Bird sighting on the Playa, anyone else see a bird

Madrone · Post by **Madrone** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 12:44 pm

On the last Sunday during the dust storm, we saw a small grey bird hopping about under a truck. Pecking at the ground. It came over to us an we threw some crumbs, but it ignored us. There was something really strange about this bird, it seemed perfectly happy yet had a staggering type walk, it tripped a couple of times. Seemed not afraid of us at all. It was the only bird I have ever seen on the playa. It looked like a giant sparrow, longer legs than a sparrow..

katekt · Post by **katekt** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 12:50 pm

didn't see that bird, but during the same sunday afternoon dust storm in one of the lulls i saw a hawk flyinging over the playa. a first for me there.

Hana Hou · Post by **Hana Hou** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 1:07 pm

The playa is on the bird migration path. The Frog Farm hot springs is a natural "vacation" spot for these birds. More than 40 species of birds have been sighted at the springs.

One of the "events" at the Earth Guardians camp this year was work projects at the Frog Farm to help rejuvenate it and make it more useful as a bird habitat. The project will likely continue next year.

Sounds like that one stopped a little short of the springs.

Flux · Post by **Flux** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 1:19 pm

...it seemed perfectly happy yet had a staggering type walk, it tripped a couple of times. Seemed not afraid of us at all.

I didn't see any birds this year, but that sounds like a LOT of humans I saw!

diane o'thirst · Post by **diane o'thirst** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 2:01 pm

I saw a particular bird in camp a couple times. It was fairly largish and dark, like a blackbird, but it had yellow patches on either side of its neck. It was kind of flighty because it took off within seconds after I started looking at it.

Lydia Love · Post by **Lydia Love** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 2:28 pm

a small flock flew through our camp on... friday? saturday? not sure

our camp was all hanging out in the shade and couldn't manage the basic object recognition for a good minute.

Then we all burst out with "did you just see...?"

silvertip · Post by **silvertip** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 10:03 pm

I saw a raven fly high over the city one afternoon, possibly returning from Bruno's to the Frog Farm, where I helped with the restoration project. Saw many birds there, icluding a brown heron.

pickle · Post by **pickle** » Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:20 am

Hey there Madrone - -

Yeah we saw the same kind of sparrowish bird during the dust storms that were raging on Sunday @ Received Reality 3:30. It was hanging out between camps Homeslice & Nonagon, and we figured that it was taking shelter just like we were. It hopped around for a while and didn't seem to mind that we were right there.

I must say; seeing that bird was a far better experience than finding a huge beetle in my crotch shortly after pulling my jeans on.

Piece

Bunnymonkey · Post by **Bunnymonkey** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 1:28 pm

One morning we had three red breasted finches flutter by.

OregonRed · Post by **OregonRed** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 1:58 pm

I saw no birds, but I did see, on two separate occasions(Tuesday afternoon & Sunday morning), a butterfly. One small white one and a larger black and reddish one.

Will keep an eye open for birds in years to come tho...

BurningGirl · Post by **BurningGirl** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 2:24 pm

This makes me think of something from last year...I think it was durring the temple burn, or maybe the man, or maybe something else...hard to remember now...but I saw a white bird (maybe more that one...my memorie is foggy with time) that at the time I thought might be mechanical...I had seen it once before earlier in the week as well...about the size of a pigeon...any one else?

Chai Guy · Post by **Chai Guy** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:10 pm

Those were doves, they were released prior to the temple burning.

blyslv · Post by **blyslv** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:20 pm

Last year I spilled some water on the playa and about 5 minutes later I saw a beatle wiggling out of the mud. It was pretty cool.

unjonharley · Post by **unjonharley** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:33 pm

Saw a small gray bird Sun. before the start. Think it got out of a rental truck. The kids from the van just opened it got sleeping bags and hit the sack. The bird stayed around the truck and on the ground. Then as people started to move around the bird move on. In o1 during one hell of a blow. A bird was flying side ways and trying to get into my shelter. Like to hear the stort he tells the old lady when he gets home.

Taniwha · Post by **Taniwha** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 10:01 pm

I was out on the playa a few weekes before the burn - we had a couple of humming birds come through (it rained that day and the day before).

The real avian mystery though was a couple of years before - there were maybe 100 of us on the playa and we woke up to find a lost duckling wandering around (it was adopted but sadly didn't survive) - we were right out in the middle maybe 5 miles from the nearest vegetation - I can't imagine it walked that far at night - all I can guess is that it hitched a ride in someone's car

Cheesus · Post by **Cheesus** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 1:38 am

I've never in four years seen a bird on the playa, but on Friday night, I was wandering around inside the lower portion of the Man's pedestal/pyramid/temple/whatever, and there was a lone bat flying around in an apparent state of confusion. Freaked me out a tad when it came within about 4 inches of flying into my face before veering off to one side.

Chimp · Post by **Chimp** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 1:58 am

I saw a tum tum bird

On Thursday morning, it was whiffling through the tulgy wood and burbling as it came.

