Wrapping Up the Mom Visit

Well, apart from Tuesday the weather was a bit crappy in Indianapolis. Cold, rainy (and a tad snowy), and even a tornado warning to take me back to spring childhood--it's not spring in the Hoosier state without hearing a tornado siren. It didn't make things conducive for birding or digiscoping--the light was terrible--hence the bad photo of the sapsucker above.

Mom's fox squirrels did provide some amusement. I can't tell if the above guy is merely eating a peanut or laughing maniacally as he plans to take over the world (or at least the south side of Indianapolis).

Some plants were desperately trying to bloom and bud. I saw a few brave bleeding hearts, some floppy daffodils, and persistent red bud trees. I loved this mourning dove fluffing out amid some of the pink in a red bud tree. My sister Tracie was wondering why I would bother digiscoping a boring brown dove. In the dark light, it did look gray, but when you got it in the scope with the pink, it was a gorgeous bird.

I'll be taking the train all the way back home. I did start to book a rental car to take to Chicago to catch the Empire Builder to Minneapolis and avoid the train ride from Indy to Chicago. However, between $3 a gallon gas prices and toll roads (bleh) I decided to bite the bullet and just take the train all the way home. Oh well, it should be entertaining at the very least.

Ah, can't wait to be home and cuddle my disapproving bunny and Non Birding Bill (insert naughty, knowing French laugh here).

Hoosier Owl Nest

I'm still kickin' it Hoosier style in Indianapolis.

So, there is an owl nest in a sycamore tree near my mom's condo, we went to visit it yesterday with my Aunt Lorelei. The tree is very light in color and on the top is a place where a large branch ripped off years ago. My mom said that for years when she would pass that tree on her way home from work that she thought it would be a good place for a raptor to nest. Last year, a family member noticed a great horned owl up there and my family has been watching it ever since.
Through the spotting scope you could see the female owl--man, she really blends in with all the dark wood. Even when she was preening and stretching her wings, you really couldn't make her out with the naked eye. You can also see how well her tufts work with the camouflage to look like broken pieces of wood.

Periodically, you could see one of the young owls pop up. I went over and talked to the home owner who had the tree on his property--a very nice man named Steve. He said that he had lived in this house for ten years and the owls always nested there. Neighbors told him the nest was there ten years before that. He was grateful that someone else had noticed the nest besides him.

We did have one guy who drove up, stopped and asked what we were looking at. When we said, "Owl nest." he replied that they make good burgers. Before he drove off, I shouted, "Eagles taste better!"

Sunday Bees

Sunday was another unconventional holiday for us. Since we do not live near family we create our own fun. We ended up hooking up with the Fabulous Lorraine for some Easter Brunch and painting the bee hives.

Yes, we are adding the finishing touches for our honey bee welcome wagon, the hives are painted—we asked the ladies whom the hives are named after what colors they wanted: Olga—orange, Kitty green. We went pastel and the colors are actually creamsicle and pesto.

I practiced using my smoker. The beekeeping instructors said that they would rather work their hives without a bee suit than without a smoker. It will be an important tool to keep the bees calm, and I need to know how to light it and make sure I have enough fuel inside to keep it going while I work the colony. The smell of wood smoke make the bees think there is a forest fire and they go deep into the hive and eat hone. Also, if a bee stings you, it releases a phermone that communicates to other bees, “Hey, guys, I found something nasty over here and I stung it. Call in the cavalry to sting more!” If you puff smoke over the sting, that masks the phermone and keeps your from getting stung further.

Just another few weeks and then I get to hive my bees—can’t wait! The instructors said that when we install the bees that we really won’t need the bee suits—they even showed the video and the instructor only had on jeans and a t-shirt—no gloves. They said it’s more important that we be comfortable so if we want to wear the full suit for the installation we can, I wonder what I’ll do. Right now I am thinking I can install the bees without the suit, but that may change when I’m holding a buzzing box full of three pounds of honey bees.

