Love Affair With A Green-winged Teal

My non birding New Orleans fun is finished and I'm back in Texas to enjoy some time with friends at the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival.

I had a brief love affair with a green-winged teal.  I don't normally get the above view of a teal.  Generally, they are fleeing from our plane when we count them.  So to see a green-winged teal chilling in the evening sun was quite the treat.

At first glance, they may appear brown, but their heads rival any mallards with the rich rusty read accented by a swath of iridescent green behind the eye--like eye shadow gone wild.  This is the smallest dabbling duck in North America, so besides the color, they are quite cute.  They will forage for aquatic insects on the water's surface or dip below for vegetation.

This bird went into full on bathing mode while I was digiscoping it.  I think I will let the photos speak for themselves.

After a good bathe, a nice preen is in order.  I love this shot, you can see the green patch from where the teal gets its name.

And then a nap.

Geek A Week

So what is this whole Geek A Week Trading Card thing all about?  Good question!  Here's what happened...it all started at a crazy thing called W00tstock Minneapolis.

This blurry photo is me meeting Adam Savage from the MythBusters at W00stock...and then a whole bunch of people decided to photobomb it including Hans (the groundskeeper who mows around our beehives), Mr. Neil, Wil Wheaton, John Scalzi and Len Peralta.

If you have not been to a W00tstock and one is coming to your town--GO!  It's put on by Paul & Storm and it advertises to be a three hour music and all around geek event, but the Twin Cities W00tstock went on for 5 hours.  Each show has a roster of different guests with some regulars.  Wil Wheaton reads from his books, Adam Savage told stories and sang I Will Survive in the voice of Gollum, the dudes from Mystery Science Theater 3000 sang and riffed some old educational movie shorts, the Science of Superheroes guy did a math demo--really a little of everything and fun.

Non Birding Bill and I hung out backstage a bit (NBB more than me because he was with his own kind). I must admit, my absolute favorite moment of the whole thing was Wil Wheaton asking me, "You're married to the THAC0 guy?  I love that script!"  I beamed with some major wifely pride.

This is me with Len Peralta (getting photobombed by Bill Corbett...who looks remarkably like Father Jack from the Father Ted tv series in this photo).  Len spends the show onstage and creates an original poster for the show--it's different from town to town.  If you order it and pay a little extra, he will even insert you in the poster.

Len is a FANTASTIC artist.  He recently illustrated the Trace Beaulieu book Silly Rhymes for Belligerent Children. Above is one of my favorite rhymes for the book.  I follow Len on Twitter so knew who he was and knew about his Geek A Week project--what he calls a one year art challenge to connect with 52 influential geeks from different disciplines (art, movies, TV, computing, science).  He records a podcast and through the interview, designs a superhero or villain for the card.  Paul and Storm write all the cool facts and geeks attributes for all the card backs.  Some of the other cards include:  the guys from Rifftrax & Cinematic Titanic, Grant Imahara (another Mythbuster) and Weird "Al" Yankovic" just to name a few.

When I met Len, he said, "Birdchick!  I wanted to ask you to be a one of the cards but I saw the tag line on your blog was, 'To show the world that you can be a birder without being a geek' and thought you might be offended if I asked.

Non Birding Bill said, "That's really more of a goal that she fails at miserably."

Len later emailed me and we talked some more about it.  He thinks of geeks something different than I do.  He sees geeks as people who are passionate about a subject and felt birding wise, I was a good card candidate.  So I did it.  Here is the podcast and here is the front of the card:

I'm so relieved I'm not wearing a vest or a Tilley hat!  I feel like I'm in some sort of odd brotherhood and I told Len that he should have a show where all of us dress up as our alter-egos and have a battle royale.  Here is the back of the card:

I love everything about this--I love that the National Park I work for is mentioned in it, I love that my Swarovski spotting scope is my primary weapon--and I'm not wearing a vest!  I don't think this is going to make any big splashes in the birding community, but anything that gets non birders to give birds a second thought is worth its weight in gold, so if someone sees this on Len's sight and thinks, "Yeah, bird watching, maybe I should try that, I'm all for it."

So, thank you, Len for being kind in your illustrations and thank you for including me in such a fun list of people.  I feel like I'm in some sort of weird brotherhood or secret society.

Digiscoping Duel Results

The results are in from the first ever Twitter Digiscoping Duel:

My buddy, Clay Taylor of Swarovski Optik digiscoped from his yard in Texas and he posted photos of 31 species.

