pm I spotted our final bird species of the 2011 Big Sit. A lone rock pigeon flew past the north side of the tower, headed east. Not a very glam bird for a new Indigo Hill Big Sit record of 72 species, but a record-setting bird nonetheless! As if all of nature was smiling on us, the sun broke through the clouds and gave us a nice sunset for our group picture taking.

We chatted about the day's birds, as we always do near the end of The Big Sit: favorite bird of the day, lucky "gets", hard-to-believe "misses." Some of the species I dream about adding to our Big Sit and farm lists at a future Big Sit: anhinga, sandhill crane, snow goose, and others.



As we wound down, the jokes began to flow. A few birds still visited the feeders and the eastern phoebe that had been around all day was sitting on the telephone wire, tail flicking back and forth.
Our local phoebe put on a good show in the late afternoon.

The final gang at the 2011 Big Sit—those who stayed until the bitter end, from left to right: Jason, Julie, Chet Baker, Jim, BOTB, Evan, Steve, Shila, Wendy, Nina, Daniel, and Kelly. Photo by Phoebe Thompson.

The rising moon made a light squiggle in the night sky behind our plastic great horned owl decoy.


About 7:30 pm the wind picked up again, making hearing difficult. It was almost completely dark so we began to tear down. The last trip down from the tower, I grabbed the PlantCam and turned it off. The final photo had been taken at 7:52 pm.

It had been a great—a record-setting—day! I love The Big Sit.

Pada periode sekarang (Januari s/d April 2011) kalau diperhatikan harga burung kenari sedang melambung tinggi. Fenomena melambungnya harga burung kenari, di satu sisi tentunya mambawa berkah tersendiri bagi orang-orang yang berusaha di sektor hulu (peternak) yang bisa menikmati kenaikan harga jual rata-rata sebesar 45% bahkan untuk jenis kenari F1 Yorkshire kenaikannya mencapai 100% (dibandingkan dengan harga pasaran April 2010) . 

CONTOH : F1 YORKSHIRE

Lalu bagaimana dengan orang-orang yang hanya berprofesi hanya sebagai penjual (yang notabene tidak memproduksi sendiri alias hanya murni jual beli), fenomena melambungnya harga kenari ini tidak serta merta melambungkan margin penjualan karena memang harga pokok dari peternak pun sudah tinggi, namun secara keseluruhan keuntungan dirasakan cukup baik karena kuantitas penjualan semakin tinggi.

Dari segi konsumen sebagai pemakai/penghobi kenari, melambungnya harga kenari tentu saja dapat menjadi malapetaka tersendiri karena berhubungan erat dengan jatah belanja keluarga yang secara umum semakin hari semakin tinggi pula, sedangkan bagi sebagian orang tertentu kebutuhan akan hobi-pun sulit untuk diajak berkompromi.

Pertanyaan yang timbul adalah : 

1. mengapa sampai terjadi lonjakan harga yang luar biasa atau bisa dikatakan tidak terkendali ?

2. kenari jenis apa yang menjadi “biang keladi” lonjakan harga ini ?

3. siapa yang “berulah” sehingga menyebabkan lonjakan harga ?

4. apakah harga akan stabil di posisi seperti sekarang ini ? ataukah akan kembali turun mencari titik keseimbangan yang baru ?

Secara umum dan singkat, jawaban atas pertanyaan tersebut diatas adalah :

1. kenaikan harga disebabkan berlakunya hukum ekonomi yaitu keterkaitan antara permintaan dan penawaran. 

2. kita dapat dengan mudah menentukan jenis kenari yang menjadi biang keladi lonjakan harga ini adalah jenis kenari YORKSHIRE

BIANG KELADI

3. untuk menunjuk aktor utama yang menjadi penyebab utama lonjakan harga tentunya dapat menjadi perdebatan yang panjang dan jawaban pastinya memerlukan penelitian yang lebih jauh apakah importir, pedagang eceran, peternak, pelomba atau penghobi rumahan ?

4. beberapa prediksi sempat mengemuka mengenai harga kenari mulai dari yang bernada optimis bahwa harga akan terus naik, sampai yang bernada pesimis bahwa harga akan kembali terjun bebas. Namun prediksi yang paling realistis adalah bahwa pasar akan menciptakan titik keseimbangan harga yang baru sesuai dengan hukum permintaan dan penawaran.

by ;cece

Girls it's Friday.  Let's tear this mother down! You know, have two days of guilt-free naps...yawwwwn.

