The Birds Keep Coming!

Last weekend I headed up to Audubon Center of the North Woods for a work retreat. The birds were a treat. At first we saw the same of suspects. There were downy woodpeckers, black capped chickadees, grackles, mourning doves, red-breasted nuthatches, song sparrows and juncos. LOTS of juncos. When we started to hike around we also saw hermit thrushes and took a closer look at some of those sparrows that were everywhere. True, lots of them were song sparrows but not all of them. I noticed one looked very orange. I knew it was something different. Paul Ron and I identified it as a La Conte sparrow. There were a number of them around the property. When people heard that we had seen one they came out to look with us as no one had ever seen one. Some of these folks were life-long birders so it was fun to see them get so excited. We soon realized that there were also savanna sparrows around the buildings as well. While up the I saw an osprey hovering while looking for food and a yello bellied sap sucker. Both were firsts of the year. On a hunch I scoped out a litter ephemoral wetland after lunch and saw my first Black and White Warbler of the year. There was a female Northern Shoveler in the pond but sadly no male. I was bummed to not see a Harrier (aka marsh hawk) at the marsh that another group saw. Luckily we spotted two of them on the drive home! We also saw several cormorants flying near a rookery along Hwy 35.

Yesterday, Tuesday April 29th I saw an eastern towhee while doing a roadside clean-up for work. No, photos, sorry. Great news though, my new digital camera arrives this week! Look forward to lots of photos!

2008 Running Bird Tally
71 La Conte Sparrow
72 Savanna Sparrow
73 Osprey
74 Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker
75 Black and White Warbler
76 Harrier
77 Double Crested Cormorant
78 Eastern Towhee

70 birds

Yes, I'm a little embarassed by the photos in this post. It looks like I may buy a new camera soon so hopefully that will help. The other problem is brown birds in a brown landscape. These photos explain camouflage pretty well. As usual, click on them for larger photos.

Wednesday April 16th I swung by Lake Como on the way home for approximately 3 minutes. That was all the time I had before I had to be home to take over baby care duties. Think of it as speed birding. I mostly wanted to see how much ice was out. I saw a number of different types of waterfowl which was nice. The gem of the three minutes though was a pair of Red-Breasted Mergansers (first of the year) in the middle of the open water. There was still some ice but lots of open water too.

Thursday, April 17th was the day of my saga with the Great Horned Owl. I had technically already seen one this year but what an up close view! When I left the school there was a Killdeer walking around in the front yard. I had the camera in my hand as we had taken photos of the owl so I figured I might as well get a shot of the Killdeer. It was only about 10-15 feet from my car. I set my other gear down and right then a car pulled into the lot and scared it off. Oh well. When I returned to the nature center I saw a golden crowned kinglet and a white throated sparrow. My co-worker Paul had pointed out a white throated sparrow that morning under the feeders. The golden-crowned kinglet, white throated sparrow and killdeer were all first of the year species sightings for me.

I did finally manage to get a half-way decent photo of a hermit thrush while on a lunchtime hike. Still a little blurry though.

Somewhere around this time I spotted a Common Loon at Keller Lake while I drove by at high speed.

On Monday I had the day off so I headed to the bass ponds for some birding. I had never been there before. I ended up with a pretty impressive list of species for the day. I saw lots of American Coots, Canada Geese, Blue Winged Teal, Pied billed grebe, Hooded Merganser, Red-winged Blackbirds, Black-capped Chickadees, Turkey Vultures, Mallard Ducks, American Robins, tree swallows, white throated sparrows, wood ducks, White Pelicans, a Great Blue Heron, Northern Shovelers, Brown Headed Cowbirds, Northern Cardinals, Song Sparrows, Eastern Phoebes, a Downy Woodepcker, Yellow Rumped Warblers (Myrtle), and what I thing was a greater-yellow legs but couldn't be sure. I will definitely have to go back there when I get my new camera.

After the bass ponds I drove though the refuge on Black Dog road and stopped at the east outflow. I'm glad I did as I spotted a Nashvile warbler! There were also song sparrows, coots, mallards, and robins. I also stopped off briefly at the visitor's center (which was closed being Monday) and saw a cooper's hawk.

That was a good morning of birding. I saw 7 first of the year species. The Northern Shoveler and the Blue Winged Teal were lifers for me as I had never seen them!

April 22 the first chipping sparrows showed up at work.

April 24th I headed out for an outreach event at work and on the way back I saw a Green Heron in a pond along Norell Ave/Co. Rd. 5. That makes for an even 70 bird species spotted so far this year.