I checked all the nest boxes around Mr. Neil’s property while we were there and they are all unoccupied at the moment. I only found one bluebird pair, but others may be further south waiting out this cold spell.

While digiscoping the bluebird, I had the feeling that I was being watched. Do you see anything in the above photo? Let me bring it closer:

In the middle of all that was a wary woodchuck giving me the hairy eyeball. Good grief, give this guy some floppy ears and he could qualify for a disapproving rabbit.

When we arrived, one of the feeder poles was knocked down and all the feeders empty. I was worried that they bear had returned that destroyed all the feeders last year, but all the feeders were relatively intact, no punctures from large teeth. Some smears on the baffle confirmed my suspision. With all the rain we’ve been having the ground was wet and we had noticed a few weeks ago that it was leaning. It looks like some raccoons tried to climb it and knocked it down. Even so, I think we will get an electric fence for our hives. Once we got the feeder pole back up, the birds moved in right away like the above chickadee.

And I think nuthatches are now my new favorite bird to photograph, they just strike all these great poses that seem to say--photograph me now! Remember from the pileated woodpecker post that it had white on the underside of its bill? Nuthatches have the same thing.

Friday's Aventures Part 1

Holy Cow! A big thanks to Leanne for nominating me for a Blogger's Choice Award! I'm up for best Animal Blog--I have two votes already--whoot! Although I wonder if I should say Cinnamon is up for best animal--she has a very loyal fan base. We're celebrating with some parsley. If you enjoy the blog, please consider voting. That would be pretty cool to get recognition for birding...and disapproving rabbits.

Friday was an action packed day, I'm to have to divide the entries up. We started at Carpenter, which at first seemed like it was going to be a morning of nothing but juncos but then some excitement came in with a sharp-shinned hawk (above). We were watching a fox sparrow hop and kick around one of the traps and I was trying to use my mind power to get it to go into one of the traps, when all of a sudden all the birds flew towards the window, missing it and ducked for cover. One of the staff announced: "Hawk!"

Hellziggy took the above photo. A junco had already come into a trap further away from us and an adult sharp-shinned hawk was trying to get it in the trap. I wonder if this is the same sharp-shin that nailed a junco in a trap from last December? The hawk spent quite a bit of time flying and clamping down on the trap--it did not seem to understand that it was not going to be able to get the junco out. Jim Fitzpatrick dug around for a balchatri trap (works well for raptors), bated it and set it outside. When he went out, the hawk flew up in the tree, but as soon as the bated trap was out, it went right back down for the balchatri.

After about fifteen minutes, but the hawk finally got caught on the trap and we brought it in for banding. Before it got its toes caught in the nooses on the trap was on the trap, I digiscoped a few photos.

The bird was an adult male. Isn't he beautiful. It's kind of strange, I'm sued to seeing these guys up close when we band them in the fall, not in the spring. He did not have a full crop, but he did have some meat on this chest, he'd been eating well this winter.

Hellziggy made it to banding and we ended up going to lunch and birding in a few other areas. I was glad she made it today, she got to be the one to release the sharp-shinned hawk. New people at banding always seem to bring good luck and cool birds into the traps!

Incidentally, the junco that had been in the trap that brought the sharp-shin in was let go--it had been through enough that morning, it didn't need the added stress of human handling and banding. Although, when he gets to his mating territory, he will pretty fierce thinking, "Yeah, I did a round or two with a sharp-shin, I can take on any male junco in a territory battle." Although, banding must not be too stressful, the above junco we trapped yesterday has been re caught NINE times since it's original trapping in December of 2004. Nine times and it still goes into the the potters traps and hangs out around Carpenter in the winter. It's not like the traps are the only places on the property with food and seed, there are plenty of feeders and spilled seed for juncos to get to without being trapped.

