Mississippi Flooding In St Paul, MN

It's an oddly exciting day at the National Park I work for (Mississippi National River and Recreation Area)--the river is flooding and it's odd to be excited by the flood and watch what the water will do.  Since our visitor center is based in the Science Museum lobbby, we're right on the Mississippi River in St. Paul, MN.  We have an awesome view. That's a giant tree working it's way down towards Raspberry Island (which is mostly submerged at this point).

St. Paul has closed Sheperd Rd. from behind the museum all the way to Hwy 61 in preparation for the flood.  One of the officers I spoke with said parts were already under water.  I spent a majority of Sunday afternoon roving and interpreting the flooding--what ranger wouldn't rather be outdoors on a sunny day?  The river is in flood stage at 14 feet and when I was at the river it was at 16.4 feet.  It's expected to crest on Wednesday at 19.5 feet!

Across the way, Harriet Island was flooding.  The police were trying to clear people off of it, but would have a better shot at herding cats.  As soon as they would get one group to move on, 12 more people would walk in from the other side.  Once church let out, the Harried flooded with people and the police seemed to give up.  I have a feeling that tonight some serious barricades will go up and Harriet Island will be off limits for real tomorrow.

The Padleford boats are still docked at Harriet but barges have been placed in front of them to prevent debris from damaging them.  If you watched the water up against the barges you could really get an idea of how strong the current was flowing.  Here's a video I digiscoped:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ-E8oOzQOA[/youtube]

Did you hear the house finch singing on territory in the background?  Here he is:

He was duking it out with another male for space in this tree outside the museum--prime real estate in downtown St. Paul and relatively safe from flooding...I wonder if the river will affect some of our early nesters like wood ducks, mallards and Canada geese?

If you want to watch some of the flooding, there's a great view from the Science Museum and be sure to visit us at the Mississippi River Visitor Center in the lobby.  To watch the predictions for the crest, check out NOAA's website.

Lilydale Christmas Bird Count

Last Saturday I helped out with the St. Paul Christmas Bird Count. I love the above photo, that's two of our team members standing on the frozen Mississippi River counting ducks with the downtown St. Paul skyline behind them. My original intent was to just be part of a team, but St. Paul Audubon needed someone to lead the count and I thought it would be fun to do a section that was part of the National Park that I work for. We mainly worked the Lilydale Park section. I had great volunteers and it was a treat to meet some new local birders. It was an easy going group and I am so grateful to John who introduced me to Jerabek's Bakery (my new favorite bakery and a must visit if you are in St. Paul). I requested that we meet before dawn at 6:30am and everyone did. We tried to do an owl survey and got completely skunked. I played calls for saw-whets, eastern screech, barred, and great horned (keep that in mind for later in this post). However, even though we were nooged on owls, we were rewarded with excellent views of river otters rolling around in an open patch of water on Pickerel Lake--bonus! It was too dark for photos, but man what cool mammals to watching through the scope in the dark (thank you Swarovski for that most excellent light gathering ability).

Lilydale is an interesting little park in our metro area and one that I'm loving more and more. For one thing, you can get permits to go fossil hunting there--how cool is my town? You can go fossil hunting in the Twin Cities metro area! The bluffs at Lilydale are chock full of St Paul brickyard history as well as geologic history. You can see three distinct layers of rock from when this used to be part of an ocean: sandstone, limestone and shale. Many come to look for the fossils of ancient sea life in the shale and limestone. Water trickles through and creates lovely ice falls which attracts a few climbers in winter. We were lucky to get a day for our count that had temperatures in the teens and twenties. When we stood still it felt chilly, but as we climbed the hill in Lilydale, we stayed warm.

Robins were our most common species (if you don't count the ginormous flock we tallied in downtown St Paul). This interesting Robin was found in a yard by one of my team members--it's lacking pigment in some of its feathers. It's not leucisitic--the colors are not washed out, it's just some of the feathers are white. Scientifically, something cannot be a partial albino--it's one or the other, there is no in between. There are a lot of names tossed around out there, but no one has come up with an easy term to call a bird with patches of pure white, other than to say that the bird lacks pigment in some feathers.

