Birds at Large: VW Golf Alltrack

Volkswagen is coming out with a new Golf with some thing called Alltrack that I guess makes it better for driving outside or something, and they're promoting it with a bunch of commercials with terrible crap about wildlife.

Here's the first one, where a guy tried to murder a frog.

So, it starts with some guy in a glassed-in office who keeps a tropical frog in a tiny, airless glassed-in mini-office because he's a sadist who takes out his feelings of powerlessness on helpless amphibians. 

The guy goes insane, quitting his job and deciding to release his prisoner as some kind of pathetic act of contrition. Of course, he's an idiot, and tried to release his frog into a river in what looks like northern California. 

This is a terrible idea, of course, because the frog is clearly a Red-eyed Tree Frog, a resident not of rivers in temperate forests of the American northwest but rather of trees in the rainforests of Central America. It would have died in that river before this moron could even get his key in the ignition.

Thankfully, the frog somehow convinces this guy not to abandon it to a watery death, and the commercial ends with the guy driving off with the frog riding shotgun. Or, maybe it was all just a fever dream and the guy in reality is back in his glassy office, convulsing on the floor. Buy Volkswagen!

There is another Golf Alltrack commercial I just saw during a football game that had a CLASSIC, an absolutely CHOICE example of the "show a Bald Eagle but play the call of a Red-tailed Hawk" trope. I'll post it as soon as I can find it online.

**UPDATE: FOUND IT **

Listen for the Red-tailed Hawk scream when the show the Bald Eagle in the middle of this goddamn awful commercial. Just listen, and weep for the future.

California Trip -- Birds

Hi friends.

Sometimes life is crummy. Sometimes life is good. One of the good times was that I found out sorta last-minute that I'd be able to serve as a staff representative on a group trip last month to Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks in California. Good.  My wife then flew out and met me in San Francisco for a few days of travel around the Bay Area. Even better.

Believe it or not, I looked for some birds. Do you want to see photographic proof? Well, I hope so because that's what you're gonna get.

I saw three ABA life birds on the trip: the quasi-nemesis Red-breasted Sapsucker (spent a few hours looking for them last time I was in CA), Sooty Grouse, and the goddamn California goddamn Condor.

Here's the sapsucker. The first one I saw was outside the hotel in Sequoia NP but I was unable to get a photo, this guy was at Lost Lake Park north of Fresno, where I snuck for a few hours before my flight to SF. An attractive bird, looking like a YB sapsucker that dumped his head into a jar of raspberry jelly. 

Two female Sooty Grouse popped out of the woods near the top of the Sentinel Dome Trail in Yosemite. They were ... obliging. Even better with Half Dome in the background.

This is a California Condor, the largest flying bird in North America. (Don't give me any of that swan garbage.)  I saw five of them in total, none closer than this unfortunately. This first one was at Andrew Molera State Park, a beautiful place with an absolutely massive bird list. I saw a couple more condors elsewhere in the Big Sur area, all very high and very far. What an awesome bird.

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Birds in Video Games: Overwatch

Reader Meredith Nickerson passed along a tidbit recently about an avian character in the popular online multiplayer shooting game, Overwatch. It's a cute little tiny bird named Ganymede.

I don't play this game and so pardon me if I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but Ganymede follows around a giant robot character named Bastion, that actually does fights in the game. The backstory is that Bastion had shut down in a German forest and had overgrown with moss and stuff until Ganymede came along and woke him up. Now they're buds.  Wanna see a video of that? Here you go. 

Importantly, according to Meredith, Ganymede can take a number of forms, including some real life actual (sorta) birds.  Ganymede starts off as this little guy (gal?):

That is ... uh ... not a real bird. Some bastardized canary? I don't even know. Too bad.

The good news, however, it that Ganymede's got some other looks. You can change Bastion's skin in the game, and when you do Ganymede changes along with it. Check it out, as assembled by the folks at Overwatch Writing:

Pretty good! Check out that cardinal on top! ACCURATE BILL COLOR! The Rock Dove is spot on, and the Blue Jay ain't half bad either. The woodpecker could use a bit of work (if it is supposed to be a Pileated ... I couldn't find anything closer) but it's close. The White Dove is stupid but forgivable. 

Anyway, if I played this game I'd probably get my ass kicked because I'd just be watching Ganymede fly around instead of killing anyone. The end. Thanks, Meredith, for the tip. 

Rare Blackbirds in the Verizon Center

Last night I saw Sir Paul McCartney play at the Verizon Center in DC. It was incredible, as I expected.

Among the medley of famous Beatles and Wings songs he played "Blackbird," indisputably one of the best goddamn songs of all time. Here's a little video:

A video was projected behind him during the performance, which prominently featured birds. Of course, my eBird mind started to work, and I could barely pay attention to the song because of my dumb brain working through IDs. Not much to go on -- mostly rock pigeons and backlit blackbird sps -- but I wonder if the Eurasian blackbird at the end is a first DC record?

Here's my checklist for the song:

Thanks for the tunes, Macca.

Google Street View Birding VI: Canada

O Canada!
Birds' Home and Native Land!
Loons, Crossbills, and Doves in all thy bins command!

That doesn't make a lick of goddamn sense, sorry, but it's a great anthem anyway.  Canada is a marvelous place, and millions upon millions of birds make their way up to breed each summer.  Also making their way up in the summer, apparently, is the Google Street View crew, who unwittingly managed to capture a number of those birdies in their jaunts.  And I, during slow moments of my days, have been able to track a few down.