Running Bird Tally 2008
59 Red-Breasted Merganser
60 White-Throated sparrow
61 Killdeer
62 Golden-Crowned Kinglet
63 Common Loon
64 American Coot
65 Pied-billed Grebe
66 White Pelican
67 Brown Headed Cowbird
68 Nashville Warbler
67 Northern Shoveler
68 Blue Winged Teal
69 Chipping Sparrow
70 Green Heron

NSA Hard at Work

Here's a screen shot from my traffic statistics program that tracks who visits my blog. Looks like someone at the NSA was reading my blog yesterday. First off, what does my blog have to do with National Security? The person landed on my page by googling the word "cephelopod." I'm proud to say my page comes up a respectable 9th on google. Still though, what do cephelopods have to do with national security? I can only assume someone was bored and surfing the web at work. Don't you think if you worked for the biggest electronic spying agency in the world you would be a little more careful with how you use your time on your computer? I mean come on, if I can tell this person is screwing around at work don't you think his or her bosses can figure it out to? Such is the quality of our national security I guess. Good to know the government is keeping tabs on cephelopod fossils and not wasting time keeping us safe. So, to user with IP address 63.239.69.1 in the MD Procurement Department thank for for visiting my site. You might want to consider doing it from home.

~Kirk

Another Day at the Office

I got a phone call a little after 9:00 this morning. Marine Elementary, which is about a 10 minute drive away and one of our partner schools called to say that an owl was caught in their net batting cage at the school. "Is it a big owl I asked?" Yup. Sounded like it was a big owl. I was picturing an owl caught up in the air but luckily they told me it was down on the ground. It could have been tangled since yesterday evening and hanging upside down would be pretty hard on it.

No one there knew what to do and we're the closest people with any experience with raptors. I grabbed a pair of gloves and a raptor toolkit and jumped in my car. When I got to the school I proceeded down the hallway to the back door and I could see the owl through the window in door. Even from about 50 feet away I could immediately tell it was a Great Horned Owl by the size and "horns" raised high. Lucky me. The largest owl in North and South America. Great horned Owls have a 44 inch wingspan and needle sharp talons over an inch long. All of the teachers came out to watch as it was conference day and there were no kids in school.
When I approached the owl it struggled just a little but I think it knew at this point it wasn't getting away. It only hissed once. I did a quick assessment. I'm looking at the bird in the photo above and I have my big blue gloves on. The owl has backed away from the netting a little. The towel on the ground was in case I needed to wrap the owl up to keep it calm while I worked on it or if I had to transport it.

One of the Owl's feet was caught in the netting pretty badly. It had made things worse by struggling. It looked like the bird had gotten a foot though the netting and then caught. Parts of the net were tightly wound around the foot and leg. It probably tried to fly away at some point and did some spinning around. There was about a foot of netting twisted around below the foot and then bird was holding onto that. I could have easily cut this away but my primary concern was not letting the bird go with netting still wrapped around the foot cutting off circulation. This was clearly a gloves off job. I removed the gloves and set to work cutting one strand at a time. I felt along the birds leg to make sure I got them all hiding under the feathers. I couldn't see them so I was going by touch. I didn't look the owl in the eye to help keep it calm but you can see it was staring at me the whole time. There was some abrasion to the foot but not real bad. I added some styptic to the foot to help the wounds heal up but there wasn't any actual bleeding. In the photos above and below I am cutting away at the net. There is a mini van in the background in the lower photo. Word must have gotten out about the owl as there were people in the van watching and there were some neighborhood kids on the playground as well. I was pretty focused on the task at hand so I didn't even notice the kids.

Once I was sure the foot was free of entanglements I was ready to help it let go of the net. I slipped the last few loops off and the owl just laid there not sure what to do. I realized that the owl was going to have trouble getting out. I thought one side of the batting cage was totally open but it turns out there is only a small hole. What are the odds he/she would fly in though that hole? I lifted the net and pulled it back behind the bird so it would have a clear flight out. It sat there for a moment and then took off. It flew a few feet and then did a 180 toward a wetlands to the south. The second it was off the ground it was being chased by crows. A small chorus of cheers from the staff and kids on the playground went up when it flew. It looked like it was flying fine. I was glad I could help it out and glad that I felt comfortable enough to work around the owl since I have the honor of working with raptors at work. Just another day on the job!

~Kirk

The First Warbler!

Monday April 14th I took a quick lunchtime hike around the bog. On the hike I spotted two firsts of the year. There was a Hermit thrush and a Northern Waterthrush. Sorry, no photo of the hermit thrush, I forgot I had a camera in my pocket!