I thought today would be the perfect day to kick-off a giveaway for one of the funniest books I've ever read.  About a month ago a rep at Penguin contacted me about Beth Griffenhagen's book Haiku for the Single Girl.  I usually glaze over those PR emails, but this one caught my eye.


I spent more than a few years as a single person, and a few more than that dating duds.  After awhile you become accustomed to random people in your life offering up advice on how to land 'the one'.  What they don't understand is that there are only 3 good ones left out there.  Period.   And sometimes you just aren't in the mood to bother. Okay?? *sorry flashback*

Anyway, I busted up laughing at Beth's description of how the book was born. She was returning home after a girls night out in NYC, and on her way to the train stopped to grab a bag of Cheetos.  Before she knew it half the bag was gone, her hands were covered in Cheeto dust, and she had nowhere to wipe them so just dusted them off on her bag.  In a moment of cocktail induced hilarity the following Haiku came to mind:


The book is filled to the brim with the most hilarious haikus that are totally on singledom point. Whether you're single now or just remember the days, you'll totally get a kick out of the book and want to split sides over it with a friend.

I have one copy to give away and here's how to enter:
1.  Just leave a comment with your email so I know where to reach you if you win.
2.  For extra entries you can a. tweet about the giveaway and/or b. write a haiku and leave it in the comments.
3. Leave a separate comment for each entry.
4. Winner announced on Tuesday, October 1, 2011.

Please leave haikus! Don't be shy.  Here's mine (totally not dating related, but cat lady so it still counts):

Untuk itu bagi yang ingin menangkarkan Cucak Rowo berikut tips dan ulasan dari penangkaran Alif Bird Farm :

1. Indukan, yang jelas harus bunyi dan sudah matang usianya, biasanya sekitar 1,5 tahun - 2 tahun sudah bisa di tangkarkan

2. Penjodohan, di tempatkan dulu di sangkar gantung, kalau sudah bunyi bersahut-sahutan saling ngisi dan keluar kliuknya berarti sudah nyetel (berjodoh). 

3. Makanan, buah kalau saya harus selalu ada, bisa pisang atau pepaya, kalau susah nyari pisang kepok ya pake aja pepaya burung 

Jangkrik, kasih sebanyak-banyaknya selama penjodohan. 

4. Mengeram, normalnya jumlah telur 2, Proses mengeram selama 14 hari.

5. Menyapih, normalnya di panen dari sarang setelah umur 5 hari sampai 10 hari, tergantung dari indukan. Kalau indukannya nakal atau kurang bisa "bawa anak" umur sehari harus segera dipanen untuk mencegah kematian.

Pemberian jangkrik diambil perutnya saja, kepala dan kakinya di buang, selanjutnya berikan vita chick dicampur dengan voor yang telah di seduh terlebih dahulu pemberiannya tidak perlu banyak-banyak, kalau kebanyakan warna dasar voornya berubah menjadi merah karena warna dasar vita chick merah.

Tujuan pemberian vita chick adalah untuk mempercepat pertumbuhan bulu dan tulang, sehingga anakan menjadi cepat pertumbuhanya.

6. Kandang

Nah ini seru nih, saya sampai berapa kali merubah kandang mungkin lebih dari 5 kali dari yang modelnya seperti kandang penangkaran jalak suren, hingga akhirnya jadilah seperti ini, (terima kasih banyak Pak Eriez, kalau tidak dibimbing bapak, mungkin saya sudah patah arang) Beliau adalah guru saya, yang mengajari saya dari nol kecil sampai nol besar seperti ini, belum lulus TK juga sampe sekarang 

Ukuran ideal : p x l x t = 2 x 1,5 x 3 meter.

Ada pepohonan hidup, biasanya pohon perdu seperti beringin hijau, tanjung, sawo kecik atau pohon asem, kalau bisa yang ukurannya sudah mencapai 1 meter. Fungsi pohon adalah untuk mejaga suhu di dalam kandang selain pasir.

Diantara beberapa pohon yang pernah saya coba, pohon beringin hijau lebih kuat dari jenis lain yang saya sebut diatas. 

Sarang bisa pakai sarang gantung, sarang tancap, atau sarang tempel.

Kelembaban

Perlu diingat bahwa burung Cucak Rawa hidup di hutan yang berawa-rawa, artinya butuh kelembaban. Cara kedua untuk mengatur kelembaban adalah dengan memberikan pasir pada alas kandangnya, terserah mau pakai pasir laut atau pasir yang biasa dipake buat bangunan. Tidak di perlukan penerangan lampu sebagai penghangat di malam hari. Karena aslinya di alam juga tidak seperti itu.

