Birdchick

For Non Birding Bill–a Cinnamon Teal!  That’s the male–in all his brown glory.

After having all of our beehives die this past winter, it’s so nice to finally have a warm spring day and look in to see bees industriously tending brood and filling up empty comb.  Our Italian bees are filling up hives like crazy, but the Russians and Carniolans are at a slow and steady pace.  [ Read More ]

Non Birding Bill took a photo of an oriole today. Link to Swarovski Optik sale on spotting scopes. MUST SEE warbler fall out photos from Gulf of Maine. Cool volunteer program thru Mississippi Audubon to help protect beach nesting birds. Birding by voyageur canoe with Wilderness Inquiry.  

MSNBC is calling this a gynandromorph cardinal but if you ask me, it’s got a whole host of issues.  Sure it looks half male and half female–but what’s with the lack of pigment in some of the breast feathers?  Check out more photos of this pigment missing, half male, half female cardinal here. A birder supposedly  [ Read More ]

The Billy Idol of blackbirds.

Birding News: All the heron rookery stuff. Someone thinks birding is a good hobby for exercise and getting fit.  Not. National Zoo researcher Nico Dauphine arrested on suspicious of poisoning non native feral cats to protect native wild birds. I found this publicity still from the upcoming Big Year movie.  It looks like Steve Martin  [ Read More ]

Here’s a follow up to yesterday’s story about the Minneapolis tornado that destroyed the great blue heron rookery at North Mississippi Regional Park. Thanks to a lot of phone calls, my park the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, CO Todd from MN DNR and some vet techs with heron experience from the Animal Humane  [ Read More ]

This was so not how I planned to spend my Monday.  Warning, not a pleasant post ahead. I returned from Detroit Lakes Festival of Birds yesterday and on my way home, Non Birding Bill called to warn me of a possible tornado in north Minneapolis–an area I would drive through on my way to our  [ Read More ]

Sharon’s asked me to post a quick note while she’s on the scene. After our recent tornado(es) in Minneapolis, the North Miss. Heron Rookery is gone. Also, they have no phone service in the area. More later.