I set myself up at Mr. Neil's yard with the above digiscoping setup--lots of birds and easy Internet access.  Alas, my final total was 28 birds.  Cornell was kind enough to say, "But should there be a correction for higher diversity in TX," but I think that weather and internet connection can help even out the competition--there were 3 very common birds that I expected to get and did not: blue jay, pileated woodpecker and turkey vulture.  I won't post all 28 photos, but I'll post some highlights below:

My first shot of the day was a red-tailed hawk flying away.  I found another red-tail perfectly perched in great light later in the day, but I really liked the way you can see the rusty red tail on this guy.  Besides, Clay and I weren't going for art, we were going for identifiable photos and well, it doesn't get more identifiable than that with a red-tailed hawk.

Early in the morning, things were going swimmingly.  The showy mountain ash tree around the feeders was ripe and attracted loads of waxwings.  I expected warblers and vireos would soon follow (the tree eventually did follow this pattern...after the contest was over).

As I loaded up photos here and there on Twitter, I even got a little cocky and added some captions.  The above caption with the tree swallow was for Non Birding Bill and a nod to Jack Lemon from the movie The Great Race.  I really enjoyed being able to interact with people throughout the contest.  It was like being sequestered during a bird-a-thon or at the World Series of Birding.  I could see what Clay was up to and see comments on photos...and even answer a couple of bird questions.

I did find the flocks of white-throated sparrows a bit sobering.  A week ago today it was 92 degrees F.  When I started today, it was blustery and in the 40s.  And these sparrows are a sure sign of fall.  Sigh.

I did see some crazy stuff going on, like the above immature goldfinches stripping off bark from a dead tree and eating it.  I checked Cornell's Birds of North America Online and bark stripping is one of the many things goldfinches will eat.

When it came to the common feeder birds, I tried to get interesting shots--like the above black-capped chickadee.  It's as if it's stalking me...and perhaps plotting my demise.

Not all of my photos were worth writing home about.  I'm pretty sure that this is the worst shot of a black and white warbler in recorded history.  I posted it as a joke and Clay let it go through, he said he could kind of see a black and white warbler...he was too kind.

Here's a candidate for Awkward Family Photos.  What is that nuthatch doing--sneezing?  Flipping seeds? Swearing?  Either way, the rose-breasted grosbeak appears uninterested.

All in all it was a great time and I hope we can do something like this again.

Some of my favorite shots that Clay got are his zone-tailed hawk, yellow-breasted chat, purple martin, royal tern and his winning final bird Mississippi kite. He's got mad skills with birds in flight and digiscoping not to mention a crazy bird yard in Texas.

To see more photos from the day of the Digiscoping Duel visit the Flickr Album.

Mr. Neil Demonstrates Proper Smoker Tecniques

One of the irritations I have with beekeeping and have mentioned more than once is that the equipment rarely comes with instructions and if it does, you need a magic elf from the fiery marshes of Bee Vale to decipher it.  We used to jam pack our smoker with every type of natural fiber, light it with a brulee torch and hope for the best.  But Mr. Neil found an article in Bee Culture on lighting a smoker and we thought we'd make a demo video...on the off chance some poor person is like us and thinks they need a new smoker. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKyd4_LvXB0[/youtube]

And for those new to the blog, you use a smoker around your beehives to misdirect their attention.  They smell wood smoke and worry there might be a forest fire.  They focus on eating honey (not the giant things rearranging their home) in case there is an actual forest fire and they need to abandon the hive with only enough food they can carry in their tiny bodies.  Some beekeepers say they would rather work a hive with a smoker and no bee suit rather than the other way around.

You can also use the smell of the smoker to mask the bee pheromone released with a sting.  The pheromone communicates to nearby bee, "Hey, something bad is here, sting it!"  The smoke will mask that and prevent further stings.

The Hazards Of An Empty Feeder

When I can't fill the feeders at Mr. Neil's house, the groundskeeper named Hans usually does the honors.  He does an admirable job but he has a ton of things to do like maintaining trails and keeping the grass and weeds trimmed around the beehives.  And now that we have 8 beehives, let's bow our heads in honor of dear, sweet Hans who has sustained more stings than any of us and yet makes life easier for hive inspections. Moment.

