Wishin' for a Dickcissel

Today is my wedding anniversary so first Non Birding Bill and I did KARE 11 and then spent the day meandering around Uptown. Our schedules are so active that it's a treat just to have a day to not do anything in particular. He was very thoughtful and got me a Bent Book, and my collection is almost complete. I don't know what I will get for holidays once I have the complete Bent Life Histories of North American Birds.

I did break away late this afternoon because I had a hankerin' to see a dickcissel. I headed towards the Empire Substation in Dakota Co and found the usual suspects:

Clay-colored sparrows
Western meadowlarks
Eastern meadowlarks
Chipping sparrows
Brown thrashers
American kestrels
Red-tailed hawk
Eastern kingbird
But no dickcissel!

I lolligagged for an hour and then got back in the car. As I drove back I noticed a sparrow in a tree. I stopped the car, checked the rear view and reversed. There in all its glory was a dickcissel, singing his heart out and even posed for quick digiscope with my binoculars:



The KARE 11 today segment was the big reveal of the backyard makeover contest. For those that don't know, we had a contest where people could write in an essay of 100 words or less on why they need a backyard birdfeeder makeover. The winner got a makeover of up to $1000 worth of product. We put in to separate poles with multiple feeders and even erected a wood duck house. Even with all that was put up we didn't quite get to $1000 so I gave her the remainder as a gift certificate. I know she wants a heated bird bath and we don't really have too many in stock at the moment so I figure she can come in this fall and pick one out with her remaining winnings.

Great birds were all over her yard. We did a live shot from the winner's backyard and we even brought Cinnamon (one of my disapproving rabbits) along for fun. The winner's daughter has been in my store and loves that bunny. Cinnamon was surprisingly relaxed with the kid, which is unusual. But this girls seemed to have a way with animals. As we set up the shot orioles, downy woodpecker and goldfinches showed up right away. Five minutes before the segment, a broad-winged hawk cut low across the yard. Bill was a tad concerned for Cinnamon's safety but I reassured everyone that the hawk's flight path was after something in another direction and that Cinnamon is too huge for any raptor to pick her up...except maybe a harpy eagle but we shouldn't see any of those loose in Minnesota. Here's some of the feeders we set up:


Note the oriole on the orange recycled feeder in the center.

The winner had just purchased her home and gave us a quick tour. She hadn't furnished her home yet (this is a woman after my own heart, she just moved into a home and what's the first thing she gets done? Not furniture, not painting but installing bird feeders and gardens). Anyway, her home came with the coolest ceiling lamp ever!


If I had room in my apartment, I would have offered to buy the lamp off of her, but I think her kids liked it too much anyway. Plus, bringing home a giant chicken lamp might not be to Non Birding Bill's taste.

Great Blue Heron Tootsies

Today was actually a nice weather day in Minnesota. When Non Birding Bill and I woke up it was pouring rain (again) but we met with Amber and Reier for breakfast and headed out for the day. We were shooting scenes for our first (insert trumpets) video segment for Birdzilla today! Whoo Hoo.

We were out filming a bald eagle nest on hwy 36 and 61 in Keller Regional Park. While there we found a black-crowned night heron (not the rarest bird on the block, but not one you see every day either). Amber and Reier took us to Lock and Dam Number 1 to check out the peregrine nest box which was very cool however we all got distracted by great blue herons. Yes, I know it's hard to believe we had nature's fastest and most perfect killing machine nesting mere yards from us and we got fascinated by heron feet. We were up high and able to look straight down on the great blue herons and see their feet. I've never really had a chance to appreciate them on this level before. Is this a new fetish for me? Who can say? Anyway, I digi-scoped them with my binoculars:


"That's right ladies, you know what big feet mean."


"Big branches."

There are worst woodpecker problems to have: pileated woodpecker

I frequently get asked what to do about woodpeckers pecking on houses, and how to keep birds from fighting their reflections in windows (short answer: nothing easy). This email showed up on Birdchat and is just a reminder that if a bird is giving you a minor irritation, it really could be a lot worse:

Subject: pileated attacks outside rear view mirrors


Just recently a reader of my bird column told me about a pileated
woodpecker that has been attacking his reflection in the outside rear
view mirrors of cars parked in the driveways of a group of houses in
a forested area near Syracuse, NY.