Here is the front of the robin--you can see it was lacking some pigment on its breast feathers as well.

We did see quite a few red-tailed hawks like the above immature bird. I was surprised that we did not get any Cooper's hawks, I usually see one at Lilydale, but they remained hidden. This bird was actively hunting the field near the boat launch off of Shepherd Road.

One of our goals was to get the down St. Paul peregrines included on our count. I chuckled as I scanned a peregrine box on the Landmark Center that had a red-tailed hawk perched on it.

We did eventually find some peregrines, so I was happy we kept up that goal.

While we were out documenting as many bird species as we could, we were surprised to find a muskrat out and about on the ice. This little mammal should be tucked away in a little mound in a marsh, sleeping away the winter. This one was on ice right in downtown St Paul, not near too many places for a muskrat den.

Just as I was thinking, "Wow, that's an easy target for an eagle," one showed up. The blue arrow is the muskrat, the red arrow is a bald eagle. Can you see the eagle's landing gear down? The muskrat saw the eagle and smartly slid into the water.

The bald eagle landed on the ice and watched the edge where the muskrat dove into the Mississippi River. Then a moment later--the muskrat popped back up on the ice. The eagle stared, almost as if assessing the situation. The muskrat behaved as though the eagle was not there. The watched intently. I wondered if it realized that if it spread its wings and went for the muskrat, that it would easily see the predator and have time to dive back into the river. The muskrat trundled along, turned and suddenly seemed to notice the eagle. It hopped a little (almost as if it said, "DOH!") and plopped again into the river and hightailed it towards a separate piece of ice. The eagle remained on the ice for quite some time. So long, that we had to leave to count other birds.

After we did Lilydale Park and downtown St. Paul, some of my group went home (understandable, it was a long day). The remaining group went out to cruise the neighborhoods for bird feeders and a few species we missed at the park--like turkeys. We found a huge flock of 12 marauding a rather upscale neighborhood. By the end of the afternoon, I looked at the time, I only had about an hour before I had to work an evening shift at the park service and the light was fast fading. We made one more pass at the park.

We passed some trees that I thought looked good for saw-whet owls. A cedar and a pine. I left my scope in the trunk and said, "That will guarantee we'll see something good." We walked underneath the trees and there was quite a bit of small owl poop. I was convinced if we stared at the cedar long enough, a saw-whet owl would materialize. Suddenly, we heard a flock of very angry chickadees. I looked in the direction of the sound...I saw a lone cedar tree. "That's where the saw-whet is, let's go," I said.

We crossed the street and approached the tree surrounded by alarmed chickadees. We were within about 30 feet of the cedar and a medium sized owl flushed from the cedar. I saw distinct buff panels on the wings and realized instantly what we flushed--a long-eared owl. It perched in some thick branches nearby, I got a quick look at the slender bird and it flew further away. DOH!

I wasn't expecting a long-eared. If I had, I would have approached that cedar in a different way, they are so cagey. We looked at the base of the cedar it was perched in and found much larger poop marks and a fresh pellet. I have Tuesday off, I might head back to Lilydale and see if I can get it in the scope and take a photo.

All and all, it was a great day. I was lucky to have such a great group to count birds with and I appreciated all of their help. One was even a fellow beekeeper--loved to meet someone else working the hives.

Harlequin Duck Again At Point Douglas

Winter got a tad aggressive last week. It's been weird, we had snow in early October, so I was prepared for six months of cold and snow. Then it got strangely warm for the rest of October and November and thought, "Terrific, maybe winter won't be so bad!"

Then out of nowhere, we went from 40 degree weather to below zero and single digits in one night--no build up, just blammo: booger freezing cold. On the upside, all the area lakes froze up in a hurry making places where water stays open popular with the remaining waterfowl. One particular hot spot this time of year is Douglas Point Park. This is where the Mississippi River meets with the St. Croix River on the Minnesota and Wisconsin border. I love it for a couple of reasons. One--it's in the boundaries of the National Park I work for and two--it's a hop, skip and a jump away from Carpenter Nature Center. The water here stays open and it corrals some of the waterfowl. I headed out there on Friday.