I did snap a photo of the waterthrush and this is a sad sign of things to come. I don't have a good telephoto lens so pictures end up looking like this. This is cropped too! I know you're looking at it thinking, where's the bird? Click to see the larger version. The bird is right in the middle. Great camouflage. Technically the waterthrush is in the warbler family so that's the first warbler spotting of the year!

On Tuesday, a strong wind blew all day and I knew some birds would be riding in into the nature center. While walking through the downstairs I spotted a bird in the trees through the windows. I was a good distance from the windows but something told me to take a closer look. Bingo. Hello my prettie. Myrtle is back! The Yellow Rumped (Myrtle) Warbler. I grabbed a camera and luckily he kept coming back to the same tree. The autofocus was driving me crazy though and I have a LOT of photos of a blurry bird with really crisply focused branches. An Eastern Phoebe also landed on a branch about six feet away but of course the autofocus completely messed up the photo. Bah!

2008 Running bird Tally:
56 Hermit Thrush
57 Northern Waterthrush
58 Yellow Rumped Warbler (myrtle)

A couple good days for Birds

On Saturday, April 5th I headed out to work to teach a Girl Scout Try-It program. On the way there I passed boot lake and there were one or two muskrats at each little hole in the lake. It was like they had just come out of hibernation and were worshiping the sun. It was a very cool sight and there were lots of them on the lake.

When I arrived at the nature center in the morning, the American robins were calling loudly and I saw the eastern phoebe singing while perched on the tripod for our weather station. Inside, I quickly worked to set up the program and noticed a female turkey at the feeders. Just behind her was a large make turkey strutting around with his feathers all fluffed up in full mating display. I sadly had to interrupt their little courtship to go outside to fill the feeders. I grabbed the camera on my way out but only managed to snap this shot of the male turkey taking evasive action against me.

Part of the Try-It I was teaching was to watch for birds. Great! We all grabbed binoculars and hit the windows. We saw downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers and red bellied woodpeckers. There were white breasted nuthatches and black capped chickadees. We saw a brown creeper and American goldfinches. There was also a flock of slate colored dark eyed juncos (about 20). This has been an interesting flock. It showed up after the big snow last week. There have been a number of birds mixing in with the flock. On Saturday there was a fox sparrow (click picture to left for larger view of the fox sparrow) but also another bird I at first thought might be the American Tree Sparrow I had seen with them a few days earlier. It wasn't a tree sparrow.

It was actually a song sparrow! Woo hoo, my first of the year. You can click this photo to enlarge it as well.

We decided to go for a hike and take our binoculars with us. When we reached the prairie I had the kids listen for birds. Sure enough, there was some honking and a Canada Goose flew over. Within seconds I heard Sandhill Cranes and one flew right over our heads at tree top level. It was a fantastic view and the kids were fascinated by this enormous bird. That was just the first of many great views of Sandhills we got that morning as multiple birds made slow fly-bys. Just a little ways further, a large Turkey Vulture came over the rise in the prairie and showed of his flying technique. While we talked about it, one of the parents asked how I could tell it wasn't an eagle. Well, I explained, you usually only see bald eagles in Minnesota and (at least the adults) have white feathers on their heads and tail. It tends to stand out, well, like THAT I said as I pointed to the large bald eagle soaring 40 feet over our heads. Nice.

We later spotted a kettle of bald eagles and when I looked more closely, circling up with them was a red-tailed hawk.

We hiked up though the prairie and looped back when suddenly we were surrounded by swirling birds. Ah ha! The Tree Swallows are back! The second new bird of the day! Just for good measure, we also saw a crow before we left the prairie.

That was all the birds we saw that morning but my afternoon group also saw a red-shouldered hawk. That made for a total of 20 different birds that day. I cleaned up and headed home. On the way home I spotted a female American Kestrel along Norell Ave (likely the mate of the male I saw a few days ago) and I saw a Great Blue Heron in the marsh on the corner of Norell and Co. Rd. 7. Carefully watching the ponds, I slammed on the brakes and pulled over on Co. Rd. 7 when I came upon the only open pond. There were 3 ducks in it. 2 males and one female. That could get ugly later! They were scaups. But which one? Lesser or Greater? They look almost identical but thanks to my trusty Sibley guide in my car I was able to tell after studying them for a while that they were lesser scaups. I had such a great view. It is times like this that really makes me want a good camera and lens. My old film camera is pretty good and I like my lens pretty well but I would have a hard time going back to film now. For one thing, it is so expensive to develop!