When this bird hits these adjustable mirrors the thin glass breaks.
So far this spring 18 mirrors have had to be replaced. Last year just
under 30 mirrors were destroyed and 2 garage and barn windows have
been broken. The bird also lit on the cab roof of a new red pick-up
and pounded a dent in that roof. The local garage that replaces
automobile windows and glass has done most of the repair.

Question: While many songbirds attack their reflection in windows in
homes and or in car rear view mirrors, those birds are not able to
hit the glass with enough force to break it. Over the 50 years I
have been writing this column, I have had many reports of birds
attacking their reflections in windows, mirrors, hubcaps, but never
before has it involved a pileated woodpecker.

Do any readers of BIRDCHAT know of other pileated woodpeckers that
have done this or is this a unique occurrence? I suspect it is one
particular woodpecker , but how did he happen to spot his image in a
car, rear view mirror? These birds generally are wary and only
sometimes seen close to our homes so it seems unlikely that he would
ever be around an automobile in the first place.

Benjamin P. Burtt
bpburtt@usadatanet.net
> Professor of Chemistry Emeritus

Eddie Albert was a Good Egg

Eddie Albert has died and while reading article about him in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, I came across some interesting factoids about his life. Who knew he was such an environmentalist and not just a guy who was part of one of those great tv songs you can't out of your head (Green Acres for wee ones who ready this blog and don't know the wacky comedies that can ensue when a rural farmer marries a hot Hungarian woman who prefers the city and luxury yet brings her to a podunk town for a simple life on the farm). Anyway, here's snippit of the article:

In the late 1960s, Albert's attention turned to ecology. He did extensive reading on the subject as well as talking to experts in the field.

In 1969, he accompanied a molecular biologist from the University of California, Berkeley, to Anacapa Island off the California coast to observe the nesting of pelicans. What they found were thousands of collapsed pelican eggs.

"The run-off of DDT had been consumed by the fish, the fish had been eaten by the pelicans, whose metabolism had in turn been disturbed so that the lady pelican could no longer manufacture a sturdy shell," Albert told TV Guide in 1970. After learning more about the effects of the pesticide, he said, "I stopped being a conservationist.... I became terrified. The more I studied, the more terrified I got."

Sharing his ecological concerns on the "Tonight" and "Today" shows, he became, in the words of a TV Guide reporter, "a kind of ecological Paul Revere." The TV appearances led to speaking engagement requests from high schools, universities, and industrial and religious groups.

Albert formed a new company to produce films to aid in "international campaigns against environmental pollution."

Home for the actor-activist was an unpretentious Spanish-style house on an acre of land in Pacific Palisades, where Albert turned the front yard into a cornfield. He also installed a giant greenhouse in the back yard, where he grew organic vegetables.

In 1963, he served as special world envoy for Meals for Millions, a philanthropic project providing nutritious, low-cost meals to the underprivileged around the world. He helped launch the first Earth Day on April 22, which was his birthday, in 1970, and served as a special consultant at the World Hunger Conference in Rome in 1974.

Somebody got a merganser

Tammy Wolfe has been sending me great updates about her wood duck and blue bird boxes. She even managed to get a great photo of a hooded merganser chick popping out of the box (I am pea green with envy):



"Banzai!"

She also had quite the adventure this morning trying to get more photos of young chicks coming out of a wood duck box. It made me chuckle because who of us out there haven't had the exact same thing happen to us?

This morning I got up at 5:30 am to check to see if the hooded mergansers were still in the duck box. I waded through the chest-high murky water to the box, set up the ladder, clicked the button to take a photo, and then realized that I had forgotten to put a memory card in my digital camera and had to head back to the house. When I got back to the box, I was pleasantly surprised that the babies were still in it. So, I headed back to the house for my tripod, camera and zoom lens. As I was getting set up, the female returned. I tried to hide in the tall grass and brush, but decided to go back to the house again to get my blind. After setting it up, I had to wait about 20 minutes. There was a wood duck family in the area and then some squabbling geese. Once they left, she began to call them. When we put up this box three years ago, we didn't base it on where the best photo op would be. Therefore, my memories are better than my photos. It was a pleasure to watch 10 babies jump out of the box on a beautiful, sunny morning around 7 am.

