Looking for a family friendly bird festival in an urban area? Check out the Ramsey County Bird Festival next week. Hikes are scheduled to give a bird’s eye view of areas where swans, eagles and loons nest and where migrating warblers feed. Other tours will look at resident birds like cardinals, blue jays and chickadees. [ Read More ]
So, when I last left you, Lorraine and I had installed one colony and totally wigged out during the first hiving. The bees didn’t pour out of their travel crate as easily as I thought they would and I got to experience having bees fly all around. It was weird, when they would land on [ Read More ]
Today was the day when I finally got started on realizing my dream of keeping bees. You’re really not prepared for that first moment, no matter how many books you have read, videos you have watched, or classes you have taken. I stopped at B & B Honey Farms to pick up our two packages [ Read More ]
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Aaron! You might think your grackle/starling/squirrel problem isn’t so bad after reading this article about Starlings in Rome. Bee sure the check out the multimedia show–the photos are intense! At one point, the starlings almost form what looks like an upside stork. They should probably turn that into [ Read More ]
Tomorrow is it. The bees will be ready for pick up. I am both excited and nervous. When I took the U of M’s Beekeeping Short Course, we went over hiving the package of bees several times and even watched a video. The instructors told us that we did not really need the gloves because [ Read More ]
Orv Lehman has been watching and photographing a red-tailed hawk nest in Virginia with his Nikon P1 Pro digiscope kit. I love how at first glance it looks like the red-winged blackbird is perched on the red-tailed hawk’s head, but he’s perched behind the hawk. If you look close, you can see some white fluff [ Read More ]
WildBird on the Fly is reporting that a new online birding game is available. A webcam has been set up in the backyard of Craig Newmark (founder of Craig’s list) to try and snap shots of birds that are visiting. Players vie for spots on the top watchers’ list by photographing and classifying the most [ Read More ]
“Oy.” Did you ever wake up one morning thinking everything is going to be relaxing and then come to the sudden realization–”Wait, I’m doing ALL of that? This week? Eeep!” I’m not sure how I’m going to make it, but by this time one week from today I will be marveling at all I accomplished. [ Read More ]
The other day at Wood Lake Nature Center, I wanted to get a photo of the young great horned owl in the nest. However, it was snoozin’. I went for a walk around the lake and when finished I came back to find the wee owly still a snoozin’. Just as I was putting the [ Read More ]
According to the press release, “Your bird field guide may be out of date now that University of Florida scientists discovered a new genus of frogmouth bird on a South Pacific island.” Because so many of us have a frogmouth section in our North American guides. Frogmouths are named for the huge, wide, strong beak [ Read More ]
