Category Archives: Search Terms

Last year I split this personal blog off from MagnificentFrigatebird.com. With the split, I thought it would be fun to revive this monthly series where I examine some of the more interesting or outrageous search terms found in my statcounter. You can see previous posts in this series, which ran during 2009 and 2011, here. So, what brought people to my blog last month?

I was happy to see searches for Gemini Springs Bald Eagles, gemini springs bears, and Barred Owls in Gemini Springs Park. Glad to see my favorite place get some love from the internet.

Someone wondered, can you own an owl in illinois? It’s not simple. For education purposes, one may apply for a permit to keep an owl. In addition to any state requirements, a permit from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must also be obtained. Someone else wondered how to obtain an illinois owl permit. I wish them well with their search because I had a hard time finding any type of wildlife rehabilitation or education permit information on the Illinois DNR website.

Some silly typos or spelling mistakes came up: sawette owl; colonial of Bank Swallows; euroasian spoonbill chicks; wanxwings in netherlands;

I just love that someone searched for sharm el sheikh sewage and found this blog! Hopefully this post was helpful.

The most intriguing search term of the month: endangered bird that travels in small flocks digs holes in trees next to nest. Anyone know what this might be? Someone else was looking for skinny white bird with pure white feathers and orange bill with orange legs – I’m thinking White Ibis, maybe?

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Here are my favorite search terms that brought visitors to this site during December 2011. You can see previous editions of this monthly post here. I started up this monthly round-up post in January 2011, after a year-long hiatus. With this 12th entry for 2011 I’m putting the series on hiatus again, for at least a year.

Traffic on MagnificentFrigatebird.com was at record levels during December, and most visitors hit the birder gifts and other shopping areas of the site (thank you, shoppers!).

That said, there were still a few search terms that made me chuckle. Hipsters were on the mind of at least two visitors, searching for: hipster owl and kiss on the cheek hipster.

Then there were a few terms related to handling birds came up, making me miss my volunteer friends (even though a couple of these are just wrong): owls ears located video; can you own an owl in illinois; public domain images bird in shoe box; Human Imprinted Bald Eagle; Osprey with person; owl like to be pet; gloves used to handle parrots; and correct glove position in falconry.

Searches for swan maternity and swans cheating came in virtually together; sounds like swans have some drama in their lives.

Finally, if you want to see some fun pictures, search Flickr for birds of prey stretching. I hope the person who landed here tried Flickr, too.

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Here are my favorite search terms that brought visitors to this site during November 2011. This is part of an ongoing monthly series on blog search terms.

Last month there were a bunch of search terms that just made me laugh out loud.

* owls with mohawks – really!?
* shirts about having a lisp – I don’t have any, but maybe I should design some?
* gift ideas for women who like to sleep – another niche I have yet to explore.
* thermal spaghetti tank – contradictory much?
* pigeon in prison – for public defecation? stealing bread? loitering?
* who was poor sam peabody – hopefully the searcher got his/her answer!
* owl drawings for kids that are colored – is that the best way to phrase your search?

One day I found the term florida small birds in my stats; the next day a different person searched for big birds of florida. Another day, another user: bird size comparison chart. Conclusion: focus more on bird size in future posts.

I love that someone searched for what are the official colors of bird banding and what are the official symbol of bird banding. Oh, I wish there was an answer for that! Think of all the shirts I could design! 😉

To the person searching for funny birding outfits – wrong site, buddy!

I wonder if an egyptian griffin hummingbird would be cute?

Most intriguing search term of the month: wesley the owl movie…

Funniest search result: whoever searched for ivory-billed woodpecker graph of extinction somehow ended up here!

Finally, to the person searching is annual bald eagle watch at starved rock fun?: YES, it is. When you go, be sure to look for juvenile eagles wearing bling!

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Here are my favorite search terms that brought visitors to this site during October 2011. This is part of an ongoing monthly series on blog search terms.

Wondering what is bird poop made of? Fertilizer! No, not really. Next!

To the person searching for golden eagle for pet: STOP IT.

A tip for the people searching for birds with long tail feathers, juvenile herons of florida pictures, what does a steller jays egg look like, biological drawing of a fly, and red bellied woodpecker range map: try a straight-up image search next time! Easy peasy.

