Silent Love

This is my February Au Naturel column for the magazine Stillwater Living

Silence. This is the sound of love in the woods in February. It is a dark evening in a frozen landscape with the moon hidden behind a winter blanket of clouds. My snowshoes crunch through the bare woods of maple and oak. The sound doesn't seem to travel far. The porous snow absorbs and deadens sound. When I stop, it is silent. There is no wind tonight, there are no animal calls, there is nothing and it is this absence of sound that tells me something is happening.

Back in the first week of December, Ron Lawrenz, our Director at the Lee and Rose Warner Nature Center excitedly shouted "owl!" from his office. His corner office view of the hardwood forest gives him a constant reminder of the reason we do what we do. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement in the woods. He looked up just in time to see a barred owl alight on a small tree about 125 feet away.


He struggled to point it out to us as we huddled at the windows but it was difficult to discern, the owl is a master of camouflage. Finally, it moved and we watched it fly closer. It landed on the edge of the woodland clearing the building sits in. The tree it chose was the same tree we had seen a barred owl in last February. Could this be the same owl?

Over the following months, the owl moved about the forest searching for a nesting site and calling out for its mate. We could hear the owls in the woods, their voices threading through the bare branches like auditory shadows. They sang as we walked to our cars in the evening surrounded by the early darkness of winter. The barred owl calls out "Who hoo hoo hoo, Who hoo hoo HOOoo." The call is commonly described as the questions "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?" Sometimes, our female captive barred owl calls back but she's injured and not allowed to fly around the woods with the other owls, nor is she free to find a mate. That doesn’t stop the occasional confused male from perching near her enclosure and hooting to impress her.

As I stand in the woods this February evening though, there are no hoots. There's only the sound of snow crunching lightly under my shifting feet and the quiet rhythm of my labored breathing. The silence speaks. What I am tempted to say is that barred owls are clever, that they fall silent in February with purpose and careful thought but this is ascribing too much human thinking to an evolutionary adaptation. They are silent in February because there is an evolutionary advantage to doing so. They have already mated and they do not hoot because they are incubating eggs. Now, around Valentines Day, is the time for silence. They do not want to give away the location of their precious young-to-be.

It seems funny that we have a day devoted to love in February and the origins of tying romantic love to the pre-existing day celebrating Saint Valentine are far from clear. What I do know is that February is a time of deep cold. Perhaps that's why we feel the need for a day devoted to something that warms us. It reminds me of the ancient rituals of bonfire lighting on the solstice. Create that which is missing. Kids give out cards with hearts and cherubs, or these days, Sponge Bob Squarepants and Hannah Montana but what do these things have to do with love and the season and bringing warmth? We need valentine's cards with owls on them. Owls pair bond for life. They choose one mate and stick with it. It is in this cold dark month of February that they mate and work their hardest to bring forth new life. That seems like a wonderful symbol of love to me. But why February?

Owls nest and mate long before other animals who wait for spring. In doing this, they get a jumpstart on their food source. The female owl will incubate the eggs for a month and by the time the young owls are ready to leave the nest six weeks after hatching, the rest of the animal world has mated in the more traditional spring and there is an abundance of small critters to eat. Young owls are well fed on the bounty of spring.

I stand in the cold silence knowing that there are small white eggs silently being kept warm in a nest somewhere nearby. Snow begins to fall and the collected sound of all those millions of flakes touching down on the ground is a barely auditory whisper. I whisper, "good luck" to the owls and head home through the snow to rejoin my love and celebrate warmth on a cold winter's night.

Barred Owl on the Hunt

A nice surprise today, bird number 23 for the year appeared like a striped ghost in the woods. After hearing them a couple of times, I finally saw a Barred Owl in 2009. I guess it isn't fair to say finally when we're only 22 days into the year. I walked past the windows at work and saw something large fly through the woods. I figured it was an owl right away. It took a while to locate where it had gone. The camouflage was incredible.

I finally saw him dive toward the ground out of a tree, undoubtedly going for a little mouse under the snow. He was about 150-200 feet away. I happened to have a camera with me so I snapped some photos. At that distance, shooting through the trees the auto-focus had trouble. I wish I had my camera with me which has manual focus.