Minnesota Osprey News

Word on the street (or another way to put it, my friend Carrol Henderson at MN DNR told me) that there was a formal survey of osprey nests in Minnesota this spring. Here's the scoop:

I thought you would like to know that Pam Perry, the DNR Nongame Wildlife Program Specialist from Brainerd, has completed tallying the data for the 2004 statewide osprey survey and came up with 608 nesting pairs. She has distribution maps and an interesting summary of all of the typical and incredibly nontypical structures on which the ospreys nest. This is the first time we have done such a survey so we can not speculate if this represents an increase or decrease in osprey numbers. Best wishes, Carrol

I feel like I see more osprey in the state but that's not always conclusive. One of my favorite things about working at the Wayzata bird store is that we typically see osprey fly over the store and they are carrying large goldfish. I'm pretty sure the fish are from the ponds at the Carlson Center. Although, last summer I was out doing a bird walk behind the store and an osprey flew over with what looked to be a koi worth at least $350. Gotta' be careful about teaching your koi to swim up when you tap the surface of the water. It makes fishing all the easier for osprey, herons, egrets and raccoons.

Nest Extravaganza

I got my National Geographic in the mail today. It's getting to be less and less the cool magazine about faraway places, cultures and animals and more like People Magazine with each issue. It claims to have an article about the face of King Tut, but the king bears a striking resemblance to a bald Barbara Streisand. What happened?

A couple of weeks ago Denny found a teal nest near one of our swallow houses behind the bird store. I went out and found it right away but have been unable to relocate it ever since. Since raccoons will sometimes follow trails with a human scent because we often lead to food for them, I feared that a raccoon inspecting our swallow trail had found the teal nest and eaten the eggs. However, today while dodging swallows I flushed the female and about gave myself a heart attack.


Can you find the blue-winged teal nest in this photo? It's right there, right in front of you. Here's a better view:


Now can you see it? I placed a thin stick near the nest to make it easier to find. On the off chance you can't, look at the dark upright stick in the center of the photo and look a little to the right, see the eggs? If you still can't see the eggs then this blue-winged teal hen has done her job well and below is a view of the nest.


This busy little hen has 12 eggs. I'm still surprised with how close this is to one of our swallow nest boxes, especially since we check the swallow boxes so often. This is what Amber and I call a well informed decision, she knew we came to the boxes a few times a week. Plus, you can't flush her until you're about to step on her, so she must be well used to us. Last year, the teal hen that had a nest behind the store would flush if you were twenty feet away. This one is much more sensible...or foolhardy.

Meanwhile the tree swallows have eggs in all four of our bluebird boxes. I just realized that our wood duck box had hooded mergansers in it and our bluebird boxes are full of swallows. Don't birds read the labels anymore?


One of the tree swallows tried to poke my eye out...cool!

An FYI from the BBC

Eagle Alaska escapes bird display

Police are warning people not to approach a bald eagle that escaped during a display at the weekend.

The 14-year-old bird named Alaska flew off at around lunchtime on Sunday, during a display at Eagle Heights Bird of Prey Centre in Dartford, Kent.

Alaska has a massive wing span of around two metres and although her owners describe her as "friendly" she could pose a threat if confronted.

It's the fifth time Alaska has escaped but she's always been found safe. (Birdchick comment: If this is the fifth time Alaska has escaped, I think someone needs question whether or not this facility should house these birds, or any birds for that matter.)

The 4.5 kg bird of prey has lived at the centre since she was six months old and her owner Alain Aimes says he is desperate to get her back.

"In the wind she was able to go up a couple of thousand feet," he said. "That's normal, but this time she did not return. She just took off."