For those interested in previous installments of Google Street View Birding, check here:

• Street View Birding I
• Street View Birding II: Midway Atoll 
• Street View Birding III: Mexico
• Street View Birding IV: Florida
• Street View Birding Antarctica Part I: The Falkland Islands
• Street View Birding Antarctica Part II: South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands
• Street View Birding Antarctica Part III: Antarctica

OK, back to Canada.  Let's go birding, and start out West.

The West Coast of Canada has a bunch of gulls that I don't usually see out here on the East Coast.  Gulls are great for Street View Birding because they're big, often sit in conspicuous places, and let people and cars get relatively close. Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest have a couple of fairly easy-to-identify gulls that I thought I could find in Street View.

The trouble with gulls is that they hang out by the ocean, i.e. not where Google Street View cars are driving. Thankfully, cars aren't the only way Street View gets images.

I found this gull resting on a dock from which the Street View guy was leaving on a boat trip at the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, south of Vancouver. Not a great view of the head, but a big gull with very light wingtips? Looks like a Glaucous-winged Gull to me. 

Here's another one I found, somewhere in the same park. This one's tougher, because of the light, but it looks darker and with dark wingtips. Maybe? It's possible that it's a Western Gull, but ... I dunno. Hard to say, so I won't call it for sure.

Nearby, the Street View guy straps on a backpack and walks down a big tidal spit. Very cool.  Along the way he or she passes this group of dark shorebirds. Black Oystercatchers! What, ten? We should eBird that!

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New Patch Record

I know you don't care about the few species I see on my daily dog walks, but screw you, I've got a dog that I need to walk and I may as well look at birds while I do it.

TONIGHT I SET A NEW PATCH RECORD WITH TWENTY-GODDAMN-FOUR SPECIES.

Reminder: I walk my ten-year-old dumb awesome dog Gibson (most) evenings after work up The Yards Park along the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington, DC.  As I've covered before, I count birds when I leave my apartment building on South Capitol Street, past Nationals Park, along Yards Park up the Anacostia River to the dog park, then down along the Navy Yard to where the USS Barry (recently!) was located. Then I turn around.  Technically, I am counting birds on more than The Yards Park, but I don't care because screw you I don't care.

I didn't expect much out of this afternoon. It was drizzling, like it has been for the past frigging forever out here. I left the house in the rain, and the birds weren't cooperating for the most of the walk. Starlings, Fish Crows, Grackles, and House Sparrows at the stadium. Ospreys nesting in their typical spot. Robins in the little yard thing. Six species before the boardwalk does not a record-breaking walk make.

Even after the dog park - usually a hotspot - I was expecting a typical 15-18 species walk. A Common Yellowthroat on the slope was nice, but there were no good sparrows -- the recent Swamp Sparrow, Gray Catbird, and Eastern Towhee were gone -- and not much good habitat left.

But then things picked up. A pair of Goldfinches in the small tree near Due South was a rare spotting, and signaled a crazy run of good birds. An American Crow, rarely identifiable along the river, called as it flew overhead.  Then, a little bird in the birches by the parking lot, where I always expect to see birds but never see a goddamn thing: a Black-and-white Warbler! New patch bird!

Immediately afterwards I saw some white birds flying down over the river. Must by the typical groups of Ring-billed Gulls, I thought, but these have black hoods ... Laughing Gulls! Very unusual in summer, and probably the first time ever I've tripped an eBird filter on my walk. Sweet.

With some dumb Mallards on the river, I was suddenly at 20 species, a mark I'd only reached once before. Then, on the way back down, there was a whistle in the birches: a goddamn Cedar Waxwing! Another bird I'd never seen in the park before. A Barn Swallow (expected), Great Blue Heron flying upriver (fairly expected), and a Great Black-backed Gull under the South Capitol Street Bridge (unusual!) later, I was at 24! A record breaker!

What bird kept me away from a tidy little 25? Frigging Rock Pigeon. Well, gotta leave some for next time.

Here's an image numbered with each new bird I found. Orange are new birds for the park.

1. European Starling
2. Fish Crow
3. Common Grackle
4. House Sparrow
5. Osprey
6. American Robin
7. Song Sparrow
8. Double-crested Cormorant
9. Ring-billed Gull
10. Common Yellowthroat
11. Mourning Dove
12. American Goldfinch
13. American Crow
14. Chimney Swift
15. House Finch
16. Northern Rough-winged Swallow
17. Northern Mockingbird
18. Black-and-white Warbler
19. Laughing Gull
20. Mallard
21. Barn Swallow
22. Cedar Waxwing
23. Great Blue Heron
24. Great Black-backed Gull

Recently

In cased you missed them, I've published a couple article on Audubon.org recently, here's a quick recap:

The Barred Owl, as part of the Sketch series.

As part of my Birdist Rules of Birding series:

Rule #12: How to Misidentify a Bird with Grace and Dignity

Rule #41: Identify your First Warbler

Rule #8: Bird Alone

Rule #22: You Can Always Impress Your Friends by Showing Them a Bald Eagle

Rule #63: Go Someplace Weird

Finally, I responded to that survey that supposedly found that people think birders are creepy.

Enjoy!