Man, this was a busy Tuesday: I started with a volunteer shift at The Raptor Center, then on to some grocery shopping, did a little bike riding, saw an off course Sage Thrasher, then made dinner, and off to a Minnesota Hobby Beekeeper's Association meeting to get geared up for the spring season.

The highlight of the day was definitely the sage thrasher, it was only a few blocks from my home. It was so close, I loaded up my digiscoping equipment onto my bike and rode over--exercise and a cool bird, now that's multi-taskng.

This bird is a tad off course. Perhaps it spent the winter in Texas and when it headed north to its breeding grounds, got mixed in with a rogue flock of robins and ended up a little further east than planned. Perhaps this bird was originally hatched in the far western reaches of South Dakota and in the grand scheme of things, isn't that far off.

Who knows how long it will stay. The bird has been at Lake Harriet for a few days, hanging out near the canoe racks at the Rose Garden, feeding on hackberry with the robins. If you're in the Twin Cities area and want to see this bird, just look for the people with the binoculars, that should lead you to the thrasher.

Speaking of which, there were two really nice people already on the bird when I arrived, one named Chris works for a Twin Cities company called Fetch Delivers--a pet and wild bird delivery company. They currently have no minimum order and no delivery fee. So, if you want one suet cake, you get just the suet cake, no delivery fee. They carry some feed I would actually use like C&S Peanut Suet and Wild Delight--plus some rabbit chow. We might give them a try--can't beat no minimum and no delivery fee.