I also shot some video to give you an idea for how far away he was and how hard he was to see and find. It starts out close with the owl in the middle and then zooms out.

I went out to see if I could find where he had landed on the ground, I was hoping to find the classic wing prints on the snow. I did find where he landed but he must have landed without his wings touching the ground much. I think what you see here are tail marks on the right hand side, feet made the big hole in the middle and then the extension of the hole on the left could have been from his head as he poked around for the mouse. Other interpretations are entirely possible. It isn't very clear.

2009 Running Bird Tally
23. Barred Owl

The Barred Owl Returns...

Last year I posted about a barred own that showed up outside my work window. It's that time again.

Here's a photo I took today from inside the building looking out across the yard and septic field.

Can you spot the owl?

How about now?


How about now?


I'm guessing this is the same owl. Go back and check out the photos from last February, that's the same tree, but the owl is on the next branch down.

This is a nice opening in the forest so the owl must be hoping to spot some small mammal running under the snow. On the other hand. About 75 feet away on the opposite side of the field is the mew with our female captive barred owl. We are getting near mating season.

Icing Over

Today at work we went down to check on the lakes. Terrapin lake appeared to have frozen over some time during the day today. We took turns throwing rocks out onto the ice to hear that wonderful ping pa pa pa pa dut dut dut dut dit dit dit di di di sound as they skittered across the ice. Here's Paul with a good throw.
Kathy walked out a few feet and thought that near the shore it was a couple of inches thick. We could see it was really thin further out.

I threw a large rock as hard as I could against the ice off the dock and didn't break through. It did produce this cool impact pattern and I noticed a cool rainbow effect along where it cracked.


We turned around to look at the deeper Mays Lake and it was completely without ice. I spotted the Tundra swans a good distance out but they were hard to see through the strong cold wind. This photo is cropped in as far as possible. There are two adults and two younger swans in this shot and there were two other swans on the opposite shore. These appear to be the same group that were on Terrapin lake last week.

~Kirk

Halloween Approaches

Halloween is certainly coming. Yesterday there were snowflakes in the air and I finally had time to carve up my pumpkin. I'm pretty happy with the results even though I had none of my pumpkin carving tools. Where's they go?

~Kirk

Rusty Goodness

We were excited to have two rusty blackbirds in the nets today at the Warner Nature Center. I think these are gorgeous birds but of course to some they are exceptionally plain. Sorry, if you think these are boring birds you are mistaken.

The bird on the left if a HY (hatching year) and the bird on the right is an AHY (after hatching year.) Both are males. Rusty blackbirds have a definite cut-off for male vs. female when you measure wing cord so we're sure these are males.

Here's a close-up view of the hatching year bird. The photos don't begin to do the subtle variations in color justice.

Check out his chunky size 2 band. The yellow eye is very striking set against the black underneath and the yellowish wash above. The supercillium didn't seem as yellow on the after hatching year bird.


Here's the after hatching year bird for comparison. Everything has darkened up. Still beautiful.

A wider shot of the older bird.

I'll part today with my favorite shot. Drink in the autumnal rusty goodness.


~Kirk

Fall Hike

Ahhh, time for a posting. I finally have a spare moment here in the evening. Being a dad makes blogging a slower process. These are just some quick photos from a staff hike we took on Monday. That would be Paul Smithson, Me, Jen Ester and Kathy Feste. Julie Grecian took the photo. We headed out into the lesser explored western half of the nature center. The field we're standing in is one we rarely go to. It is an important part of the nature center from a land perservation perspective but we don't use it for programming.


I was really impressed by the amount of milkweek on the western side of the property. It seemed to be in pretty healthy abundance.


One of the interesting things we saw was more tornado damage from the Memorial Day weekend storm. This is the tornado entrance into the woods on the westernmost side of the property. When you get up close you can see trees go in every direction due to the rotation.



Below is the view from inside the woods. The camera is looking West, the diretion the tornado came from. Click to see a much larer version. You can see some mature trees with the tops missing. That takes at least 110 mph winds. It can be had to appreciate the damage from a simple photo like this but here's something to consider. This is a mature forest with a closed canopy. See how much sky you can see in the photo? Before the storm you couldn't see sky like that. You can follow where the tornado went bymentall drawing a line through the sky from the right side of the photo to the left. I wish I had taken a photo but one uprooted tree already had a young buckthorn tree growing in the hole left by the root ball. That's depressing.