Experts say Alaska could have flown as far as north-east London, Essex or Suffolk.

Merganser Hatching

Warning:

At the end of this entry is kind of a gross photo, if you are queasy about innards you might want to avoid scrolling too far down. It will be the sixth photo and I will give one more warning before we get there.

For those interested a certain Mr. N___ had a house full of naked chicks on Thursday:


These are freshly hatched black-capped chickadees in Mr. N___'s Gilbertson Bluebird Box. Believe it or not, in about 16 days these guys will be flitting around and learning the ropes at a bird feeder.

On to mergansers. First the bummer news. I spent quite a bit of time adjusting the NovaBird Camera to get the just the right angle to catch the merganser chicks coming out of the box. Alas, I failed notice the tiny branch in the lens's field of view and ended up with 333 photos of a tiny branch going from left to right. Ah well, win some lose some.

When I heard the female in the box giving her low barks, I stuck the digital camera inside the box and found this:


In my screen on my camera I noticed what looked like an extra bulge from her body. Between that and the barking, I knew the birds were hatching. Later when she left the box, I stuck the camera in and saw that hatching was well underway:


At this point, three of the eleven eggs were hatched with two more poking out. Since the hen was out, I opened the side to get a better view, at first the temptation was too much not to pick one up--they were so cute, however the aroma of warm, damp, fish eating birds made me think better of it.


"Lady, get that camera out of my face. I just hatched, I'm tired and I stink."

Interesting to note, that they were able to raise their down on their heads like little hackles.
When I checked the box this morning, the hen and chicks were gone. All but one of the eggs had hatched. Just a reminder, the photo after this one, is the gross photo.


All of the hard shell bits of egg were gone and only the inner shell membranes were left. I wonder if the female ate them if the chicks at them as their first sustenance. I shall have to research that. Warning, the next photo is the gross photo.

I have always been curious about eggs that don't open and what's on the inside and I never have opened one. When confronted with this one, I gave it some thought all day. What was a I afraid of? The smell of a rotten egg? After spending the day being barfed on by pelicans and cormorants last summer fear of bad aromas was no longer an issue. What could be causing my hesitation? The idea that I would open the egg and find a malformed zombie bird chick that would want to eat my brains? Yep, that was it. So I decided that after work tonight, I would open the egg. There was a hard outer shell and a tough inner shell. As I slowly opened it I half expected it to come alive in my hands a la Frankenstien, but it never did. Here are the contents:


The chick was mostly formed except that it hadn't absorbed the yolk sac (the bright orange thing with all the veins attached to the abdomen. At The Raptor Center we sometimes feed the birds day old chicks (that are already dead). We always have to take out the intestines before we do and when you cut open the chicks you see the yolk sac. I wonder if this was the last egg that was laid and didn't get the complete incubation or if it was addled some how in the last few days killing the chick inside. I was amazed with how large the webbed feet were in relation to the whole body. You can see the claws at the end of each toe to aid in climbing out of the nest box.

It's a bummer that this chick didn't survive to hatching, but on the upside ten chicks did. Birds play the odds during the breeding season. 75% of the birds hatched this spring, won't make it to next spring.

Ivory-billed Woodpecker Haircut?

Here's an interesting article about some of the planned wildlife tourism regarding the ivory-billed woodpecker. I'm curious to see what's going to happen with some of the nearby towns and will people actually see the bird. I'm a little perplexed about the woodpecker haircut being offered during a bird festival in the area this weekend. From the description it sounds like a red mohawk with black and white stripes. I seriously doubt birders will go for this. I mean, I applaud the beauty shop owner for coming up the idea and let's face it, birders have a geeky image, but so few of us go for outlandish hair styles (at least not on purpose).

I'm a Door Knob

I left my digital camera at work so all the cute photos I got of hatching mergansers are sitting safely in the digital camera on my desk (doh). I did remeber to bring home the video camera and Non Birding Bill was able to capture a still of the young mergansers:


Cute, freshly hatched hooded merganser chicks...that smell like stinky fish.