To those searching these gems, I hope you found what you were looking for, cuz I know you didn’t find it here: how bodies were impaled and bird organs penguin (ew).

In the category of oddly specific: Oct 18, 2011 saw summer tanager in central florida!; pink flamingo at Lincoln park zoo (in a enclosure); a bird sleeping with one eye open; L DON’T DISPLAY MY FARM ANIMALS IN DIORAMA; a kenyan swarm of crows and a belgian swarm of crows; and (Netherlands) and (Grebe).

And oddly vague: birdwatcher shirt i have seen.

Several searches for unknown birds came by: little bird with long beak in north carolina (lots of shorebirds are possible?); migratory yellow bird florida October (many possibilities); SMALL BIRDS THAT LIVE IN ALABAMA (ditto); cute birds in south texas (ditto again); and two different backyard doves central fl (not ambitious enough… there’s at least three).

These made me homesick: rollins savannah temperature differences; chicago field museum diorama; and prairie world forest preserve lake county.

And finally, my two favorite searches of the month: the wishful-thinking cardinal bird killing a wild cat brings an interesting image to mind; and animals not caring sums things up quite nicely, don’t you think?

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Here are my favorite search terms that brought visitors to this site during September 2011. This is part of an ongoing monthly series on blog search terms.

Questions like is a frigot the same as a king fisher bird just kind of blow my mind. Seriously?

This is a good question, though: when to remove humming bird feeder. The answer is not Labor Day, if you’re wondering. Here in central Florida I suppose the answer is never. 🙂

I wonder what a belgian barbie would wear? And would she carry a cone of fries?

I hope that the person searching for bufflehead banded and the one that searched for frigate bird ringed found the report a band site.

And I hope the person searching for white barred owl found these photos of a beautiful leucistic Barred Owl.

I think hovering flamingo is a kind of cool visual. The picture I get in my head for longheaded shrikes, on the other hand, is kind of creepy.

I really don’t know what the person searching for animated gif bird poop wanted to find. I mean, ew!

I hope the person searching for how to build a squirrel habitat out of a shoe box found a rehabber, if s/he needed one. Same with the person who shouted WHEN IS A LIMPKIN CHICK INDEPENDENT.

The search for huge pile of corn makes me wonder if there are some squirrels out there that have adapted opposable thumbs. 😉

Someone out there wondered can you have a spoonbill as a pet… no, you can’t. Why would you want to?!

A person after my own heart was looking for interesting bird hides. I hope they found my group Bird hides / bird blinds on Flickr.

Hopefully the large number of searches related to the upcoming film The Big Year (including target audience for the big year, “jack black” “steve martin” “owen wilson”, jack black the big year and big year t shirt) mean great things for the movie.

Finally, as usual I got quite a bit of traffic for searches related to Bald Eagle viewing at Starved Rock State Park. I’ll have an exciting post about a very special event taking place at Starved Rock up on the blog very soon!

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Here are my favorite search terms that brought visitors to this site during August 2011. This is part of an ongoing monthly series on blog search terms.

binoculars to eat… I guess we all get hungry out in the field, but is this really practical?

does the magnificent frigate bird live in florida?… Yes! Both bird and blogger. 🙂

raptors cloaca… Perv!

small crested birds florida tit… Good thing they added “crested” and “birds.” Hope they found what they were looking for!

cute birdemic drawing… Did someone mix-up Birdorable with the shock and terror?

cloaca bird blue jay… Seriously? Two visitors arrived here searching for cloaca last month?

shrike with impaled… I just love that someone was searching the interwebs for this! Whenever we have seen shrikes, we’ve searched for impaled prey. So far, no luck. I will squeal like a schoolgirl if I ever see it in life. Check out this great encounter with a juvenile shrike practicing the, uh, practice.

what’s that bird movie in 2011… Can’t wait, that’s what!

what is the bird with red eyes and looks like a toucan… I am very curious what this searcher was seeking. What looks like a toucan but is not a toucan?

happy crowds of biologists pictures… This makes me happy.

