Birds And Beers Tonight
Where have the last seven days gone??
Anyhoo, Birds and Beers is tonight at Merlin's Rest at 6pm. If you're interested in birds, you are invited.
We can talk about all the red-breasted nuthatches showing up at bird feeders.
Here's a nice comparison to the larger white-breasted nuthatch.
I love this shot, I got on Sunday of a young purple finch and a winter plumaged goldfinch. A family group of purple finches just arrived to the yard. Speaking of migration, Mr. Neil had tons of birds flying over this weekend. I was planting some trillium bulbs and overhead I could hear flocks moving in and moving out: bluebirds, grackles with a few blackbirds mixed in, and then I heard the secretive "seep" around me in the bushes, as white-throated sparrows started working their way to the feeding station. Glad I bought a small bag of some millet and cracked corn for those guys. I always like to scatter that on the ground this time of year.
This young purple finch is just start to sport a hint of the raspberry red that will deck out his head and chest. I hope he stays the winter.
I'll also bring along the preview copy of Disapproving Rabbits. I was annoying just about anyone I came into contact with, showing it off yesterday. Mr. Neil gave me a quote for the book and I was so excited to see that it made it in!
Okay, I have to get to The Raptor Center and then at some point load up a REALLY cool bee entry--don't worry, no stings in this one.
Anyhoo, Birds and Beers is tonight at Merlin's Rest at 6pm. If you're interested in birds, you are invited.
We can talk about all the red-breasted nuthatches showing up at bird feeders.
Here's a nice comparison to the larger white-breasted nuthatch.
I love this shot, I got on Sunday of a young purple finch and a winter plumaged goldfinch. A family group of purple finches just arrived to the yard. Speaking of migration, Mr. Neil had tons of birds flying over this weekend. I was planting some trillium bulbs and overhead I could hear flocks moving in and moving out: bluebirds, grackles with a few blackbirds mixed in, and then I heard the secretive "seep" around me in the bushes, as white-throated sparrows started working their way to the feeding station. Glad I bought a small bag of some millet and cracked corn for those guys. I always like to scatter that on the ground this time of year.
This young purple finch is just start to sport a hint of the raspberry red that will deck out his head and chest. I hope he stays the winter.
I'll also bring along the preview copy of Disapproving Rabbits. I was annoying just about anyone I came into contact with, showing it off yesterday. Mr. Neil gave me a quote for the book and I was so excited to see that it made it in! Okay, I have to get to The Raptor Center and then at some point load up a REALLY cool bee entry--don't worry, no stings in this one.
Labels: Birds and Beers
posted by birdchick at 7:47 AM
5 Comments:
Oh to live in Minnesota...
I'm so pumped about the book! Niblet is very excited as well; he's hoping to use the book as a primer, to learn lots of new ways to disapprove! Of course, he'll also try to nibble the pages....
Cinnamon must approve of her own book!
Re: whooping cranes -- This isn't really a comment, but I can't figure out any other way to communicate. Your whooping crane piece, which got me here, is too far back.
My brother and I are not formal birders, but we come from a family of naturalists and we keep our eyes open.
Driving from Minneapolis to Fergus Falls last Thursday, we saw a dozen or more large birds in the air over the highway. As we got closer, I saw they were white and thought "snow geese." But their bodies weren't fat like snow geese. They were narrow instead, and both of us said "cranes" at the same time.
They had the black wing tips common to both species, but I caught sight of a laggard coming off a corn field on my side of the car. It was closer and confirmed my thought that we weren't seen snow geese, but some kind of crane.
We don't know cranes. Egrets and herons, yes, cranes no. So I googled cranes that night, saw that it wasn't a sandhill, then found whooping crane, recognized it, and then was surprised to find that it is quite rare and -- other than the sighting you noted in 2006 -- not often seen in Minnesota.
The birds we saw were somewhere beyond Albany but well before we got to Fergus Falls.
Maybe you can spread the word. I'd be interested in knowing if anyone else saw them.
Dave Ransom
dransom391@aol.com
As far as contacting me, there's a link on my homepage that reads "contact" if you click on that, you can email me directly.
But as for whooping cranes go, you are right that they are quite rare in Minnesota and when they have shown up, it's been one or two not a flock. Apart from the flocks that follow the ultra light plane from southern Wisconsin in fall, I don't think there is a flock that's larger than 8 birds during migration.
I wonder if the birds you saw were American white pelicans? They can look very similar to whooping cranes in flight. We have quite a few migrating south through Minnesota right now and they are very noticeable with their large white bodies and black wing tips. They will circle around in thermals like hawks and eagles do and then form lines and glide to the next thermal.
Lat night we had banana pudding decorated with Annie's chocolate bunny grahams in celebration of your ISBN #.
Did you feel the love?
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