What was interesting was that this morning when I went to check the box, I heard some rustling and worried the hen would bolt I froze. I suddenly heard low, gutteral sounds. I recognized it from all the birding cds we listen to in the store. It was the hen, and I had read somewhere that hen ducks will make noise right before and during hatching so the chicks will recognize the call. When the female leaves the box, she will make the sound in the water to get the chicks to follow.

I checked the box at 11am and found two hatched and two more eggs with holes. Further reading revealed that when hooded merganser eggs hatch, the whole clutch usually hatches within four hours. The above photo was taken at about 2:30pm, towards the end of the process.

More photos will be posted tomorrow as well as a tasteless baby chickadee one liner.

HATCHING!

The hooded mergansers are hatching at the store!! I took some photos inside the box and will put those up tonight and have set up the NovaBird camera. Hopefully there is enough battery juice left.

Carrol Henderson on MPR

My good friend Carrol Henderson was on MPR this morning which missed, but you can hear it and read it on the MPR Website--there are even photos. He gave this program at the MOU Paper Session in 2004 and it's just facinating, it's about oology or all the egg collecting that happened in the early 1900s. Though we now look back and think "my word, how barbaric!" at the time it was not only a hobby but valuable scientific research. Makes me wonder about what we do today, like maybe bird banding that in 100 years will be considered barbaric. Anyway it's a great program and for a bird speaker, Carrol is very engaging so I can't recommend listening to it enough.

70 Bird Day

Today was a great noisy bird day. The woods that were so quiet three weeks ago were alive with sound. Rose-breasted grosbeaks were trying to sing above Nashville, Tennessee and yellow warblers. Yellow-throated and red-eyed vireos were lurking in the tops of the trees with one scarlet tanager following behind. Oddly enough there was blue-winged warbler that just seemed to be following me around and at one point I found a lone male turkey strutting alone on the top of a hill who flew off as soon as it realized I was watching. He was all puffed up in his glory and kind of froze when he found me as if he were thinking, "Oh crap, I'm being watched!'

I ended up seeing over 70 species and the highlights include a sandhill crane pair feeding along a road in farm field, a flock of male bobolinks competing with each other and of course an indigo bunting feeding below the finch feeders.

The Nova Bird camera got a workout today:


A black-capped chickadee hangs upside down to get some no-melt peanut butter suet. The orioles were will all over this as well today.


A male hairy loads up on some no melt peanut butter suet on a log. He kept coming up and stuffing his beak full and suspect there are already some young hairys in a hole somewhere nearby.


The ruby-throated hummingbird male found a quiet moment without orioles at the feeder. I really don't care for hummingbird art but I'm always excited about them in real life. How can that be a bird and not a bug!! It baffles my little budgie mind.


The orioles were either eating or chasing each other today. This time of year you just can't seem to put out enough grape jelly. There's a huge recycled orange jelly feeder just to the left of this feeder and it was occupied.

Oriole Got a Hummer

Put the camera on a Mini Humzinger this morning (which is one of my favorite hummingbird feeders--they are easy to fill and to clean and they don't drip, I really dislike fancy hummingbird feeders that drip). Anyway, I filled the ant moat with some grape jelly and mealworms and of course the orioles have found it so now we have one of the sissiest bird fights going on.

A beautiful oriole descends to the feeder to eat and in zooms the cute little hummingbird twittering angrily for it to leave, the oriole tries to whistle it away to no avail. This contest isn't very macho let me tell ya. Kind of like watching Liberace and Tiny Tim in a fight.

Baby Goosen

So there has been a baby Canada (not Canadian) goose 'splosion behind the store. Of course, I thought to myself, "What kind of mischief could I get in with a scoop of corn and the Nova Bird camera?" Here's the results:









Now, I'm off to a certain Mr. N____'s house for more techno birding fun and possibly another tit sighting.