To top off the day I saw some mallards, red-winged blackbirds and starlings so that put my final bird count for the day at 26 species (3 of which were new for the year) which isn't too shabby for this time of year!

Wednesday morning (4/9/08) on my drive to work I saw lots of gulls flying about. They seemed to come back starting last Friday. I'm assuming they are ring-billed gulls but I will hold off on counting them until I can verify. At the marsh on the corner of Norell Ave and Co. Rd. 7 in Washington county I saw white in the now slightly open water and pulled over. Trumpeter swans! There were two of them. One was swimming and another was nestled back in the dried vegetation. Through my binoculars I also now could see that the open water was covered with ring necked ducks. That's two new species for the year at once. Nice!

I pulled down the driveway at work and immediately noticed the water in the "peeper pond" directly across from the building was now open. Sure enough, there was something on the surface. I slowed down and raised up my binoculars. There were a couple of mallards but lots of wood ducks. They were beautiful! Oh, and what's that on the other side of the pond? Why a male hooded merganser! That's two more firsts of the year. Four new species in five minutes.

On my way home I stopped at the same marsh on the corner of Norell and 7 and spotted a bufflehead in with the ring necks. I also saw a great egret in the marshy area next to Fleet Farm on Hwy 36. That was first of the year sightings for both of them.

2008 Running Bird Tally

47 Song Sparrow
48 Tree Swallow
49 Lesser Scaup
50 Trumpeter Swan
51 Ring-necked Duck
52 Wood duck
53 Hooded Merganser
54 Bufflehead
55 Great Egret

SPRING!

On April first I started out the month by seeing my first Great Blue Heron of the year in stream along County Road 7 in Washington County. They'd been seen on the river in Stillwater for a few weeks now but with water slowly starting to open up elsewhere I finally spotted one.

Wednesday, April 2nd I saw my first Turkey Vulture of the year on the way home from work. I thought I saw a wood duck too but I thought better than to slam on my brakes on a busy road and flip a u-turn. I had done exactly that about 10 miles back where the road was more rural but I was only a mile from hwy 36. The reason I turned around before was that I caught a glimpse of a large hawk on the passenger side of my car and in the rear-view mirror I could see that it had landed on a fence post. The hawk looked HUGE and at first I thought there was no way it could be a red-tail. It flew off though and sure enough, there was a big old red tail. It must have been a large female.

Since I made great time with traffic, I also stopped in quickly at Harriet Alexander Nature Center for a quick stroll. I saw cardinals, robins and red-winged blackbirds but I was even more excited to get a pretty good look at a northern shrike. Out in the middle of the wetland area I also came upon a beautiful flock of common grackles. When I looped back past the building a heard a noise back out near the edge of the wetland and brought up my binoculars. I saw a blue jay. The sound didn't seem right though. I soon found out why. The northern shrike was in the same tree and he was pissed off about the blue jay. He keep chasing him out of the tree. Blue Jays are big but he kept his distance. Don't mess with shrikes. Funny thing though. He kept on coming back. The fight between the two was really interesting.

The next morning I had to run some work related errands and saw a pond in Stillwater full of geese, gulls and two-tone ducks I am assuming were ring necks but I only caught a glimpse and there was no where to pull over. Just as I arrived to work I got a good look at a pair of sandhill cranes in farm field by the entrance. They looked funny pecking at hte ground with their showy plumage sticking up in the air. Not the "classic" sandhill pose to be sure.

Before lunch I had a meeting in the library at work and I realized after the meeting I had left my laptop computer behind. I went back in the room to get the computer and when I looked up I saw a bird land on a branch outside the window. I immediately recognized it. The Eastern Phoebe! We've been waiting for this bird to show up for weeks. We all guessed and were terribly wrong. My guess was that it would return on March 22 (same day as last year) but it was much later this year. It was lunchtime so I quickly made my lunch and went over to the windows to watch for the bird and snap a photo. It didn't show but this bird did!I had to really crop and zoom as this camera isn't the best and it isn't really in focus either. You can still tell it is an Eastern Bluebird though. Wonderful! Paul had spotted one last week so I was excited to see it. The colors were fabulous. I love spring! He flew off right away and I only got this one photo.

A little later in the day I saw yet another first for the year. A lone pine siskin was hanging out with the goldfinches at the feeders. It really threw me for a loop. I was thinking, "that's way too small for a female purple finch." Paul suggested pine siskin and it all made sense. What a great day for birds. They seem to know spring is finally here. We also pulled hte last of the maple taps today. I have photos and I'll post some in a couple of days.