When I arrived, there was still a bit of a mist on the river and some of the Canada geese were covered in frost on the back. See the guy towards the bottom of the photo just covered in frosty white on the back? I always do wonder about ducks and geese in cold water. Yeah, I get that feathers are a terrific insulator and that birds have a different circulatory system and metabolism than humans so they handle cold in a way that I simply cannot understand--but damn, thats incredible to witness.

The mix was mostly Canada geese and goldeneye. The goldeneye crack me up, as soon as they realize a scope is on them, they dive or take off. I love this shot above of Canada geese and mallards and one lone lurking male common goldeneye coming up after diving under. Isn't he just a little Mr. Lurky McLurk Lurk!

Goldeneyes are just awesome little diving ducks. We'd seen a ton of them on our waterfowl surveys this fall. It was a treat just to hang out and watch a big section of waterfowl and not have to worry about counting them or identifying them in a hurry. But I had plenty of time scan and got a kick out what I found:

Like the stealthy pintail male behind the Canada goose in the upper right hand corner. It's fun to find a big stretch of waterfowl which on the surface look like a ton of Canada geese only to scan and find a few different guys mixed in.

But the big excitement of the day was the above male harlequin duck that was floating around the area--even the Canada geese seem to look like, "What the duck is that??"

This duck is exciting on several levels. Number one: it's a cool looking duck--a male in full on adult plumage. When I tell my non birding friends about this exciting bird, I say, "It's blue and white duck!" They seem to understand. As a matter of fact, I'm typing this blog entry backstage during our Golden Girls Christmas Carol and the other actors agree that he is very, very sweet.

The second thing that makes this a cool bird is that a male harlequin duck, is not even supposed to be here any time of year and one has been spending the last three winters at this spot--this is quite possibly the same bird. If it is, I got a photo of him last winter.

Just because the water stays open doesn't mean this is the safest place there is. Bald eagles patrol this spot regularly and both adults and immature eagles take pot shots at the waterfowl. I digiscoped the above bird actively hunting and it was zeroing in on some goldeneye. I've not seen an eagle take a dive at the harlequin. I wonder if Minnesota and Wisconsin eagles think blue ducks "just aren't right" and avoid diving for it? Nah, I've seen them eat dead chickens mixed in with chicken manure, I don't think their standards are that high. Must be one evasive harlequin duck.

For some reason, this photo reminds me of a Huey Lewis and the News album cover. There were quite a few trumpeters mixed in with all the other waterfowl. It was fun to hear their trumpet calls rise above the over a thousand or so Canada geese. Since this spot was part of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, I asked my boss if I could work some of the day today at Point Douglas to help people watch the waterfowl. He bought it or...I should say, he agreed that it would be a great idea. I thought I would interact with mostly with birders from Minnesota and Wisconsin, but a vast majority of the people I spoke to just happened to be driving along the river and stopping for photos of the swans, completely unaware of the harlequin duck or other waterfowl. The harlequin didn't show up to Point Douglas while I was there in the morning, but there are still quite a few open spots around Prescott, WI. As the ice closes in further, people should have a better chance of seeing him this winter.

Word spread from some other birders that a long-tailed duck was seen along the Mississippi River in South St Paul on the corners of Grand Avenue and Hardman so on my way back to the visitor center, I stopped by to look for it. There were quite a few common mergansers working the shrinking patches of open water.

Sure enough, you could see it--she's the bird laying flat on the water. The other two are male common mergansers.

She's the opposite of the male harlequin, this is a female long-tailed duck. Still cool to see a rare bird, but not as striking as the male. This is a bird that I have a tough time convincing my non birding friends is a cool find. Word spread on the birding trail that a white-winged scoter was seen here earlier in the morning. I wanted to walk along the trail and look for it, but I had to get back to the visitor center--all in all, not a bad weekend for waterfowl.

Waterfowl Sampling

A sample of waterfowl at Point Douglas right now.

Aerial Waterfowl Survey Identification 2

Now let's talk about some of the more challenging ducks on our aerial waterfowl surveys! Are you ready for some hardcore duck id fun! Sure you are!