On a more beautiful note, I spotted this cool Milkweed Tussock Moth Caterpillar. That's all for now!
~Kirk

Hail to thee

We had a surprise hail storm at work today. Well, it wasn't a total surprise, we saw it coming on radar. The strom cell was moving at 16 knots and had cloud tops at 36,000 feet according to radar. There must have been some pretty serious updrafts to keep this hail up in the air and growing . Quarter sized hail was pretty common. There are a few small dings in most of our cars .

And now for something completely different

My blog has been taken over as of late by birds. Here's something completely different. Last night a big storm blew through and as the front approached there was the great little band of mammatus clouds. I didn't have a wide enough lens on my camera to capture a really spectacular photo but you get the idea. The weather turned nasty after these clouds pushed on.

Almost a Milestone

This blurry picture is a milestone. I'll explain why in a little bit.

I've been actively watching birds now for three years. I'm a naturalist so I've always had a general interest in birds but I've only taken a greater interst in the past few years. I was more of a plant guy in the past as they don't move. A few years back my co-worker Paul mentioned that he hadn't gotten his hundred birds yet. I asked him what we was talking about and he said that he had set a goal of trying to see 100 species of birds by June 1st each year. I thought it sounded hard but he encouraged me and said that if I stopped to count I was probably half way there already. I started to count up the birds I had seen that year and sure enough I had seen a bunch. By the end of 2004 I had seen 85 birds without really even looking.

The next year, 2005, I was hooked and thought this thing counting thing was fun. I ended up with 109 birds for the year. Most people ignore common birds because they are so, well , common! Starting fresh at a count of ZERO each year means that there are hundreds of birds to get all excited about again. I have a reason to be excited to see a crow or a rock pigeon. I think as a naturalist it helps me as well as I am more in tune with the phenology of the world around me and I pay closer attention to changes in not just species but also to weather patterns. After all, a good strong wind out of the south can either bring in new migrants, help them leave or just encourage them fly right on by and not even stop.

The third year, 2006, I finished out with 126 birds thanks to a trips to Arizona, Washington State and Norway. In Washington I saw a pelagic cormorant, a tufted puffin, clarks nutcracker, an American dipper and more. Norway brought European Magpies, great crested grebes, graylag geese, grey herons, carrion crows, european robins, pied wagtails, and, of course, great tits. Yes, I'm talking about the birds.

The fourth year I ended up with count of 143 helped by one of the volunteers Jane Wicklund who frequents the nature center. She's a snow bird who heads down to Arizona each year and we met up at that famous Arizona bird hot spot Boyce Thompson Arboretum where we saw 22 new species before lunch. I got to see a vermillion flycatcher, a bell's vireo, inca dove, and a handfull of other birds I'd never seen in my life. I also led the fossil hunt out in North Dakota where I picked up a western meadowlark, swainson hawk, lark bunting and lazuli bunting.

This year is different. With the arrival of my son, there are no trips out of Minnesota planned and birding time is mostly restricted to hikes at work. I'm happy with my progress though. Halfway through the year I have 126 birds and plenty of time to find more. A few weeks back I saw a Cape May Warbler which was a lifer for me, i.e. a bird I had never seen before in my life. Now I haven't keet a life list in the past, I just started counting birds a few years back since it was a fun way to learn birds and look forward to seeing them. The Cape May Warbler made me wonder though. What would my life list number be? I had also just finished reading The Big Year in which people compete for how many birds they can see in North America in one year. Nevermind life lists, these guys year lists are more than I will probably ever see in my life. I decided to total mine up.

I copy and pasted all of my blog entries for birds into an spreadsheet and then and removed doubles. To my surprise I was only 6 lifer birds away from the milestone of 200! That's a far cry from my first year of seeing only 85 birds total. A couple of days later I saw a Wilson's warbler bringing me closer and then there was an incredible day with three lifers, Blackpoll, Blackburnian and Canada Warblers bringing me to 198.