2008 Running Bird Tally

41 Great Blue Heron
42 Turkey Vulture
43 Common Grackle
44 Eastern Phoebe
45 Eastern Bluebird
46 Pine Siskin

Come to the Feeders my Pretties . . .

Thursday, March 27th I noticed there were suddenly no birds at the bird feeders at work. I quickly scanned the trees and spotted a coopers hawk. It was really neat to see the downy woodpeckers hiding on the back side of skinny little trees. They stayed still and pressed up to the tree directly opposite the side the hawk was on. They didn't move until he flew off. Earlier that day, I caught a glimpse of a purple finch at the feeders. I've been hearing them sing amongst the din of American goldfinch songs but hadn't seen one.

After a run to the grocery store on Sunday, March 30 I spotted a coopers hawk in my neighbor's tree. It is so nice to see some birds in my neighborhood. I've been seeing a coopers around every summer. I wonder if it is the same bird or just one moving through.

Monday there was a heavy wet spring snow and all the birds crowded at the feeders so I was able to get some shots with the camera. They aren't spectacular but the idea was to just get some shots this year of the birds I see. The driving snow made for less than spectacular shooting conditions.


The first thing I noticed when I looked out at the feeders was all the Juncos. These "snow birds" are still around so should we be surprised we have snow? This little guy is cute though a tad blurry through all the snow. There was a whole flock of juncos that had come in to the feeders from somewhere. Probably the side of the road. When the snow started to fall so quickly they needed food and their regular haunts were buried. I noticed a few birds mixed in with the juncos. It is not unusual for them to be in mixed flocks. Here's an American Tree Sparrow surrounded by Juncos looking around and wondering "Where'd all my peeps go?"


Here's a size comparison of the American Tree Sparrow and the Junco. At first glance though the snow I thought the American Tree Sparrow might be the first chipping sparrow of the year. All I could see was the red head. Nope. There's a soft breast spot and the coloration on the head (aside from the red cap) is all wrong.


Pretty much with the juncos (but being hassled a bit) was a lone Fox Sparrow (my first of the year.) He was doing his little hop-scratch technique at the bottom of this wooden post. This is really pushing the limits of this camera and the snow had picked up even more at this point. Can you spot the downy woodpecker in the photo?



I was taking these shots while watching for the school group's bus out the window. I stepped away for a few moments to talk to some volunteers and our site manager, Dave, asked if I had seen the Turkey out the window. What? I was just looking out there! Sure enough, this young Tom Turkey wanted a little snack.


Last but not least, I finally got a photo of the very elusive purple finch that has been coming to the feeders very infrequently the last week. He never stays long. This time, he spent the entire time on the back side of the feeder. In the photo he's just peeking around the side. I'll have to capture a better photo later. If I think this is bad, wait until I try to get shots of warblers! Maybe I'll just take shots of the ones the bird banders catch.



2008 Running Bird Species Tally

38 Purple Finch
39 Cooper's Hawk
40 Fox Sparrow

Working the Sugar Bush (and a little birding)

March 25th was a good morning for telephone wire bird watching. On the two miles or so of County Rd. 7 (Square Lake Trail) that I travel in the morning, I spotted my first red-winged blackbird of the year as well as a mourning dove and an American Kestrel. Then, while sitting at my desk around 9:00 in the morning, I heard sandhill cranes out my window. I first heard sandhills on March 20th but hadn't seen them yet. I ran out to the deck and saw a pair of sandhill cranes heading west over the bog.
As red-shouldered hawks flew overhead and I could still hear sandhills, it was time to check the maple syrup progress. Sharp eyed observers will note that the photo above is NOT from this year as there is no snow on the ground. The sap saks look the same every year though. We had a good sap run finally on the 25th and 26th. At the end of the work day on the 25th we had about 60 gallons of sap ready to boil. Our storage container only holds 32 gallons so we had to store the rest in 6 gallon buckets. Today, the 26th, I could hear the sandhill cranes in the air as I lit the stove at 8:00 am. We started to boil our sap and we got through a lot but not all of it by the end of the day. Here I am adding sap from a 6 gallon bucket in the afternoon. We boil out in the open on a custom wood burning stove. We collected an additional 25 gallons of sap during the day and we had 15 left gallons left at the end of the day that we hadn't even gotten onto the stove. When we start tomorrow we'll have 40 gallons of sap (15+25) ready to boil plus whatever runs this evening!

The theoretical ratio of sap to syrup for red maples (which is what we use) is 40 to 1. If this holds true we'll get about two gallons of syrup from these two days alone. That doesn't sound like a lot when you consider we collected 85 gallons of sap but when you buy syrup in the store you often buy 16 oz bottles. There are eight sixteen ounce bottles in a gallon so we'll have 16 bottles of syrup from just two days worth of sap run. Not too shabby.