I placed this photo in my last blog entry about aerial waterfowl identification and asked if anyone could identify them and somebody did! Believe it or not, these are some of the easier birds to id. Above we have American wigeon and gadwall. The birds with the red arrow are the wigeon. If you look at their wings, you see a dark patch and a white patch right above it. The other birds are gadwall, which have just the small white patch and that dark spot on their tails. I've bee surprised at the amount of gadwall I've seen on our surveys and I suspect that when I have seen ducks fly in these area and I've been watching from the ground, I assumed mallard. Now, I'm going to have to give them a second look. I always feel a sense of relief when I see the white patch of the gadwall or the black and white patch of the wigeon. I know what I'm looking at.

Here are mallards in flight for comparison. They do not have the small square white patch that you see on the gadwall. It's still tough, but since mallards are the more common ducks you see, you get the hang of them fairly quickly, then you just have to figure out how many you see. How many do you think you see in the above photo? Now count them and see how close you got.

Now here is a fun group! This photo was taken on Lake Pepin on a cloudy day. I prefer going out on cloudy day. When the sun is out, especially when it's low, the glare can make identification really tough. But cloudy days, you can focus on the patterns of white on the ducks and you're good to go. Can you pick out any ducks before going below? One of them was a surprise for me.

I know, you're looking at these arrows and you're freaking out, but let's take it one at a time.

If you haven't noticed already, take a good look at the bird with the red arrow, especially the face. Can you make out a white spot? That is a goldeneye. Believe it or not, that tiny white patch is very identifiable from the plane. When we first started, I was focusing on wing pattern and had a tough time telling them from the common mergansers, but the pilot told me to watch the face when a saw the black and white wing pattern. If it's a goldeneye, you will easily see that white patch. So, the red arrow is the common goldeneye.

Now, the blue arrow is pointing to common mergansers. The merganser on the left is male, the one on the right is female. The male merganser and the goldeneye look similar, but you cannot see the white cheek patch. These birds also have a tendency to fly low, right over the water when our plane passes over, they form a long line right above the water which also helps give you a clue when you are approaching them from a great distance and aren't sure what birds you are about to approach.

Now the white arrows get interesting. On our surveys, we are only supposed to document scaup, we don't have to differentiate between greater scaup and lesser scaup which is great, it's hard enough on the ground, I can't imagine doing it 120 feet above them going 100 mph. It's presumed on Lake Pepin that they are all less scaup but it's not out of the realm of possibility for one or two greaters to be mixed in. Here are illustrations from David Sibley's Guide on greater scaup vs lesser scaup:

Notice how the white on the wing of the greater scaup extends longer on the wing than the lesser scaup. Now, if you go back up to the photo to the birds with the white arrows, those are scaup. But here's another enlargement of those scaup:

The birds with the white arrows are lesser scaup, the white doesn't go that far. But look at the bird with the blue arrow. It's darker, which makes it female, but the white appears to extend all the way to the end. Also, if you look at it compared to the closest lesser scaup, it appears bigger. Greaters are supposed to be bigger than greaters--could this be greater? For my survey, I only need to say, "scaup" but it does make me wonder how many greaters might be mixed in.

Aerial Survey Waterfowl Idenification Part 1

Doing aerial waterfowl surveys is hard work. It's a lot like shorebird identification, you can't just rely on colors, it's more general size, shape and impression--that's right giss birding! I'm told that the hard part for many on these surveys is not getting motion sick in the plane. I can't imagine being motion sick and trying to id and count large amounts of birds literally on the fly. Ick. Fortunately, for me as long as I'm not chugging martinis the night before and if I keep some snacks handy, nausea avoids me. When I first learned that I would be doing these surveys, I was given six hand illustrations of ducks to study and I searched Google Images to find photos of ducks taken from aerial surveys to make flash cards...there aren't too many images like that out there. My hope is that someone who gets to do this in the future, finds this blog entry and has some chance of learning what to watch for the first time they go up. The truth is, nothing really trains you like having an experienced eye with you the first few times you fly to help you learn your birds.