But sometimes certain feeders go empty (especially the suet log, because I appear to be the only person in the US who actually enjoys the feeling of squashed animal fat mixed with peanut butter on my fingers).  And this summer, the safflower feeder went empty but Mr. Neil called me over to see what had been filled inside in place of the usual safflower:

I knew as soon as I saw the feeding ports what had moved in, but then wondered, "How did a house wren fit in there?  I know they are tiny, but wow!"  House wrens are the smallest cavity nesting birds in our neck of the woods.  They only need a hole that is one inch in diameter to fit their tiny bodies through.  The other thing is that you can usually id the type of cavity nesting bird in your nest box by the material--house wrens are all sticks.  Chickadees usually weave a neat fur lined cup nest, bluebirds nests are made of fine grasses and tree swallows line the nest cup with huge feathers from ducks.  House sparrows will make a nest out of everything: grass, sticks, vines, cellophane, cigarette butts, etc.

As I wondered how the house wren was getting in out of the feeder, I soon had my answer.  Apparently the lid had been left only slightly ajar and that was all the enterprising little male needed to collect twigs.

When we looked inside, we could see a whole pile of sticks, but no complete nest.  One of the really interesting things about the tiny house wren is that they will make five nests, use one to rear chicks and the rest as decoys to fool marauding predators (even defending a decoy nest as if there were eggs inside--clever birds).  I figured this was going to be a decoy nest.  Mr. Neil didn't mind the wrens so we left the roof ajar.

Non Birding Bill and I came over for a bee inspection and some grilling and we watched the wren declare his territory in boisterous song.

There was at least one female who took him up on his twittery offer and inspected the feeder inside and out.  I always figured that the males put sticks in several locations, the female chooses the one she will use for eggs and the rest become the decoys.  She flew off after a few moments and I thought, "She's going to make that one the decoy."

Cut to one week later! On Sunday, we arrived for another cookout at Mr. Neil's and as soon as we arrived he took me out to the feeder and showed me this:

Gah!  A feeder full of sticks, a small feather-lined cup and three tiny house wren eggs.  Well, this feeder is out of commission for a month.  I think the female was still in process of laying eggs and that incubation will start today or tomorrow.  From there we have about 12 days of incubation and then another 12 - 13 days before the chicks fledge.  I think the other birds can live without safflower that long.

I must say that this breaks one of my bird feeding rules of thumb: don't have nest boxes around your bird feeding station.  Birds generally don't want to nest near where nest raiders show up on a regular basis (ie squirrels, chipmunks, blue jays, crows, woodpeckers, raccoons, etc).  At least they nested in a squirrel proof feeder, so that solves that problem and maybe the wren's nest decoy strategy will fool the other egg eaters?

More Lock & Dam 1 Peregrines

As part of my duties as a park ranger, we go out and rove in the park.  Basically, we tote around a back pack with park info and you're on hand to answer questions--it's fun, it's a bit like improv.  I like to take my scope for birding of course, but it gives me a chance to explore more areas of the park that I otherwise wouldn't visit.  One is Lock and Dam 1.  On Friday, we did a canoe paddle through the lock (you really haven't experienced the Mississippi until you've taken a canoe or kayak through a lock and dam--to be tiny in something so big is amazing). It was fun Saturday morning to look down on it knowing the day before I had been right in it.

I was curious to be back on Saturday to see the peregrine chicks.  Last week, they were a lot fluffier!  On Friday as we canoed past, one was already out of the box, flapping around on a nearby ledge under the watchful eye of the adults.  We had that big storm on Friday night and I wondered how the first fledger from the box fared.  When I arrived, two were still visible on the nest box perches, practicing their flapping skills.  I scanned and couldn't find the third one.  I wasn't too worried, I figured it was perched nearby and when the adults arrived with the food, I would hear it begging.

This is the view from the deck of the Lock and Dam 1 visitor center.  You can see the peregrine nest box on the far left on the wall (note the box below the brick building).  As I watched this, I noticed some flapping behind the big pipe on the right...

The bird out of the box did survive the storm!  Heck of  a first night out of the nest box--2 storms with heavy rain and the only refuge is a pipe.

The other two continued to practice.  The one on top of the box almost seemed like it was really going to get completely off the box, but stayed and screamed impatiently for one of the adults to feed it.  The adults flew in once or twice with food, but no drop offs were made in the box.  They want the young out of the nest so they can learn to fly.  The chicks want to be fed and eventually, they will put two and two together. When the chicks are hungry enough, they will fly out towards the adults with the food.

I checked on the peregrine fledgling behind the pipe and noticed that it was laying down and they eyes were part way closed.  I thought it was odd, but chicks lay down when they sleep, adults  remain upright, sleeping on one foot while the head is turned around and tucked under a wing.  I wondered if this bird was exhausted and not used to sleeping while standing yet.