~Kirk

2008 running Bird Tally

36 Red-winged Blackbird
37 Sandhill Crane

Pileated and Downy Size Comparison

I took this photo on 3/18/08 at work at the Lee & Rose Warner Nature Center. I especially like this shot because you can compare the size of the downy woodpecker and the pileated woodpecker. I'm slowly trying to photograph some of the birds I see this year. The ones that come to the feeders are easier than when the warbles show up. I may resort to shooting photos of birds we've banded instead of the birds I actually count on my list that I spot in the wild. This great photo of a pileated was one we caught while bird banding two years ago.

In other news, I've added to my bird list with the return of the raptors to the nature center. Saturday I saw a kettle of bald eagles right above the building at work while waiting for my afternoon group to show. Fellow naturalist Paul Smithson had heard Red-shouldered hawks on Friday said he had seen one Saturday morning. I didn't see one Saturday but did finally see one today. There were at least two flying around making quite a racket. Their calls were a welcome addition to the sounds of the forest. I saw them then I went out to check on the maple sap which is finally flowing. We collected about 10 gallons today. If all of the trees run at once we could in theory collect about 150 gallons in one day but that has never happened. Today was slow at 10 gallons but we're finally underway. Still no sign of the Phoebe. My prediction in the office pool is for the first phoebe to show up on Saturday.

On my way home I pulled out on to Norell Ave and headed south. About two miles from the center I saw a bird on a power line and slowed down. Sure enough it was the first American Kestrel I've seen this year. It was a beautiful male.

Here's the running bird tally for 2008. The great-horned owl is from last week. I stopped to see the one nesting near imation (35E and Hwy 5.)

33 Great-horned Owl
34 Red-shouldered Hawk
35 American Kestrel

The Morning Meal

When we arrived at work this morning the trees were covered in snow and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Our intern Jessie went out to fill the bird feeders and excitedly came back upstairs telling us she had spooked an owl. Yes, the owl is back. It really likes hanging out at the building. This isn't surprising as some animals got into the seed we keep under the deck and she had staked out a branch just above the deck. She's in the upper right in the above photo looking at the area under the deck where the seeds are stored and where a red squirrel was hiding out. We watched her from the windows in the lounge. Here we all are gathered at the window so you can see how close she really was. Click any photo for a larger view. After some time a red squirrel started dropping snow on the owls head. In this photo the owl is looking up at the squirrel. What happened next was too fast to catch with the camera. The owl flew up and chased the squirrel trying to pull it off the tree. The squirrel headed down and the owl chased it around the tree in the spiral. The squirrel got away and immediately after the chase the area was full of woodpeckers chirping loudly. It was thrilling to watch the chase and we're sure we'll be seeing more of this owl.

~Kirk

Red backed vole

I've been seeing this little guy since yesterday as he scurries from tunnel to tunnel near the bird feeders. The bounty of food must seem wonderful. He better watch out for the owl that's been hanging around though. He's smaller than a mouse and you can see his short tail in the photo. Not surprisingly, the red-backed vole has a red back.

Also today I noticed for the first time this year real numbers of Canada geese moving through. There was a pair standing on a frozen pond near the nature center looking around like, "Now what?"

Today I heard a male cardinal singing at work for the first time this year.

~Kirk

The birds of March

The March birds have arrived! Wednesday March 5th I noticed some birds on the side of Co. Road 7 very close to work. They looked bigger than sparrows or juncos. The weather was foul with snow and ice. I decided against slamming on my breaks. I took the same route home and luckily spotted the flock of birds. Part of the flock seemed to be snow buntings. They were hard to make out in the corn stubble and they were very shy but their bellies were very white and you could make out a dark bar running the length of the body on the wings. I had a feeling there was more to be seen as the birds I saw in the morning had a black necklace. At least I imagined I had seen that dark band in the glimpse of bird I saw though the snow at 40 mph. I'm getting pretty good at taking a mental snapshot of a bird as it flies across the road. Sure enough, some of the birds were braver and hanging out on the side of the road as I crept along on the shoulder, foot on the brake. I took a look through the binoculars and sure enough, Horned Larks. At one point I was close enough that I could see the yellow on their necks with my bare eyes. Sorry, no camera. I'm going to go ahead and make a prediction for the next four birds I will see. I'm thinking American Kestrel, Red-shouldered hawk, Eastern Phoebe, Sandhill Crane. Time will tell.