Some birds will be easy to identify on an aerial survey--American white pelicans are huge, fly slowly and are quite distinctive.

And some ducks are easier to identify than others. Can you pick out the three species of waterfowl above?

The ones with the prominent white back are canvasbacks. The white arrow points to a bird with a prominent white stripe on its head--that's an American wigeon and then up in the corner is a distinct black and white bird with a bold white patch on the head--that's a bufflehead.

Here's another group that is fairly easy to figure out. Can you name the tree waterfowl species above? The white birds are tundra swans, the medium sized brown birds are Canada geese, and the smallest birds are mallards. You can't see it in the above photo, but the male mallard's green head was easily visible when we were flying this low. Some would ask how we knew these were tundra swans and not trumpeter. The short answer is we don't, but the longer answer is that these swans were in an area that is known to host thousands of tundra swans in November as they stage and feed before flying out to Chesapeake Bay for the winter. Chances are that a handful of trumpeters could be mixed in, but our survey is primarily about general fall usage. There have been a few points along the survey when we've been closer to the Twin Cities, flying over small family groups of swans that I wondered if we were passing trumpeters and I make sure to note that when I turn in my survey sheets. Now that we have such a large population of trumpeters and they stick around in the winter, it's a challenge to tell trumpeters apart from tundras when flying over them in a plane.

Basic waterfowl id isn't the only challenge. Can you see what's wrong in the above photo? Take a look. Here's the answer:

You have to watch closely to make sure that the waterfowl you see are live waterfowl and not a hunter's decoys. The motorized decoys are easy to spot because you start counting and then immediately ask yourself--why is that duck hovering like a hummingbird?

So, these are some of the basic of birds. I'll leave you with a photo that I'll id later. Can you tell what ducks are in the photo below?

Identifying Ducks On Aerial Waterfowl Surveys

I was planning on Monday being a busy day: wake up and meet the pilot and fellow counter at the small airport at 7am, count ducks for 2 hours, tweak an article due that day, take our new Kia in to our mechanic for the final approval, edit photos, have all my lines memorized because our rehearsal that night was our first night off book and if there was time a quick bike ride before winter sets in for real. A busy day, but nothing outlandish. The day started out well, as we left the tiny Lakeville airport, the skies were clear, all looked perfect for a morning of counting waterfowl on the Mississippi.

Then we got to the river and noticed a problem. Some very dense low lying fog. Check it out, it's below that water tower, I love the shadow cast by the rising sun.

The fog was just over the river, nowhere else. That makes finding ducks hard and flying low at 120 feet a bit too dangerous, we had to call the flight off for the time being. Our pilot flies all over using his plane to survey waterfowl all over the river, testing out aerial camera equipment, vegetation assessment, and documenting land use violations. He had two other flights to do that day, one to count waterfowl down by LaCrosse and another to take aerial photos of tundra swans. His plan was to fly down and do those surveys and meet up with us for our count later in the afternoon. My schedule wax flexible so that wasn't a problem but then I hatched a crazy plan and asked the pilot if I could fly down with him and observe the counts he was doing on the other side of the river. He wasn't sure since the plane was small and there would be two others on the flight, but fortunately for my short legs, he was able to squeeze me in. This complicated my plan, but it was one heck of an opportunity to watch and learn...and take photos!

And so we flew down to Winona, MN to pick up the other counters. I love, love flying in these small planes. Number 1, I can talk to and interact with the pilot so I know he's awake and sober. He also will mention hazards that he sees like cell phone towers. It's amazing what we can see from up above lie the above farm on top of one of the bluffs near the Mississippi River...or large piles of corn right in front of a deer stand (not pictured above). But flying in these small planes is really conquering my fear of flying and heights.

I'm really getting spoiled traveling through all these tiny airports. For one thing, they all have dogs (note this lovely fellow had his own recliner). How can you not be in a good mood when greeted by a friendly pooch with soft fur and wagging tail? Secondly, there's no airport security, no baggage check, no taking off of shoes, no standing in line, no wanding, and there's free coffee. I'm going to be a bit whiny the next time I'm on a commercial flight.