If you think about how quickly a bird grow they have to work out how their bodies move and function relatively quickly.  You will often see young birds like the immature above, just letting its wings hang to the side after flapping--those things are heavy and they aren't quite used to using those muscles just yet.

You'll see young birds in all kinds of weird positions as they work out their bodies (what's that bird doing, checking for the time on her Swatch?)--imagine going from super soft fluff to hard pin feathers growing in over every inch of your body in about two weeks.  We think teething makes babies cranky.  Feather shafts poking all over the skin has to be about as fun as sandpaper underwear on a bad sunburn.

When the peregrine nodded its head down, I though I would call my buddy Avian Images just to be on the safe side.  She works at The Raptor Center and goes to the bandings, I thought she'd have an idea.  As soon as I heard her cell ring...

In flew one of the adult peregrines and this bird sprang upright to beg for food--it was fine, just sleeping like a young bird instead of an adult.  Whew.

And peregrines weren't the only cool thing--I found a huge turtle out of the water.  I know that it is a softshell turtle, but I'm not sure which type.  Someone on Twitter thought it might be a spiny softshell turtle which is possible in Minnesota (as is the smooth softshell).  But many of the photos for spiny softshell show a light colored turtle and this is a very dark one.  Whatever kind of turtle, it was huge with a pointy nose.

Digiscoping Workshop & Tern Rescue

One of the reasons I was at the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival in Utah was to conduct a digiscoping workshop for Swarovski Optik.  I really enjoy doing these types of workshops, we start with a basic how to and then we go out someplace birdy and take photos.  They are not trips about getting a ton of birds on the list, but more going someplace with a lot of slow moving birds and practice taking photos--you really get to spend some time watching a bird.  Sometimes I do this with perched out education birds or at a nature center with bird feeders.  In Utah, we went to Kaysville Ponds a small park with lots of cool birds like the above pelicans.  It's an urban and well used park.  There were several families making use of the ponds' ample fishing resources and walking trails, it was great to see so many kids enjoying the outdoors on a Saturday morning.

A really cool bird for me was the western grebe.  We have them in western Minnesota but that's a trek, so it was a treat to see them in this urban pond so close and spend time taking photos of the birds.  Although, I generally end up loaning out my scope during these trips.  I think many people get a digiscoping set up, take 12 photos that are crap and then are hesitant to use the equipment.  When I give someone my scope, I sometimes tell them, "I don't want it back until you take at least 250 photos of that bird."  The grebes were so close and so mellow, they were great to practice on.  And if you end up with 248 blurry photos, they are easy enough to delete.

There were also a ton of yellow-headed blackbirds perched in the open to photograph.  People got to practice with close up birds and birds further away (and learn the heartbreak of what heat shimmer will do on your seemingly in focus photos).

I did use this as an opportunity to practice some Blackberry scoping--holding my Blackberry phone to my scope and taking photos of birds.  The photos are not high quality, but they do have use.  You could document a rare bird and text the photo to your local state records committee, text the photo of a bird that your friend has not seen, sent it to Twitter or use your camera phone as a back up to document a rare bird if you camera batteries die or you left your camera back in the car.  It's not easy because you have to hand hold the phone to the scope's eyepiece but practicing on every day birds will help you be ready should a rare bird show up.

Here's a Blackberry shot of our class, it was a fun group and again, I love being out in Utah where you are surrounded by snow capped mountains on a sunny day.  The temps were mild and the wind was low--a perfect day for digiscoping.  I brought some different camera adaptors for scopes for folks to try and few people brought their own adaptors andwe had a good compare and contrast of what works easily and what does not.

As we were taking photos, I noticed a Forster's tern frantically calling.  I looked over as did friend and fellow field trip participant Suzy and noticed a Forster's tern in the water while another flew and called loudly overhead.  Suzy noted that the flighted bird had a fish and attempted to offer it to the bird in the water.  Looking through the scope, the bird int he water had its tail at an odd angle and could not pull its wing.  The tern tried to flap out of the water but could not flap well at all.  "Great," I thought, "a wounded bird at our workshop."  Suzy hoped that it was an adult feeding a young, but both were in adult plumage.  I wondered if there was any way to reach the wounded tern but it was far out in the water.  I continued with the workshop with half an eye on the tern, when I noticed the flighted tern dive bombing a man on shore.  I limped over to investigate (I'm still a little unsteady on my knee, but it is healing up a little every day).