Tangkringan

Kalau bisa tangkringannya dari ranting pohon asem, kalau susah nyarinya pakai ranting pohon rambutan. Sebelum meletakkan tangkringan, anda harus masuk kandang dahulu, dan resapi jika anda jadi burung yang di tangkarkan, anda ingin nangkring dimana. Tanpa disadari, penempatan tangkringan memainkan andil juga dalam penangkaran.

Kolam

Kolam berfungsi sebagai bak mandi dan tempat minumnya. Sekalipun di kasih tempat minum, biasanya burung tetap minum di kolam tersebut.

7. Lain-lain

Ekstra Fooding

Kalau saya cukup di kasih jangkrik sebanyak-banyaknya, nggak perlu yang neko-neko. Ada bagusnya juga di berikan asinan (tulang sotong), tapi tidak setiap hari. Untuk memperkuat cangkang telurnya

Desinfektan

Saya menggunakan merek Rodalon, di semprotkan setiap 1-3 bulan sekali ke dalam kandang, tergantung keadaan burung di dalam kandang, usahakan jangan ketika mengeram.

Rasanya nggak sempurna kalau hanya sebatas lewat dunia maya, mungkin itulah kenapa menjaga tali silaturahmi itu penting, kunjungilah penangkar Cucak Rawa yang sudah berhasil, hormatilah mereka-mereka yang sudah berhasil dengan mengunjunginya mulai dari yang terdekat kalau memang jaraknya jauh, setiap penangkar punya kelebihan dan kekurangan sendiri-sendiri, tidak ada yang sempurna, apalagi jika anda membeli hasil tangkarannya, wah udah pasti di jawab dengan senang hati.

by 

fauzan_zhd

Today managed to whip by so fast I didn't even have a chance to check in and examine your thoughts on Once Upon a Time.  How dare work do that? hehe Spill! Do you love?  Did you watch yet?  Yes, I've got an issue with this show.  Here's hoping episode two doesn't disappoint.

Quick update:  I did Pilates for the first time last night in, oh, two months.  Anyone who thinks one workout can't make you scream in pain, well, I don't think they've tried a Pilates workout.  Could barely haul it out of bed this morning.  Horrified by my own lethargy, I still managed to consume Ghirardelli pumpkin spice caramel squares.  I guess this is what they call weaning oneself off?  Or something...

One of my clients is having their IT department configure my email from a remote location so that I can send emails from my personal account on their system (uh did that even make sense?).  I don't understand technology all that well--this is likely clear to you given the non-changing appearance of my blog.  Anyway, throughout the day I would periodically have to step away from my computer while the cursor zipped around all over the screen and I imagined the IT guy pilfering my bank account information.  Alarmist in the house.  To occupy myself during these times I would take on random tasks like:  load of laundry into the washing machine, cuppa tea break, hey the cat's in the closet!, trying on my new cowboy boots, squishing a spider with my cowboy boots, and taking mad instagrams of my new yoga cat.

These are the days of my life:

So many little blurby posts I'd like to spill out all in a day.  I'll start with this one and let the trailer do the talking.  Did you guys happen to catch Once Upon A Time Sunday night on ABC?  Um, it's off the hook!!

I'm a fairy tale junkie--grew up on them and they still hold a special place in my heart--this show incorporates a magical fairy tale element to it without being wishy washy or childish.  It's also kind of dark which I particularly loved.  Wasn't sure how I'd feel about Ginnifer Goodwin, but have managed to get visions of Margene out of my head (seriously still haven't recovered from the loss of Big Love).  Last night was dedicated entirely to catching up on the DVR--laundry be damned--and I found myself wanting to watch Once Upon a Time all over again as soon as it was finished.  Truth be told it was like that good book you dread completing so drag out as the pages draw closer and closer to the end.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about check the trailer here and then go catch the episode on the internet or OnDemand.  We need to discuss the brilliance!!  Giddy

Adapun pengalaman saya yang berkaitan dengan daun pecut kuda adalah demikian: Sekian bulan yang lalu, salah satu koleksi saya yang saya boyong dari daerah dingin (Batu-Malang) ke Sidoarjo ini mempunyai problem mata berair. Anehnya, masalah ini kadang muncul dan kadang tidak.

Berbagai obat sudah saya coba, mulai dari sp***ra, a**i s**t, berbagai merk obat mata dan lain-lain, tapi tak kunjung juga menunjukkan tanda2 membaik ataupun sembuh.