The flocks of ducks in this stretch of the Mississippi River was off the hook--insane numbers. I was grateful for the opportunity to be an observer, I would have been way too focused on fast id and quick counting to take pictures. The above is a mixture of canvasbacks, scaup, ring-necked ducks and a few coots. There's probably one or two gadwall in there as well.

Here's a closer look of part of that flock, you can make out the canvasback shape (and the bright canvas colored back).

It was so cool to fly over Winona, MN and some of the other areas like Weaver Bottoms, I've gone there so many time to look for tundra swans and I wondered what it would be like to fly over it. I can't believe I actually got to do it. It was so cool.

We flew right over the Brownsville, MN Swan Watch. Note all the white specks? Every single white speck is a tundra swan. We estimated that there were close to 7000 there. There were also thousands of smaller diving ducks mixed in too.

Here's a closer view of the swans, rather than a 2000 feet like the previous photo, here's a view at about 100 feet. There also some mallards and Canada geese mixed in.

If you look closely, you can make out three bald eagles flying away from our plane--there were dozens mixed in on the islands near the swans--there were like mini flocks of eagles. I tried very hard to see if any of them were golden eagles since they are in the general area of where golden eagle 42 is supposed to spend the winter but they were all bald eagles.

Speaking of golden eagle 42, he's hanging out near here and I just got a phone call from Mark Martell and we're going to go out and look for him this morning. I'll post more on the surveys when we get back.

Aerial Waterfowl Surveys

So, once a week throughout the fall I will be going up in a plane to do aerial waterfowl surveys for the National Park Service.  It is equal parts fun and frustration.  For one thing, ring-necked ducks look very snazzy in profile, but from above, they're very dull looking and hard to id from scaup, especially if they don't fly!  I've been trying to take some photos and video with a little point and shoot to give you an idea of what it's like, but the camera has trouble picking up the birds.

Although, here is a small flock of ring-necked ducks to count--so you can kind of get an idea of what I see.  It's hard, especially when we get in the rice fields and you realize how hidden coots, teal, and gadwal can be.  If they fly, it's a bit easier to try and id them.  Our pilot is fantastic, (for one thing, he resembles Aaron Eckhart) he flies waterfowl all the time and all over the country and has some great tips, like green-winged teal have a two toned look compared to blue-winged teal form overhead.  The head looks darker than the body--that's helpful.  He will also call out what he sees from the window.  When I listen to my digital recordings of my observations the next day to enter the numbers on the data sheets, I'll hear my voice give a little excited, "YES!" That means that I heard the pilot confirm my id through my headset as we went.

Here's a quick video that I took below.  This little camera only picks up the the gulls which I don't need to count, but you can get an idea of how fast we're flying.  I'm hopeful once the common mergansers show up that I'll be able to take an HD camera and get some better footage.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncWb8bTEIAc&feature=channel_page[/youtube]

Fall Birding At Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary

Saturday I had to go put in a ranger appearance at an event at Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary for an open house they were holding.  It's a great little park that still needs some work, but as more people hang out there, cool things will be found.  This park has such interesting features--a closed up cave that is of spiritual significance for Native Americans, caves that used to store beer for the North Star Brewery built in the 1850s (the brewery was later bought by Jacob Schmidt). In the late 1880s the area was used as an industrial area and rail yard.  It was turned into a park in 2005 and yes, it needs some work--buckthorn and garlic mustard city and the old railroad yard has left all kinds of nasty things in the soil, but a dedicated group of volunteers has been working hard to turn it around and over the years, this will be a bright gem in the Twin Cities park system.

Here's a young male kestrel who was on patrol for food in the area.  He was mobbed by a few goldfinches but he mobbed a Cooper's hawk when it flew through--no one is going to partake of his food source!  I spent most of my time with local birder and excellent bird guide for St Paul Audubon, Julian Sellers.  I noticed he had photos of an orchard oriole out and I remembered that this past spring when I was Bruce Vento, we heard an orchard oriole singing on territory.  Julian said that he and his wife saw the male this summer feeding three young!  That's a great bird for an urban area and for this new park.

