Crow Roost #BirdADay

Last night I went with some friends to see The Jerk at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis. As we cruised down Hwy 35W in the darkness near the Wells Fargo complex, my brain registered leaves on the trees in the darkness. Then I realized…it was the crow roost.

We didn’t stop for pictures. I thought about it on the drive back, but when we were heading north the crows were whirling in the sky, something startled them. I wondered if it was one of the many great horned owls in the metro area.

Crow roost on a night they slept on the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis.

Crow roost photo from when they were in downtown Minneapolis three winters ago. Taken with Swarovski ATX 95mm scope, PhoneSkope case and I think this was an 6s.

Even though I didn’t get pictures last night, I still have quite a few pictures of the Minneapolis Crow Roost that I’ve taken over the years. On overcast nights, they can look very cool, especially with the city lights behind him. Birds are few and far between in the northern states, so a spectacle of thousands of crows can make for some interesting birding.

Crow with the city lights behind it.

I’m not sure every day is going to warrant an actual blog post for my #BirdADay personal challenge but the birds will for sure end up daily on my Instagram. I have one post that I was ruminating on for this month that has three birds and all three qualify as a #BirdADay. I may post them and them corral them into a blog post because that was such a fun birding day.

Another challenge I have is trying to figure out what to do with some of the cool photos and videos I have that aren’t birds. I have some really interesting swallowtail footage. Ah well, I’ll figure it out. Maybe that will be a #NotABirdADay

Anyway, thank you for following along on my little Bird A Day personal challenge for the new year.

Bird A Day: Pauraque or When the Bullseye is Gone

#BirdADay is my attempt to get back into my archives and finally write about birds that have been collecting dust in my archives. I’m resetting my life right now and birding always bring me there and I’m going to try and post a bird either here or on my social medias every day in 2020.

If you’ve ever met me, you know that the Rio Grande Valley is my favorite place to escape to go birding. I’m hard pressed to ever get a lifer there, but I figure the day I get tired of seeing a green jay is the day I’m done with birding.

Estero Llano Grande is my favorite park in Texas.

Whenever I go to Texas, my first stop is generally Estero Llano Grande State Park (if not a stop for gas station tacos at a Stripes gas station—trust me, they’re great). This park is a balm to me in so many ways—whistling-ducks, buff-bellied hummingbirds, green jays, kiskadees—and those are the low hanging fruit. Green kingfishers, rose-throated becards and clay-colored thrushes are possibilities.

Common Pauraques are in the goatsucker/nightjar family. They can hide in plain sight during the day and fly around at night catching insects.

One of the “bullseye” birds is the pauraque. It is known that if you go down the Alligator Lake Trail (here’s a post I did from 2010 about this exact spot) and look for sticks piled to the left that is where a few can be roosting. I strolled in the warm Texas sun on a November day to the pauraque site taking in the soundscape of Texas birds around me. I got to the spot and began the search for the pauraque Because of their cryptic plumage, it can take a few minutes to get your eye on one. t’s almost like a magic eye painting. I did not find a pauraque. But I found paurque pieces.

Common pauraque feathers where one would normally find a pauraque.

Others soon came along. Some were already aware that the reliable pauraque spot had had a fatality. To add to the blow, this was right before the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival—this would be target bird for anyone new to the Valley. The upside is that there is more than one pauraque in the Valley and others were found at the festival. But this one was special. It was almost as much of a guarantee as the winter of 2004/2005 when I could guarantee people great gray owls in Minnesota. I loved taking people new to the Valley to this spot and letting them find their first pauraque.

This spot usually had more than one pauraque. Once Clay and I were there and thought we had a super fat pauraque but it was a female roosting with two chicks. I wandered the area hoping to find one of the others and couldn’t find one. So I decided to study the feathers.

Common pauraque tail feathers.

The feathers looked to be plucked out and didn’t have shredded shafts. If the feathers shafts are shredded or the feathers are clumped with dried saliva, that’s a sign of a mammalian predator. Birds of prey tend to pluck. However, it does look like some teeth marks can be made out at the tops of the feathers.

It was a temptation to take these feathers home (yes, I have a permit). But I could find no way to make them part of my educational tools up in Minnesota.

There was something magical about being able to have such cool cryptic birds be an “x” marks the spot type of bird, but the lack of guarantee is part of what makes birding so rewarding and fun (at least when you get the birds). Perhaps pauraques will come back to this spot? Perhaps they’re already there. I hope to sneak down to the Valley again over the winter and maybe I’ll have a #BirdADay post that they are there.

Like I said earlier, other pauraques were found. Here’s one that was at Estero during the trip, very close to the parking lot and right next to a park sign.

A New Year and #BirdADay 1

A couple of months ago I was at the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival. I hadn’t been for a few years. I hadn’t travelled as much the last two years to try and fix something that really couldn’t be fixed. 

I felt like the prodigal birder. “Sharon! OMG! We haven’t seen you in ages!” That’s one of the things that I love about the birding community, you’re always welcome. As I greeted a dear friend and we caught up he asked, “What’s Non Birding Bill up to?”

I paused awkwardly. “Um…well…he’s traveling the country right now. So, he’s…uh…good, I guess. You know we’re not together anymore, right?”

He looked surprised. I continued, “We made an announcement on my private Facebook page. You liked it and I think even commented on it.”

With shock on his face he said, “I thought that was comedy bit you two were doing…”

And that was a fair read based on the way Bill and I would post on each other’s social media. 

Repeat the scenario a few more times that day. Seven Hells, if people I know well couldn’t tell from our announcements that we split, how long will it take the rest of the world to hear the news and stop asking?

So yeah, there’s no easy way to make the announcement that you’ve separated from your partner of over 20 years. Non Birding Bill and I are no longer a couple. Things are amicable…well as amicable as they can be in a divorce. I’ve debated with myself about making any kind of announcement on public social media—that’s not what it’s supposed to be used for, right? And I want to be sensitive to Bill and our families. However, we’ve invited you to be part of our lives either through our writing, our banter on social media, and the podcast, you should know too. 

It’s strange time. I feel like I’m in this odd limbo as I navigate what my future is going to be. It will, of course, include birds. 

No. I will not be doing a “Divorce Big Year” no matter how much an editor thinks that’s an awesome idea. 

But some things will shift—how I tell stories for one. If you’ve seen one of my storytelling shows or heard me at a bird festival, you may have heard my nude beach story. It’s one of my best. But it included Bill. Will that story be funny again some day? I sure as hell hope so. And I hope we continue to be friends and maybe even work on some creative projects in the future. 

Eastern screech-owl at Estero Llano Grande State Park in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas.

And since birds bring me so much joy, I’m going to clear out my archives. So many articles started and unfinished. So many photos and videos taken that never even made it to Instagram. My New Year’s goal is to post a #BirdADay either here or most often on Instagram or the Birdchick Facebook page or Twitter feed. Some will be from the past, but there will also be birds in real time. Feel free to share your #BirdADay as well.