More fun with the camera

I set up the Nova Bird camera at our store's oriole feeder today. It was tad windy so I have lots of shots of the feeder swaying back and forth so I need to remember to adjust the number of shots when it's windy. I did manage to get a couple of oriole shots:





This feeder is new, it's made of recycled plastic and has two dishes for grape jelly and mealworms. It also holds two orange halves. I like it because recycled plastic lasts for a long time and the color really gets the orioles' attention. The roof keeps the jelly from turning to soup. It's been our most popular oriole feeder at the store too. It's odd, when I saw it at Bird Watch America last January, I thought it was a neat idea, but I had no clue that it would be so popular a feeder this year.

I also checked on our hooded merganser nest:


According to A Guide to the Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds by Paul Baicich and Colin J. O. Harrison hooded mergansers incubate for 31 days. I believe this bird started to incubate on April 20 so May 21 should be hatch day. I'm working at the store Friday, Saturday and Sunday so I should be able to see it. For safe measure, I'm going to try and set up the Nova Bird Camera on Friday so hopefully that will catch the chicks jumping out.

My blue tit

Here is a still from the video I took:


Caught on tape--a blue tit gone wild. A special thanks to Sam Crowe of Birdzilla who loaned me a video camera for some segments. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to prove that I wasn't making up a bird.

I found a blue tit!

So, today at my friend's house I was testing out oodles of bird feeder cameras and recording birds for my birdzilla.com segments. At one point I walked past the window and noticed what looked like a blue and yellow chickadee with a white eyebrow on a peanut feeder. I immeadiately thought "british tit" but it was so unlikely that I didn't say it out loud. Instead I yelled for Bill to get the camera while I rushed around to get a video camera. I got a few seconds recorded and it was in fact a blue tit.

The really wierd part about this is that the guy whose house I was staying in is British. I don't think he fully understood how really, really wierd and unlikely this was since he grew up with blue tits and I almost for a second thought, "did someone release this bird to get my goat?"

A quick call to someone from the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union revealed that the chances that this bird actually flew across the Atlantic here are slim to nil and that chances are high this bird is likely the result of a released cage bird but should be documented non the less. I'm going to see if I can get a frame of the blue tit off of the video and post it to the site.

Birdchick's new Toy!

So, I've been testing out a new toy today and I LOVE it! It's a motion sensitive camera that you can set up at your bird feeder created by a company called Nova Bird. I've just started playing with it this afternoon and have had some fun results:

Rainbow of Birds

Last night I met Garrison Keillor and told him how much I appreciated that his bird references were always accurate on his radio show. He looked at me strangely. I don't think he got how huge a compliment that is from a birder and how hungry we are for more accurate birds in movies and radio. Ah well.

The birding has been just too easy. I don't need to go for a walk, but just sit at the kitchen table and watch. I've been sipping coffee and digi scoping images with my camera and Vortex binoculars.



Can you stand it? Right outside the window a male indigo bunting and a male goldfinch eating side by side. A feast for the eyes! This is just too weird, birding is not supposed to be this easy.



Here are two male rose-breasted grosbeaks. At one point five males and one female all came down on the whole feeding station. It must have been a migratory flock, because they were fairly tolerant of each other.


Here is a male Baltimore oriole and a female downy woodpecker. The weather is so chilly and damp that orioles are heading to suet feeders for extra protein. There was an amply filled grape jelly and orange feeder nearby, but this guy wanted the suet. By the way, if you are curious as to what the best suet is, it's this stuff called No Melt Peanut Butter Suet Plug. It was originally made to go into suet logs but the company recently started making it in tub form. It won't melt even if it's 100 degrees out and the birds absolutely love it.


Okay, she may not be the prettiest bird on the planet, but she sure is cute. This is a female rose-breasted grosbeak. I was surprised to see one feeding off of this clinging style feeder, but after migrating thousands of miles you perch anywhere for a good bite to eat.

Breakfast Birds

I'm spending the weekend at a friend's place in Wisconsin. They get the best birds. This morning over breakfast I saw the following:

Blue-winged warbler
Rose-breasted grosbeaks
Baltimore orioles
White-crowned sparrows
Ruby-thoated hummingbirds
Goldfinches
Pine siskins
Red-breasted nuthatches
White-breasted nuthatches
Black-capped chickadees
Chipping sparrows
House Finches
Hairy Woodpeckers
Downy Woodpeckers
Red-bellied Woodpeckers
Gray catbird
House wren
Crows

Not an ugly bird in the bunch! I love birding over coffee in my pajamas!