Pada saat itu saya mencoba berpikir keras dan menelaah problem mata ini, sehingga timbul kesimpulan bahwa hal ini dimungkinkan karena faktor radang sehingga sangat sulit disembuhkan.

Pada saat berpikir keras tersebutlah muncul suatu ide yang berawal dari satu memmory pada saat saya kecil dulu. Didepan rumah kami di malang, orang tua saya mempunyai tanaman pecut kuda, yang sering digunakan untuk mengobati kami bilamana kami menderita sakit radang bahkan tak hanya itu, beberapa orang sering meminta daun tersebut untuk mengobati sakit amandel yang sudah akut, bahkan sudah divonis harus operasi.

Akhirnya, saya mencari daun pecut kuda ini bahkan mencarinya tak tanggung-tanggung, yakni sampai ke Prigen-Pasuruan.

Metode Pengolahannya sebagai berikut :

1. Ambil segenggam daun pecut kuda.

2. Rebus dengan 2 gelas air

3. Biarkan hingga mendidih

4. Didihkan hingga air tersebut tinggal setengahnya saja.

5. Tiriskan airnya hingga betul-betul dingin

Cara Pengobatan :

1. Ganti air minum burung kesayangan kita dengan air rebusan pecut kuda ini.

2. Tetesi pada mata burung yang sakit tersebut sebanyak 3 tetes tiap pagi dan sore hari.

Pada kasus yang saya jumpai di atas, "burung" koleksi saya tersebut sembuh total pada hari ke empat. 

Pada eksperimen yang lain, saya menjumpai bahwa air rebusan pecut kuda ini dapat pula diaplikasikan kepada burung-burung yang pada awalnya rajin berkicau lalu menjadi kurang rajin berintensitas ngocehnya kicau (berkurang frekuensi berkicaunya) padahal burung tersebut tidak atau belum mau mabung maupun nyulam maupun pada kasus suara serak atau kurang jernih.

Hal tersebut diatas dimungkinkan karena terlalu rajinnya burung tersebut berkicau tanpa mengenal waktu, sehingga mereka menderita radang tenggorokan atau tenggorokannya sakit yang membuatnya jadi kurang kurang rajin berkicau kembali.

Untuk kasus kurang rajin berkicau ataupun serak ini, air rebusan tersebut cukup diminumkan selama satu minggu berturut-turut.

by ;Istono Yuwono Rheistmara

We left our story last week with me racing (carefully) through the foggy and winding country roads from the high school homecoming dance back home to the farm and the Indigo Hill Birding Tower for the midnight start of The Big Sit!

Well, we made it with 10 minutes to spare. Just as I was about to scramble up to the tower, I spied the homecoming princess heading to the master bathroom for a shower. Knowing this would mean 40 minutes of showering and 50 minutes of the roar of the water heater trying to keep up, I begged like the desperate birder-parent I was for a delay in the hygiene-based activity so that the night would remain quiet enough for me to hear passing migrant birds overhead.


This was met with the soul-withering, resistance-is-futile, how-dare-you-even-THINK-that I'm-not-showering-now-you-complete-loser-stare from my adorable and indulgent 15-year-old daughter. I tucked my tail between my legs and climbed into the tower, dented not daunted.

In addition to the roar of the water heater rising skyward on the south side of the tower, there was the surprisingly loud burble from the bird spa on the north side, and coming from all directions was an impressive wall of insect sounds. Hearing the soft seet of a Savannah sparrow overhead was going to be impossible.

Midnight. The hour of enchantment. When everything in the coming day seems possible—even probable! The 2011 Big Sit was ON! My first sound was a nearby ATV. Then some dogs. Then a mufflerless truck. Then coyotes. Plus the shower-bird spa-cricket noise. Then some distant shouting followed by the boom of a large-caliber gun. Then lowing cows. Then coyotes.

This went on for nearly 20 minutes before I heard my first bird: a black-crowned night-heron (actually at least three of them) flying in the darkness overhead, occasionally uttering their tell-tale quock!

Whoa! That's a species we've only had one other time on our farm and it was on a Big Sit about a decade earlier. I remember it clearly—a line of migrants flying slowly southward against the western sunset. A very auspicious start to the 2011 Big Sit!

I smiled as I snapped on my headlamp to tick the night-heron off on the official checklist. Then I pulled out my phone to post the Big Sit's first sighting to Facebook and Twitter. I got immediate reactions from all over the world! Neat! Even though I was alone up in the tower, and would be until just before dawn, I had a digital posse of bird watching pals along with me, connected by satellite-tossed data.