I found a man with a fishing pole reeling in the tern from the water while the other tern angrily dove at him while screaming loudly.  He took the tern out of the water and had some clippers.  He was trying to clip the line around the bird but the tern was snapping its beak at him and he was afraid to touch it.  I hobbled over and asked, "Can I give you a hand?"

"Yes, please!"

I picked the water logged tern up out of the water--how strange to put a tern in the bander's grip, they seem more like a piece of origami than bird.  He swiftly snipped off the fishing line and fortunately the hook was not in her.  I did a quick feel for broken bones but couldn't feel anything amiss.  The formerly tangled tern's feathers looked too waterlogged to fly.  I made a split second decision to let it go back in the water rather than spend the day looking for a rehab center with might cause more stress, especially if the tern wasn't injured, only wet and tired.  I opened my hands for her to fly but the tern couldn't get airborne and went right back in the water.  I figured that it would be far better for the tern to swim to a quiet spot, dry off and preen its feathers.  The bird was mostly likely exhausted from the struggle to get away from the tangled line.

The man with the pole kept apologizing.  He was there with his son to go fishing and when he cast his line, the tern flew into it and got tangled, it was a one in a million shot.  He watched the tern swim away slowly, "Oh no, I'm so sorry."

I looked at him and his little boy and said, "You did your best to help the bird, I'm sure it just needs to dry off, it's featers were soaked and it wouldn't be able to fly."

"She's probably exhausted too," he said.  I agreed.

"I watched before I cast," he said mornfully, "I always watch for birds.  And when I swung, there she was!"

As the bird swam away, some gulls flew over low to investigate (assessing if they could eat it, I'm sure) and then a pelican swam right for it and opened it's mouth.  "No," I shouted, "not today pelican!"

And that was enough to distract it and the tern paddled further away.  I'm all for watching cool and gross natural history moments, but this man and his son seemed traumatized enough as it was and didn't need to see the pelican eat the tern (that's not a pretty way to go, I think I'd rather be eating by a great horned owl).  And if you don't know what I'm talking about--those big birds are opportunists and there are videos of pelicans eating pigeons in parks.  A Forster's tern is about pigeon sized.

The tern attempted to fly off the water a few more times and each time it got closer to being airborne.  Eventually, it disappeared into some reeds on an island where I'm sure it preened and dried out.  The man gave up his fishing for the morning, he genuinely felt bad about what happened even though it was just one of those things.  I'm glad he took the time to help the bird and I hope he doesn't give up fishing for good.

When the pelicans weren't trying to eat terns, they made excellent digiscoping subjects!  It was interesting to note the various sizes of horns on the upper bill.  The above bird has a small one.

Check out this bad boy--his horn is HUGE and looks quite impressive in his full on display!  No one knows for sure why males get this epidermal plate on the top mandible, but presumably it has something to do with a mating display to female pelicans.  It falls off during the summer after the breeding season.  I have a couple from my pelican banding days.  They look like nasty toenails.

Since pelicans don't sing to attract a female, the put on these quiet, yet showy displays on the water.  It almost looks a little passive aggressive, the male silently lifting his wings, puffing his feathers and crooking his neck while showing his horn and a female or two will quietly swim by and quietly take note of this display...and then keep going.  It's very Minnesotan.

We had a few warblers and even an oriole (the above Bullock's oriole) to round out the rest of our field trip.  Participants seemed to have a good time and learn a few tricks--like try out video on your little point and shoot cameras.  One man even got video of a coot feeding it's baby.  All in all it was a beautiful morning and it's always fun when your group can do a good deed while on birding trip--like helping out a tangled tern.

Cross Section Of Breeding Birds & Migration

Twice a year I have some bird banding friends come out to Mr. Neil's place to band the birds around the yard--once in spring and once in fall.  On Saturday my buddies Roger (aka MNBirdNerd) and Amber (aka AvianImages) set up mists nets to collect data and got a GREAT cross section of spring bird activity from migration to breeding.  I hoped we would get a ton of cool information since I've noticed birds like the above red-bellied woodpecker coming and flying away with large beakfuls of suet--do they have young in the nest?

They did get in quite a few woodpeckers.  Here's a hairy woodpecker male (note the little bit of red on the head).  Roger gave him a blow and revealed a brood patch.  Both males and females incubate so both would need a bare patch of skin swollen with blood vessels to keep the eggs nice and warm during incubation.  I went to see what Cornell Lab of Ornithology had to say specifically about hairy woodpecker and in the breeding section that mentions, "onset of broodiness" and that "incubation begins in earnest with laying of last egg, but male roosts in nest cavity and de facto incubation may begin with pen-ultimate egg, thus accounting for hatching often occurring over a 2 day period and for some of the size differences noted in nestlings."