where do homing pigeons hide when lost?… Aww. 🙁

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Happy August! Now that Arthur and I are more or less settled in here in DeBary, Florida, I hope to pick up the birding – and blogging – pace this month. It looks like local bird clubs will start up again in September and I hope I’ll have even more to share with my readers in the coming months. Migration is already underway. Birds await! Meanwhile, here is a short list of some of the more interesting search terms that brought visitors to this site during July 2011. This is part of an ongoing monthly series on blog search terms.

identifying baby cardinal vs cowbird… Really? For one thing, baby Northern Cardinals have crests, and cowbirds don’t. By the way, don’t search Flickr for photos of baby cowbirds – it’s kind of depressing (and I love cowbirds).

what bird song sounds like T-shirt?… Do you perhaps mean what bird sings “teacher”?

i need the official warblers shirt… I didn’t realize the Warblers went pro!

describing the inside a parrot’s eye… Sounds like someone skipped lab this week?

what is a black bird that swims with wings open and has yellow beak in Illinois… Double-crested Cormorant, maybe.

teddybear like- birds… Oh, my. I really wonder what this person was seeking.

Magnificent Frigatebird: strengths and weaknesses… Meager content output, mediocre photos taken with low-grade consumer camera, uninteresting posts – oh, those are only weaknesses. 😉

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Despite low content output, mostly because of our June move from Illinois to Florida, visitors continued to hit this blog during the month. Unfortunately, I was unable to capture visitor stats every day.

Anyway, here are some of the more interesting search terms that brought visitors to this site during June 2011. This is part of an ongoing monthly series on blog search terms.

Apparel design inspiration? Visitors searched for: you might be a birder if tee shirt; best t shirt store ever with owl t shirt; and the overly-complicated “my hobby” -buy -store -shop -site:gov -site:edu -blog -article -wiki -directory -site:ehow.com -pre.

People were looking for birds in the right places, and in all the wrong places: magnificent frigatebird gambia; florida vultures; red shouldered hawk florida; only scottish endemic bird; are there tufted titmice in lake county, il?; are there orioles in illinois; tufted titmouses country; picture of north american ostrich; and pelikan escapes in amsterdam.

I’ve only got a few bird banding posts, and very little experience, so I was amused to find these banding-related searches: Brood patch codes and chord length of Frigate bird.

Most disturbing search of the month goes to putting anklets on my new hawk. Who searches for that? People, please don’t hold any wildlife captive without proper permits and training. Yikes!

Finally, though I only wrote two posts about them (here and here), I was pleased to find lots of traffic related to the Mooseheart Bald Eaglets, including those searching for information on fundraising. In case you missed it, online donations to help care for the eaglets and build their flight cage can be made directly to FCWR here: donate online.

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Here are some of the more interesting search terms that brought visitors to this site during May 2011. This is part of an ongoing monthly series on blog search terms.

I thought there were a lot of frigatebird-related queries in March, but May was through the roof, with these new search terms bringing visitors to the site:

• how many frigatebirds are left in texas
• illinois frigate bird
• is it legal to own a magnificent frigatebird
• list of infamous behavior for magnificent frigatebird (no!)
• magnificent frigatebird enemies
• pete dunne magnificent frigatebird robin
• comic book airplane with wings like a frigate bird
• frigate parrot
• frigate bird adaptive radiation
• food chain of magnificent frigate bird

Falling under the oddly specific category were the following searches:

• tired all the time and have green poo
• robin’s nest on the ladder in my garage

Typos and spelling mistakes that made me laugh were:

• sand wheat owl
• audobon’s perraqueet

Head-scratchers of the month:

• what is the true name for the “telephone bird” (anyone know?)
• what bird hangs out with geese?
• what does it mean when a blue heron bird fly over you
• how michigan and missouri differ

The most satisfying search terms to find in my statistics are those where I know the searcher found exactly what they were looking for. So I was happy to see these in May:

• are there loons in illinois
• how owl banding works
• mourning doves grooming each other
• robin nest in yard, tips
• what size leg band adult blue jay?

My favorite search term for the month of May was killer vulture toy.

Finally, someone came to this site by searching barn owl garden carol stream il 2011 events. In case they didn’t find what they were looking for, there will be live birds of prey on display from Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation at the Barn Owl Garden Center in Carol Stream this Saturday, June 4th from 11am to 2pm. Will you be there?

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