Shortly after 1 am the wind picked up suddenly out of the southeast. Weird! Without being able to hear at all now, and with the night being so dark, there would be no new birds added to the list. I headed back downstairs to catch a few winks.

I was back in the tower at 3:45 and the wind was gone. Almost immediately I began adding birds as flyovers uttering call notes. Many of them I could not identify, but those that I could (indigo bunting, Savannah sparrow, Tennessee warbler, Swainson's thrush, gray-cheeked thrush) I added to the list. The owls started up, too. A great horned owl hooted from the northeast for the next two hours. And two eastern screech-owls whinnied from the meadow's edge.
About an hour before dawn, Big Sit stalwart and Mr. Ohio Birding Jim McCormac showed up to join me in the tower. Jim is fun to bird with and always adds a number of species to the list. Sadly most of these are insects and plants which don't actually count on the Big Sit list, but I smile and act like I'm checking them off on the list, which seems to make Jim happy.

Seriously, though, Jim's strong birding ears nailed us veery, black-throated green warbler, chestnut-sided warbler, and chipping sparrow. As dawn hinted at its imminent arrival, the resident birds began stirring: northern cardinal, song sparrow, eastern towhee, mourning dove, Carolina chickadee.

By the time the sun was up, we were pushing 30 species and already draining a second pot of coffee. It was time for more visiting sitters to arrive. Julie (a resident sitter) came up from the main house and threw her birding powers into the mix. Soon Jason arrived, followed by Nina, and Jen, and Bob and Mimi, and then the day became a blur of birds and shouts, and quick hugs hello, and more coffee.

On any given Big Sit (always the second Sunday in October) we're struggling to delay the end of the summer seasons, to find the last migrant songbirds—hoping for a late wave of warblers similar to those we enjoyed just a few weeks earlier. We're also tugging the season in the other direction, hoping for the later migrants and winter visitors to arrive on time or even early, birds like dark-eyed junco, swamp sparrow, Lincoln's sparrow, northern harrier, pine siskin. We got some of these species this year, but missed some, too.

Some birds seem to know you are looking for them and they hide out on Big Sit day. This year it was the juncos and Lincoln's sparrows that gaslighted us. I saw them the day before and the day after. But not on the day of the Big Sit.


By mid-morning we had a list full of birds (62 species at 9:45 am) and a tower full of bird watchers. And a driveway full of cars. It was pretty clear that it was shaping up to be a good day–perhaps even record-setting, if our luck held out. I reminded my fellow veteran sitters that we'd been here before (literally and figuratively). Many times in the past we'd race out to an amazing start for the sit, holding a list of 60 species by 11 am, only to spend the next nine hours adding a paltry few to the list.

The Big Sit is not a competitive event at all. We compete against ourselves and against all the totals seen our previous Big Sits in this spot. There is a prize for The Big Sit, however: The Golden Bird. The Golden Bird prize is awarded each year based on a random drawing of one species from among all of the bird species seen during the Big Sit by North American Big Sit circles. Then all the teams that saw that species are put into a hat and one team's name is drawn at random. That team wins The Golden Bird prize: $500 from Swarovski Optik to put toward a local conservation cause of the team's choosing. Swarovski has generously sponsored The Golden Bird prize for many years, and we Big Sitters really appreciate their support!

At 10:30 am a frowning face appeared in the northeastern sky, made from cloud bits and jet contrails. I chose not to take this as an omen.

As the day warmed up, the tower's other residents became menacingly active: wasps! Dozens of wasps of two species swarmed about us, never stinging, just making everyone feel on edge. Within 30 minutes I was alone in the tower, wondering about the effectiveness of my deodorant, but hoping it was the wasps that drove people away.


While I maintained the Big Sit vigil, Jim organized an insect walk around the farm. He knows more about insects and their sounds than most people know about themselves, so he drew quite a crowd of bug-seekers.

I watched them sidle out the middle meadow path and tried not to let the swirling cloud of wasps drive me nuts. The plastic owl we'd mounting on a pole above the tower (in hopes of attracting a stooping attack from a passing merlin) was also being plagued by the wasps, though it seemed less perturbed than I was.


The afternoon doldrums descended upon the Indigo Hill Birding Tower. I lay down on the tower floor and scanned the sky for high-flying raptors. Chimney swifts, turkey vultures, and monarch butterflies were all that passed overhead.



We had eight more hours of sitting. The count was 66. The all-time record Big Sit total for this site was 69. Three more birds did not seem like too much to hope for....

to be continued.....