Honest.

nymphgonebad · Post by **nymphgonebad** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 5:02 am

was it accompanied by the frumious bandersnatch, perchance?

Chimp · Post by **Chimp** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 6:47 am

I think so Strych 9, but I couldn't really concentrate because all the mome raths were outgrabing. It was really quite disconcerting.

nymphgonebad · Post by **nymphgonebad** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 6:51 am

i prolly slept thru it. i have this odd propensity for sleeping thru natural disasters. not that this counts as a natural disaster. it just makes me think: if i slept thru hurrican andrew and the 3.9 earthquake last week, what else am i missing?

precipitate · Post by **precipitate** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 11:37 am

> 3.9 earthquake

3.9? Pshaw. Unless you were right on top of it, you should have slept
through.

BurningGirl · Post by **BurningGirl** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 9:00 am

Chai Guy wrote:Those were doves, they were released prior to the temple burning.

Hmm...Love the temple, Love David but geez...that could be concidered animal cruelty.

Lydia Love · Post by **Lydia Love** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 9:04 am

<snort>

If I could get into the archived old-eplaya I could pull up a largish thread on the "bird release" of '02. I'm not sure it was actually ever ascertained that someone released some birds - or if some birds got stupid and came on over by their own damn selves...

chickenfish · Post by **chickenfish** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 1:18 pm

Saturday before the event we saw what appeared to be a whole flock of birds take off from inside the cafe, circle it and then take off. IT was awesome. THere is nothing quite like seeing birds move together in that way, like they are all connected. We have a similar group of birds that yearly stop by the fruitvale bart station, for a couple of weeks out of the year you will see them flying together in a swarm, beautiful.

Neutrino · Post by **Neutrino** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 7:13 pm

Hello,
An interesting bird story. I saw a flock of birds from a distance one morning about 6:00 AM they looked like some sort of black birds.
I also found a water bug, which I took to the Earth Guardians to relocate, which I assumed they did.
As for your bird, it may have been sick, as it stumbled etc. Did it fly off?
K e v

diane o'thirst · Post by **diane o'thirst** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 9:45 pm

Chai Guy wrote:Those were doves, they were released prior to the temple burning.

I remember the birds at the Temple burn last year. We couldn't figure out what they were either. My campmates thought they were ducks; I said, "I've hunted ducks — ducks don't fly like that. They don't circle, they fly like a bat out of hell, straight and fast." Their flight patterns didn't suggest doves/pigeons to me either.
A listmate who saw the Burn had an ornithologist for one of her campmates and they saw the birds at the Temple burn. She said that he was almost sure they were avocets and surmised that they flew in from the sides of the Playa.
There are some marshes around the edges and the estimate was that they were attracted to the light and heat — some got caught in the thermal vortex of air that produces the dust devils and that's how some of them spiralled down into the fire...

TazGrl · Post by **TazGrl** » Fri Sep 19, 2003 12:15 am

Didn't see any birds, but we saw a couple of bats - not those cute fuzzy little brown bats we have here in Oregon, but big brownish-black ones. It flew right through camp and at first I thought it was a bird until that "something's not quite right" lightbulb clicked on: it didn't fly at all like a bird. My boyfriend actually saw a bat catch something (one of those big dragonflies we kept seeing?), tumble to the ground with it and begin happily munching on whatever it was it caught. And this was all in broad daylight! I checked out the BLM website and was amazed at how many bat species live around that area.

clandyone · Post by **clandyone** » Fri Sep 19, 2003 12:30 am

precipitate wrote:> 3.9 earthquake

3.9? Pshaw. Unless you were right on top of it, you should have slept
through.

At the risk of sounding like a yes-woman, that was a REALLY piddly earthquake. The best part about it was seeing my Midwestern roommates leap under the kitchen table as soon as I said "oh, an earthquake..." And we WERE right on top of it... about a mile from the epicenter.

I felt kinda like a stereotypical crotchety old person, going "Earthquake? That wasn't an earthquake! Why, in my day...." et cetera, et cetera.

But I grew up in Southern California and remember Sylmar and Northridge and and and...

I still say, if it's not at least a 5.5, it's not an earthquake.

Apollonaris Zeus · Post by **Apollonaris Zeus** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 10:34 pm

BurningGirl wrote:
Chai Guy wrote:Those were doves, they were released prior to the temple burning.
Hmm...Love the temple, Love David but geez...that could be concidered animal cruelty.

Especially when they flew into the fire!

Ooops, sorry that was another David burn in 2002.

A II Z

orangepeelmoses · Post by **orangepeelmoses** » Sat Jul 24, 2004 9:47 am

can't say that eye have sighted actual birds,
but definitely burners shaking tail-feathers.

also,
two praying mantises so far.

opm

Jesus was an alien ReMiX

Bird sighting on the Playa, anyone else see a bird

Bird sighting on the Playa, anyone else see a bird

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b

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