Today while getting ready to leave work I called my wife Chelsey on the phone to let her know I was coming home and I saw a bird fly by my office window. From the behavior, flying out from a perch and returning, I could tell it was a flycatcher. I peered out the window with my binoculars and was greeted by the sight of a large flycatcher and I wasn't sure what it was. It had distinctive markings though. I looked in my trusty Sibley guide and sure enough, the flycatcher with the dark vest and light breast is the Olive-sided flycatcher. The blurry photo at the beginning of the post was taken at an odd angle through a window with a screen. Of course it is a blurry photo but not only is it bird 126 of the year but more importantly, I'd never seen one before. That's bird 199 on my life list.

One more to go!

A couple more birds

On Saturday, May 31st, I took a few minutes to hike down to the bog while some glue dried on a work project. The Great-crested Flycatchers were going crazy down there! I did end up seeing two new birds for the year. I finally got a good look at an ovenbird and just before seeing the ovenbird I heard the long call of a Winter Wren. Sure enough I spotted him just a little further up the trail.

124 Ovenbird
125 Winter Wren

Bird-a-palooza

Here's a quick bird update for the week. It was a good week! Sunday I swung by Lake Como while Chelsey and Camden we on a play date and I saw a Northern Rough-winged Swallow.

Monday at work Paul pointed out that the Blue-gray Gnatcatchers were back. He always seems to be keyed into their return. They were all over the tops of the trees right outside the front door.

Tuesday, May 20th I helped set up some mist nets in the morning with Paul and a volunteer. We walked past the area where we usually see Blue-winged Warblers and sure enough we could hear the buzzy electric like call. The bird flushed across the street but we were setting nest there too and we soon spotted the bird. I had a few minutes at the very end of the day so I swung by the bog to see who would be there in the afternoon. I didn't even have to go down onto the boardwalk. In the afternoon the sun shines on the north end of the bog and I spotted a little bird taking a bath in am open spot near the edge of the bog. He flew up into an alder bush and I could see right away that it was a Chestnut-sided Warbler. There were many redstarts around as well. Wednesday morning I headed to the bog for a quick look around and saw a Wood Thrush on the hill on the south side. Coming back across the boardwalk I could see a small bird in a maple tree leafing out. I took a look and it was a very yellow warbler. I watched for a few minutes as he madly hopped from branch to branch and soon I could see a little black cap. It was a Wilson's Warbler! Woo hoo, that's a lifer. On the way home I saw my first Eastern Kingbird on a barbed wire fence along Norell ave just south of work.

Thursday I escorted a group down to the lake at work and on the way back I saw my first Scarlet Tanager of the year. They are always breathtaking. I could hear a lot of Red-eyed Vireos as well and finally got a good look at one. That was also a first of the year. On the hike back I also saw American Robins, Great-crested Flycatchers, White-breasted Nuthatches, and a Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

Over the Memorial Day weekend I went to my inlaws house in Wisconsin and saw a Tufted Titmouse and House Wrens in their yard. Both first of the years. The little wren was taking nesting material into a nestbox.


Sunday, May 25th a likely tornado or possibly straight line winds ripped a swath of destruction though the nature center. Tuesday we went out as a staff to assess the damage on the trails. I'm post more about that later but the good news is that during the hike I spotted a wealth of new birds including three lifers. I saw a Blackpoll warbler, a Blackburnian Warbler and a Canada Warbler. For my year list I also added Mourning Warbler and an Eastern Wood-pewee. It was the best view of a Mourning Warbler I'd ever had and it was gorgeous. The Blackburnian Warbler was breathtaking as well.

2008 Running Bird Tally
106 Northern Rough-winged Swallow
107 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
108 Blue-winged Warbler
109 Chestnut-sided Warbler
110 Wood Thrush
111 Wilson's Warbler
112 Eastern Kingbird
113 Scarlet Tanager
114 Red-eyed Vireo
115 Warbling Vireo
116 Swamp Sparrow
117 House Wren
118 Tufted Titmouse
119 Blackpoll Warbler
120 Mourning Warbler
121 Eastern Wood-pewee
122 Blackburnian Warbler
123 Canada Warbler

Birds of 2008 (104 & 105)

Today I was back out at work to teach a birthday party. One of the bird banders caught a yellow-throated vireo, the same species that I saw at the tops of the trees on Thursday. Here it is.