At first, we didn't see too much in the way of birds, which surprised me since Carpenter Nature Center was so full of migrants on the move the day before.  But between the nearby highway and active railroad tracks, hearing chip notes is a challenge.  I walked over towards the tracks and found this grassy area to be CHOCK full of birds.

Mostly eastern bluebirds--they were all over and scattered about.  Not sure if they were after grasses or lethargic grasshoppers hidden amidst the grass and low to the ground.

House finches and sparrows were mixed in with the bluebirds.  Above are a couple of female sparrows and a chipping sparrow.  You may be saying to yourself, "Hey, that chipping sparrow doesn't look like the ones I see at my feeder in the summer." But they change color and kind of look like clay-colored sparrows in the fall.  There were also white-throated sparrows, Lincoln's sparrows and fox sparrows mixed in.

The real fun were all the goldfinches.  And boy do they hide well in their brownish plumage!  I would walk down a path completely unaware and then a big flock would explode out of the grasses around me.  But soon enough, one finch would return to the food source and others would follow.

I think these are common sunflower heads, but I'm not sure.  Whatever they were--the goldfinches were digging it.  If you didn't know they were there, they totally blended in despite their furious feasting.

It's a great little park and again, I think we're going to see some great birds there the more people check it out.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Blackpoll warbler chips outside my bathroom window. I look through the screen.  It chips and flies away as if to say, "You just got served!" I did?  I got served.  Holy crap, is it on?  According to Mike McDowell's blog, it's on. Fall migration has totally hit and from looking online, some of the hottest action is at Hawk Ridge.  Check out this photo of a peregrine falcon eating a sharp-shinned hawk on the wing.  Yeah, migration is on!

Yesterday, I was supposed to lead a bird walk at Coon Rapids Dam.  No one showed, so I took it as an opportunity to "rove."  We rangers will sometimes just walk around in different parts of our park and be there to chat with people.  Walking around with my uniform, spotting scope and camera, I'm basically a walking sign, "Come and talk to me!" People do.

I didn't get very far because I found a spot right on the bank of the low Mississippi River that was just chock full of birds. This cedar waxwing was surrounded by palm warblers, one Cape May warbler, yellow-rumped warblers, hundreds of robins, one Philadelphia vireo and a red-eyed vireo.  Behind me were gulls, herons and egrets so it was a great spot to point out birds.

I got this shot of a great egret and when I downloaded it noticed that there was also a drake mallard in the shot too--the drake is coming out of his eclipse plumage. His head is almost all green with that patch of brown. Ducks must be so relieved to be finished with their molt in the fall. I can't imagine what it must feel like to have thousands of pin feathers coming in at once.

I met a new birder Paul who was also taking photos. He said that he was relatively new to birding, but it's been awhile since I've met someone excited about geese. He took photos of them every chance he got--which is great. I think many birders overlook the "common" birds and he was focused on getting the best flight shots of them possible. He inspired me to take a few shots, I like getting photos of them squabbling.

The big treat for me were the sparrows. Check out Mr. Mutton Chops above--I love song sparrows, when you catch them in just the right angle, they have such a great pattern on their heads. Song sparrows are fun this time of year, they are in fresh plumage, the tee up nicely for photos and I LOVE listening to young song sparrows in a bush practicing their songs for next spring. They don't quite have it down and the sing over and over sound like sort of song sparrows.

I saw a group of four song sparrows as I was leaving. After I got a few shots, I continued the walk back to my car. I noticed something scurry like a mouse across the trail. Only it wasn't mouse shaped, it was bird shaped. "Lincoln's sparrow," I thought to myself. I set my scope up to where it had scrambled into the grasses and waited, knowing it would pop out again.

And it did. I love me some brown birds and a Lincoln's sparrow is always a great during migration. It has streaks like a song sparrow, although not as thick. They can even have a central breast spot like a song sparrow, but they don't quite have the mutton chops that the song sparrows have. Ah, what a great sparrow to find.

As I went up the trail to the parking lot, I apparently startled a tree. In fairness, it was dozing on the job so kind of had it coming.