Running Tally for 2008
31 Snow Bunting
32 Horned Lark

I love Meet the Press

Here's meet the press showing Hillary doing the exact thing she criticized Obama for doing. What's more, she did it as part of the same debate in which she criticized him for it. I don't have a lot of patience for hypocrisy but I love when Meet the Press calls people on it by playing these types of clips. Too bad Hillary wasn't there to respond but even when people are there they usually just answer with more doublespeak.

Barred Owl and a Brown Creeper

Now that I'm at 30 birds for the year I'll probably have to wait until March to see new bird species. In the mean time. Here's some fun photos.

March 18th the barred owl once again showed up at the building right outside the classroom windows. We saw it almost pull a red squirrel off a tree trunk. The owl hung around about four hours so there were plenty of opportunities to get photos. Here's two.

Check out that camouflage!

Speaking of camouflage. Check out this small brown creeper. They have this fantastic camouflage that makes them very hard to see while they cling to a tree trunk like a nuthatch.
Right as I took this shot of the creeper, a downy woodpecker came in for a landing. Click for the full size image.


This third one is probably my favorite shot. The brown creeper was spooked and flew off when a downy woodpecker came to feed next to it. What a lucky shot!
~Kirk

30 birdies for the year

Thursday, February 7th I finally saw some mourning doves. They were sitting on the telephone line on County road 7.

Monday, February 11th I saw mallards in pair flights. I had seen flocks earlier this season but these were the first pair flights. I saw them on the way home over hwy 36. The bald eagles are also consistently at their nest on Keller lake now.

Tuesday, February 12th I went to the St, Croix Watershed Research Station for a strategic planning retreat for work. At lunch some of us walked down to the spring feed creek and ponds. We were hoping to see black ducks or snipe that are sometimes there but there were only mallards. We could hear the high pitched call notes of robins from the trees. Once we looked a little harder we spotted them in groups of three and four. A single male northern cardinal flew past us as we turned to go in. Those were my first robins and cardinals of the year so it was a pretty good little hike.

Saturday, February 16 I came into work for a morning snowshoe program and I took a stroll past windows to see what the feeders looked like. I could see a lot of birds from across the building so I knew it must be a busy morning. even before I was to the window I could see a bird sitting on a branch and my brain told me something wasn't right. That female American goldfinch looked funny. Suddenly it hit me. That's not a goldfinch at all. Look at the black under the beak and is that red on the head? It's a redpoll! That's a life lister for me. I ran for my binoculars and I had a camera on my desk so I snapped this photo. There were four or five redpolls mixed in with the goldfinches. Looking at the photos I'm sure these are common redpolls and not hoary redpolls. How do I know? This gets pretty nerdy.

I got this shot of a redpolls back. If you look at the right hand side you can see the white wing bar. The feathers above and slightly to the right of that white line are the scapulars. They are pretty hard to distinguish from the mantle or cape across the birds back in this photo. On a common redpoll the scapulars are dark while on a hoary redpoll they would look frosty or hoary. Happy now?

Here's a shot a male as he comes in for a landing at the feeder.


Since I had the camera in hand I snapped a few other photos. I got this fun one of a downy woodpecker flapping a wing. There were a number of them in the area.






I also took several shots where you can really see the golden mating colors of the male American Goldfinches coming in. I've been noting this for a few weeks already.







I'd already seen one in passing earlier but I also spotted a pair a Blue Jays that same morning. These birds get a bad rap because they can be a bit of a bully but I think they are one of the most gorgeous birds I have ever seen. They really are spectacular and if they lived somewhere more exotic I'm sure people would fawn over them and dream of the day they could see the hallowed Blue Jay. As is, people tend to ignore this beautiful resident of Minnesota.

Sunday the 17th I had some free time (a rare thing these days) and I decided to make the most of it by heading down to Black Dog Lake. I first stopped at the west outlet and there was a group of mallards and some other waterfowl that flew away when I arrived. I pushed on until there was open water on my right from the power plant discharge. I quickly pulled over when I saw a flotilla of birds. There really wasn't a good place to pull over but I quickly identified them as common mergansers. There were about 50 of them. I then moved on to the eastern outlet just before the power plant and as soon as I stepped out of my car I could hear bald eagles. I quickly spotted a pair of eagles in the top of some trees on the northern side of the road (actually across the pond). I couldn't see a nest anywhere.