I love that someone other than my husband uses the word "pen-ultimate"to say that because the male sleeps in the nest cavity at night, incubation could start when the second to last egg is laid by the female.

For the past few springs we've had a couple of pine warblers come in to the feeders when the weather is cold and insects are not out in full force.  Warblers generally are not feeder birds, this brightly colored group of birds primarily eats insects--except for the pine warbler.  During a cold, wet spell like we are having right now in the Twin Cities you can find orioles, catbirds, yellow-rumped warblers, scarlet tanagers coming to suet feeders as an alternate source of protein.  Above is a pine warbler eating some no-melt peanut suet.  What makes the pine warbler a little different from other warblers is that they are known to eat seeds and sometimes, I see pine warblers eating sunflower seeds out of the shell as well as suet.

I think the rather disgruntled look on the face of this male pine warbler about says it all.  While we banded this bird, a second pine warbler came to the feeder.  It looked more like the bird in the photo above this--either a female or second year male.  I suspect that pine warblers are nesting nearby  since they sing well into June but it's hard to say since they quit coming to feeders so I don't see them feeding young (and I've yet to find the nest).

There was a huge brush pile that was chock full of sparrows and they set the nets near that and got a few white-throated sparrows.  When Roger blew on their breasts, he was watching for fat rather than brood patches.  These sparrows are still heading north and birds that showed yellow globs of fat just under their skin were loading up to travel further north.

The number of rose-breasted grosbeaks at the feeders have been increasing exponentially this week.  About seven days earlier, I heard one, then three days later, three males were at the feeder and by our banding day, I would say that we had five males jockeying for position on the feeder--and then one lone female.  Males typically arrive first to set up territory, so it was fun to see that in action.  We determined this bird was hatched last year, he had a few brown patches of juvenile plumage that had not molted out yet--not unlike some of the young males I saw in Panama this past February.  I wondered if the grosbeaks who arrived early on territory in sleet and cold temps and think, "I left Central America for this?"

Keep your eyes open at the feeders and in the woods.  Migration is in full swing, we have quite a few birds just flying and a few more who have yet to arrive.  With this wet weather, some birds will look for fast food like  bird feeders and you might be surprised by what you find.

North Mississippi Park Heron Rookery

   

This is the week to check out the great blue heron rookery at North Mississippi Regional Park (or the one at Coon Rapids Dam too).  I headed out to the North Mississippi rookery yesterday to take a look, right now the nests are very visible--even without binoculars.

You can get a great view of all sorts of behavior including nest building as the herons are coming in from migration.  Some have been at this rookery for a few weeks already.

Quite a few of the herons were perched on or near a nest and not moving.  I read on Cornell's Birds of North America Online that like many migratory bird species, males arrive to the nesting grounds first and establish who is taking what nest.  From there, when not foraging for food, a male will spend all his time at the nest.  Perhaps these were males waiting for a female to court or hoping to prevent other males from stealing sticks for their nests.

A few herons were already incubating eggs.  These nests will either be way ahead of the game with chick rearing or have to start over in a few weeks.  We are heading out of an unusual March--no snow in the Twin Cities at all.  This is highly irregular, March is technically our snowiest month.  It's not out of the realm of possibility for us to get snow in April.  I'm loving the opportunity to bike on the trails a whole month early, but I'm not going to hold my breath and say that we are totally free of snow for the rest of the spring.  If we get a cold snap, these already incubating herons may risk losing young and have to start over.  But that's what birds do.

So, take a moment to head to one of our heron rookeries before the leaves are out.  You can always somewhat see the nests at North Mississippi Regional Park and Coon Rapids Dam but it's ten times easier to point them to kids before the leaves are out.  If this 70 degree weather keeps up, that could be rather soon...aw man, that means that leaves will be well out when warblers get here in May.  That's going to make warbler watching a challenge.

UPDATE 2011: This heron rookery was destroyed by a tornado that ripped through Minneapolis in May, 2011.  All the nests were destroyed.  The birds did renest, some up river at Coon Rapids Dam and others at a new site at the Riverside Power Plant near the Head of Navigation on the Mississippi River. Most of the young did not survive, but the few that were rescued were eventually released later in the summer.