I have all kinds of fun things to test out. Cameras and recording equipment mostly. I'm carrying so much stuff I'm practically getting a workout while birding.

Where does the time go???

Here is a young gadwall chick that is currently at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota. I love how they use feather dusters for the chicks to snuggle up to in lew of a hen.

Boy, migration has hit and I am having a tough time keeping up. Monday I tried to do some birding and filming in Dakota Co and kept getting distracted. It started with an injured Canada goose that I found on hwy 55 that I picked up and drove to the WRC. The goose unfortunately didn't survive but at least it was off the road. While at the WRC Tami was kind enough to give me a brief tour. They had a duckling that didn't look like the mallard ducklings that were there already. Turned out they had a gadwall. They are already innundated with young squirrels and rabbits (most of which didn't need to be there). The avian nursery was very quiet, they only had in a few species which included house finches, robin, rock doves and house sparrows. I kind of miss my volunteer days there, but alas do not have time to help out this summer. If you are looking for a fun summer volunteer project, I can't recommend the avian nursery at the WRC enough. It's only 4 hours once a week and each week is a surprise. You never know what species will end up in there and it's fun to have the chance to feed live mealworm so young woodpeckers. Of course you end up having to take care of grackles and the like as well but it's still fun to watch them grow.

Brown Bird Excitement!

Migration and hormones have really kicked in! All hell broke loose today on the wetland behind the store. Female red-winged blackbirds had landed and the males who had so far been peaceably hanging together in the cottonwoods were chasing each other like crazy. After I closed the store, I went for a walk and twice was almost rammed by a couple of male red-winged blackbirds duking it out over territory.

Sparrows are really pouring in! Saturday I had to work a booth at the MN Landscape Arboretum but before I headed out, I stopped and picked up a few things at the store. Right away I found three Harris' sparrows, a Lincoln's sparrow and Savannah sparrow under the feeders. At the Arboretum, white-throated sparrows were everywhere in the gardens.


This particular male was so accommodating I was able to digiscope him with my binoculars. He was so accommodating it made me worried--was he ill or just spying on me? Or was he just tired from a long night's journey?

The trend of exciting brown birds continued at the store this morning. As a clay-colored sparrow was mixed in with our chipping sparrows. I digi-scoped a photo of that, but it wasn't nearly as exciting since i took it through the back door window and it's VERY dirty.


That's a chipping sparrow with the rusty cap and that's a clay colored sparrow on the right. They are feeding on a combination of white millet, cracked corn, and a finch mix that has thistle, sunflower chips, flax, canary seed, canola seed and German and Siberian millets.

I'm not just favoring the brown birds, I was also excited to have Tennessee warblers, yellow warblers and one northern parula outside our apartment this morning.

My binoculars are supposed to be great a close focusing so I tested them out at the Arboretum. I guess the next thing for birders to be interested in are butterflies but I can never find frogs when they singing in spring. Now, I know why--they are teeny tiny! I sat by a pond with chirping chorus frogs and after scanning with the binos at about four feet, I found one, I even saw it's little throat bubble up. Not long after that, I heard a very tired sounding tree frog and went to look for it and sure enough I found it as well. I tried digi-scoping the frogs, but found that I wasn't as successful with the closer focus. It did manage a souvenir photo of the tree frog:



On a final note I have to say that happiness is coming home from a hard day's work and finding a freshly baked cake on the kitchen table that your husband made for you because you had been craving it like crazy for the last two days.

Birding Dakota County

I headed down to Dakota County and stopped at one of my favorite spots, the Empire Substation. While there a male kestrel (digi-scoped above with my Vortex binos) did a food pass with a female.

The substation is an interesting place. For those who watch anime and have seen "Lain" this area reminds you of that series because of the constant hum of the electrical wires. Besides being an eerie electronic place, it's great for sparrows and I must say that there was a butt load of clay-colored sparrows in. They were all trying to claim top perches and sing their buzzy little song. Another fun aspect of this spot is that you can hear both eastern and western meadowlarks singing at the same time.