My afternoon group canceled so I went for a short hike on a beautiful day. I wanted to see a field sparrow. As soon as I got to the field I heard thunder and the wind picked up. The day turned dark and I knew I wasn't going to see much. I saw song sparrows, a robin a common grackle. I headed over to the farm property we own across the street to look for a swamp sparrow and check on things. I discovered someone had stolen the pump well. I didn't see a swamp sparrow. I did however spot a beautiful male American Redstart. Yea!

As soon as I got back to the building to do more work inside, the weather blew over and it became beautiful again. Typical.

I heard the banders caught a golden-winged warbler so that's another species I'll have to keep an eye out for on the property. While I worked at my desk I could see a little bird flitting around in a tree out the window so I put up my binoculars and sure enough, a Cape May Warbler.

2008 Running Bird Tally.

104 American Redstart
105 Cape May Warbler

103 birds!

I went down to the bog at the end of the day and saw my first in the wild common yellow throat. I had already seen one from bird banding but I don't count that. Just before I took the above photo a gray catbird landed in front of me but I didn't get the camera on him fast enough! Speaking of fast moving hard to catch with a camera birds, here's a female western palm warbler. You can see she has a leg band. I wonder if we banded her or if someone else did?

I could hear great tailed flycatchers and did eventually catch a glimpse of one. I also photographed this least flycatcher (below) after I phished a little to draw him in.


I posed a really poor photo of a northern waterthrush last month. The new photo below is still not great but it looks like a masterpiece compared to the old one.


I got a decent photo of a myrtle warbler. They are everywhere this year!


I was really hoping to see an american redstart but that will have to wait for another day.

On Thursday I took a brake at work from some intensive computer time trying to plan 2008-2009 program schedules to hike down to the bog. I saw a Swainson's Thrush which was nice though the photos I took are not worth posting. I did get this decent shot of a black and white warbler.


At the end of the day I could hear a bird up in the trees above my car. I was hoping it might be a scarlet tanager but figured it was a robin. It was singing awfully lazy though. I saw a little tiny bird forty feet up and pointed my binoculars. Sure enough he was the one singing. It was a yellow-throated vireo. Man I need to work on bird call ID more. That put me at 103 birds for the year. It feels good to be over 100 before June!

2008 Running Bird Tally
98 Common yellow-throat
99 Gray Catbird
100 Least Flycatcher
101 Great-crested Flycatcher
102 Swainson's thrush
103 Yellow-throated vireo

The Return of an Elusive Bird

Saturday, May 10th I saw an Orange-crowned Warbler at work while I waited for an afternoon group to arrive. While down at the lake teaching canoing a Ruby-throated Hummingbird whizzed over the kids heads while I explained strokes. That was my first hummingbird of 2008. I could hear ovenbirds as well but didn't see them.

Sunday was mother's day and I saw my first House Finch of the year at their feeders. Returning home that evening I heard the first chimney swifts of the year as I got out of the car and quickly looked up to catch of glimpse of them.

Today, Tuesday May 13th seemed like a pretty dreary day but it wasn't too bad for birds and I didn't even leave the building! While I worked on 2008-2009 schedules I could see birds flitting around in a maple tree out my office window. I looked though my binoculars and they were Nashville Warblers. A beautiful yellow bellied sapsucker landed in the same tree while I watched. I looked again a few hours later and I'm glad I did. The birds I saw later were Tennessee Warblers! That's a first of the year for me! Woo hoo. A while later I was curious if anyone had recorded Tennessee Warbers on our bird tally at work. I strolled into the classroom and looked out the window at the feeders. Wow, there were a lot of birds in the drizzly rain. There were nuthatches, and lots of beautiful American goldfinches, ohh there's the Baltimore Oriole and a Rose-breasted Grosbeak and . . . what's that on the ground? Holy sh*t! I ran full speed across the building, flung open the office doors and shouted "RED HEADED WOODPECKER!!!" while I grabbed my new SLR camera off my desk. Everyone in the office poured out behind me as we ran across the building and then slowed as we approached the windows. It was still there! Some of my co-workers had never seen on in their lives so it was really fun. While I shot photos, a number of turkeys showed up too.