I headed out onto the trail on the west side of the outlet and saw a small group of mallards. That appeared to be all there was. I decided to scan the water with my binoculars just to be sure. To my surprise, the water was full of hundreds of common mergansers further out. A rough count pin the number around 200. This was a separate group from the group of 50 I spotted earlier on the other side of the power plant. Leaving the area I saw more mallards in the small stream just east of 77 and then a strange hawk flew over my car and landed in a tree when I got to the top of the bluff. My best guess was an immature red-shouldered hawk. The breast was awfully white. I couldn't be sure and I soon realized I had pulled to the side of the road right next to a no parking sign. I had to move on. I hiked the trail on the other side of Black Dog but all I saw was the smaller group of mergansers but this time from the other side. A sign said that goldeneyes are common in the winter but I sure didn't see any. So, with the sighting of the common merganser's I'm officially at 30 birds for the year. Not too bad for mid-feburary.

26 Mourning Doves
27 American Robin
28 Northern Cardinal
29 Common Redpoll
30 Common Merganser

For your viewing pleasure . . .

This is one of the most fantastic things I have viewed in a long time. I just randomly stumbled upon it while looking for something else on YouTube.If you don't have the patience to watch the whole thing skip ahead to 2:20 that's when it gets especially choice.

Enjoy.

The view from my window . . .

This was the view out my cubicle window today at work. Notice anything interesting?
Look closer.

That's a barred owl. He (or she) is trying to blend in with the broken off branch on the oak tree. It didn't fool the chickadees who were quite unhappy about him being there. They chirped loudly and dive bombed him. He was there for a couple of hours and was still there when we left for the day. Can you find him in the wide view photo at the top?

~Kirk

Birds of 2008 (21-25)

Getting the first 20 birds of the year wasn't so bad. I knew though that getting 10 more by the end of February would be tough. There just aren't that many birds here and I don't have time to drive all over the state looking for birds when I have a three month old at home. Here's how it played out.

Friday, January 18th I came into work late as I was working an evening program. I stopped by the Stillwater Town Hall on the way in as my co-worker had spotted a rare Townsend's Solitaire there the day before. I didn't see anything but I learned later I was looking in not quite the right spot. I had a little time before I had to be at work so I did the drive around the Warner/Wilder acreage. I only found two species of birds and they were both in the same spot. I saw a flock of dark-eyed juncos and while watching them I noticed a red-tailed hawk sitting in the tree above them. I hadn't seen a junco yet this year so I was thinking my drive paid off. Turns out Juncos showed up at my house on Saturday and then Monday at work.

Monday the 21st I headed once again to Lake Elmo Park Reserve for a program. I saw three female pheasants, a junco, a white breasted nuthatch and a crow at the park. On my way back to the office I saw a couple of red-tailed hawks and crows. I slowed down as I approached Stillwater Town Hall knowing Paul had spotted the Townsend's Solitaire there and sure enough there was a lone bird up at the top of the trees. I pulled over and pulled out the Binoculars. It was the Solitaire! Tally Ho!

February 1st I started the month off right with a new species. I stopped on norell ave about a mile from work when I saw birds on the side of the road. I grabbed my binoculars and sure enough there were American Tree Sparrows. While stopped there I also saw a white breasted nuthatch, a black capped chickadee and juncos. A huge flock of pheasants also crossed in front of my car. There were a least a dozen of them. On my way to an outreach event around lunch I saw my first Blue Jay of the year in this same spot. I also again saw the Townsend Solitaire across from Stillwater Town hall on my way into and again on my way out of town.

Just as I was leaving for the program I heard one of the school groups had spotted a Barred Owl on one of the trails. I set out with my camera when I returned from the program and he was still there.

Sunday, February 3th I heard a Cardinal singing from my neighbor's yard but didn't see him. The lack of mature trees in my yard pretty much keeps most birds away. There are blue jays, cardinals and woodpeckers just across the alley but they don't dare come pay me a visit.

Wednesday, February 6th I was surprised when two Canada Geese flew over my car. I was especially surprised a I was on Hwy 94 right in the heart of Downtown. Never the less, that's bird number 25 for the year.

21 Slate-colored dark-eyed junco
22 Townsend's Solitaire
23 American Tree Sparrow
24 Blue Jay
25 Canada Goose

~Kirk

Morning Mallard

This morning at work a female mallard showed up right next to the building. This photo was taken through the window, that's how close she was. She appeared to have some frozen mud and ice on her bill so we were afraid she was sick. The nearest open water is about 5 miles away at the St. Croix River. When we approached her she flew a short distance, maybe 50 feet and quacked. We were then sure she could fly and her bill wasn't frozen as she quacked. . We're not sure if there is really any thing wrong with her but her behavior seems very odd. We hope she makes it to open water soon.

~Kirk