For those interested in going from the Twin Cities, take hwy 52 south into Dakota Co. Turn right onto 200th street. Take 200th to Clayton and turn left. As soon as you turn left stop at the clump of trees on the right, this is a great spot for indigo buntings (didn't see any today but it's still a little early). I did find palm, yellow-rumped, Nashville and black-throated green warblers here today. Take Clayton to where it "T's" off and you will go right. This will be 210th street and it will turn into a gravel road. Drive until you see the chain link fenced area in a farm field on your right and that's the substation. It's a great spot for birding by ear.

Other birds found in Dakota Co today include:
Lincoln's sparrow
solitary sandpiper
blue-winged teal
Swainson's hawk
blue-gray gnatcatchers
eastern bluebirds
brown thrashers
turkey
chimney swifts
and a surprise mammal: red fox

I spoke with Gordon at Adventure, the calendars are being printed at this very moment. I can't wait until they are here!!

Another Nest

Denny checked the birds behind the store today and flushed a female blue-winged teal. Her nest is mere feet from one of the swallow nest boxes:


She has six eggs. I went out immeadiately after Denny told me about the nest and found it. Since she was still off I was able to snap a photo. When I went to check the nest that evening with Melissa and Lori we were not able to relocate it. She has done an excellent job of keeping it hidden.

This means we have the following known nests around the bird store:
4 - tree swallow
1 - hooded merganser
1 - black-capped chickadee
1 - house finch
1 - blue-winged teal

Frank Taylor Article

An article about one of my favorite people, Frank Taylor is in the Rake! Nice to see him getting some recognition.

Oops

We went to Neil's this weekend. He has a chickadee nesting in his bluebird box and I discovered that a kink in the finch feeder I put together for him. I put the top half right side up and the bottom half I put in upside down. Fortunately, finches can improvise:


Note the two goldfinches hanging upside down to eat. Also, on the top right hand side there are two pine siskins feeding that haven't migrated yet.

Too darn cold for some nesting

I checked all our swallow boxes on Saturday and discovered two very interesting things. One, all off the boxes on our trail have a nest inside them. Two, all the swallows are gone! I think a couple of things are happening. It's been so cold that there aren't substantial insects out at the moment so the swallows have either gone to bodies of water looking for insects or have just backtracked south. I think that since some swallows left, others who stayed behind tried to take advantage of the situation by taking over territories not occupied by the original pairs and setting up nests in empty boxes.

The weather is supposed to warm up tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see what happens Saturday in the swallow boxes. I bet there will be some heavy duty territory battles.

The chickadees are still adding nest material to the hole in the wall and the hooded merganser is incubating away. The house finches are flourishing:


Isn't that a lovely ring of poo surrounding the nest? All five eggs appear to have hatched and survived this cold weather. The male has been bringing lots of food and the female has been brooding them quiet a bit to keep them warm. Although now that they young are fully feathered, they should be able to keep warm on their own. They should fledge Tuesday or Wednesday. I hope Wednesday, it should be warmer.

Ugly Birds Get Blamed for Overfishing

Sharp shooters to kill 4,000 cormorants suspected to be eating all the walleye in Leech Lake.

This is so emarassing that this is happening in my state. Walleye populations are down on Leech Lake so last summer the DNR killed about 500 cormorants to see if they were eating the walleye. When they checked the birds' stomach contents they found mostly perch and came to the natural conclusion that since the birds ate all the walleye, they are now only able to eat perch. Never mind that we had a similar situation here years ago on Red Lake and after all the studies the true culprit ended up being commercail overfishing. Grrr. It's just because these birds are ugly that no one is stepping up and saying, "Hey, this logic makes no sense. Here's an idea, let's maybe not fish from this lake so much over the next five years."

Owlet Cuteness

The baby owls at the Xcel Energy site are so full of owly cuteness. It's hard to imagine them as nature's perfect killing machines.


Don't you just want to curl up with them????