I haven't seen a Red-headed Woodpecker at Warner in six years. There was one there my first year but they haven't been around since then. He was having a grand old time with the trees so hopefully he'll stick around all summer and nest. I shot a lot of photos but the lighting conditions were horrible. The shots look better if you click on them to view the larger sized images. I threw in a shot of the Baltimore Oriole I really like and the female Rose-breasted Grosbeak as well. Enjoy!
While driving home I also saw an indigo bunting which was a first of the year for me. Sorry, no photo. I saw it for about half a second.

2008 Running Bird Tally
92 Orange-crowned Warbler
93 Ruby-throated Hummingbird
94 House Finch
95 Chimney Swift
96 Tennessee Warbler
97 Indigo Bunting

Grosbeaks and Orioles

Look who's back. Tuesday I saw my first Rose-breasted Grosbeak the the feeders. Look at that beak! Chomp!


Thursday the Orioles showed up. We put the feeders out one or two days ago. Good timing. Look at this bird. He KNOWS he looks good. At the end of the day I went along on our new traditional Thursday at 3:00 hike. Paul spotted a blue headed Vireo and I got a good look too. There were many chipping sparrows and song sparrows but we could hear clay-colored sparrows and field sparrows. The clay colored make a buzz-buzz-buzz call that you might mistake for an insect. The field sparrows make a call that our former director Tom Anderson described as someone dropping a ping pong ball. It is a series of rapidly ascending notes and the frequency between them increases as well. I eventually saw the clay colored sparrow and probably saw the field sparrow. Paul saw one and I got my binoculars on it but I could never have told what it was from the look I got so I'm not counting it. There will be plenty of opportunities to see field sparrows.

2008 Running Bird Tally
88 Rose-breasted Grosbeak
89 Baltimore Oriole
90 Blue-headed Vireo
91 Clay Colored Sparrow

Birding Carlos Avery

I had a great time birding at Carlos Avery WMA on Monday, May 5 with my co-workers as a staff development morning. Here's our bird list for the entire day. A couple of these birds were seen offsite of Carlos Avery.

Red-winged Blackbird, Canada Goose, Blue-winged Teal, Mallard, Song Sparrow, American Robin, Hooded Merganser, Great Egret, Great Blue
Heron, American Crow, Brown-headed Cowbird, Eastern Bluebird, Pied-billed grebe, Tree swallow, American Goldfinch, House Finch, Common Grackle, Myrtle Warbler, Palm Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, American kestrel, Bufflehead, Downy Woodpecker, Black-capped Chickadee, Blue Jay, Common Loon, White-Crowned Sparrow, Northern Flicker, American Coot, Swamp Sparrow, Yellow Warbler, Northern Shoveler, wood duck, Northern Cardinal, Gadwall, Northern Harrier, Cliff Swallow, Barred Owl, Red-tailed Hawk, Common Merganser, Lesser Scaup, Mourning Dove, Ruby-Crowned Kinglet, Wild Turkey, Song Sparrow, Sandhill Crane, Ring-necked Duck, Bald Eagle, Ring-billed Gull, Slate-colored Junco.

That's 50 birds for the day. I did manage to get some photos with my new camera. I got this shot of a "butter butt" aka the Myrtle Warbler. It isn;t the best shot ever but I live the water in the background.



I had a chance to get some great shots of Great Egrets. There were two of them who posed for some fun shots. I'll probably post more later but I don't have a lot of time to look through them all right now. Be sure to click on them for the larger view. you can see some beautiful breeding plumage.



Two other fun shots. There were lots of blue-winged teal but I only managed to capture this one half-way decent shot as they were very shy.
The last shot is this long view of a sandhill crane. Maybe I'll try to crop it in later. Click for more detail. It is hanging out in a recently burned area.
That's all for now! It was a good day of birding and nice to try out my camera. I need more practice with it but it was a good start. That morning I also caught a passing glimpse of a Red-headed Woodpecker on Co Rd. 15. It flew out and landed on a street sign just as I passed.

2008 Running Bird Tally
82 Red-headed Woodpecker
83 Palm Warbler
84 Yellow Warbler
85 Cliff Swallow
86 White-Crowned Sparrow,
87 Northern Flicker