After banding I thought we would check open water for ducks. We stopped at the St Croix and the wind was brutal. It's been below freezing the last for days and today the wind was twenty - thirty miles an hour at least. The river was covered with hundreds of tree swallows (above) trying to glean what little food they can from just above the water. This is the weather that separates the strong from the weak. Usually tree swallows are already nesting, but this cold has put a stop to that. This report came in yesterday from Wisconsin by Patrick Ready:

Today while monitoring my state park trail boxes I opened a box I was concerned had a house sparrow nest in it. Instead of house sparrows about 12 Tree Swallows came bursting out of the nest box.

These birds are under severe stress with this frigid weather and are bunching up in nest boxes to stay warm to survive. The magnitude of this behavior is very unusual due to the fact that so many tree swallows returned very early this year.

Kent Hall in Stevens Point reported finding 17 in one of his boxes this afternoon and promptly quit monitoring. Anyone needing to check nest boxes during this cold spell should stop and look into the entrance hole to see if any tree swallows can be seen before proceeding. Even this is risky as some boxes may only have 3-4 birds and may not be visible until the box is open and the they'd take flight. Better to hold off monitoring until temperatures return to normal. When night time temps drop below freezing avoid checking boxes until later in the morning in case swallows have gathered inside to stay warm.

I don't know if anyone saw Julie's post last month about dead bluebirds in her box, but I think this is a good warning to readers who have bluebird trails. One of the risks that birds take when arriving back in early spring is dealing with low food supplies and harsh temperatures--this helps ensure the strongest survive, but it hard for us to watch. If you would like to help a little, now is an excellent time to stock up on mealworms at your local bird store and attach cups full of worms to your bird houses or just mix some in with your tray feeder. I also scatter suet into my tray feeders to for migrants.

More on Friday's birding adventures later.

Whew, We Have Woodcocks

Not that I was really worried, but I do like to make sure the target birds are targetable before a field trip. After nonstop drizzle for days, the sun started to peek through the clouds this afternoon. I picked Non Birding Bill up from work so we could stop at Surdyk's to advantage of their sale--and to pick up a bottle of scotch for our accountant (to apologize for our taxes finding their way to his desk so late in the game).

While there and also picking up some fancy drink for NBB, I took advantage of his good spirits and asked if he would like to come with me to check for woodcocks--"pleeease, I really need to make sure they are there before we have the tour next Saturday. It's sold out, with a waiting list, pleeeeease."

The sucker said yes.

We tried our hand at night digiscoping: NBB held the flashlight while I aimed the scope and camera. Every time I would get the perfect focus, the woodcock would take off. Aaargh. NBB's ungloved hands were getting cold quickly and his morale was sinking even faster.

I tried playing woodcock peents on my birdJam and speaker to see if that would make the woodcock stay in spot a little long, but that just seemed to anger it. It would peent a couple of extra times and then flew straight at us--it buzzed us. Even NBB seemed somewhat impressed.

We got a couple of shots and then got out of there.

On the way home all NBB could say was, "I can't believe you think that is fun. We could have been at home, indoors where it is warm, watching tv, using the internet, doing stuff."

"We were doing stuff, only outdoors." I reminded him.

"How many times can you watch a brown bird peent in the dark?" he asked.

"Oh, I could have been out another 45 minutes for sure." I said.

"Ugh." NBB said.

Coolest Pileated Woodpecker Post In The History Of This Blog

Holy crap, this is going to be a super cool post! Warning: Gratuitous photos of pileated woodpeckers ahead.

So, today I had a meeting with the Explore Minnesota Tourism folks at Eastman Nature Center in Elm Creek Park (cool stuff that generated from that meeting will pop up in the next few weeks). During a break in the meeting, I went to check their feeders for some digiscoping. At first I just saw the usual suspects: nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, chickadees, etc. The feeders were spread between two rooms. When I walked into the second room, I saw this:

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Okay, it may be hard to get an idea of scale with this tree, but that is a large sliver of a lump up there. I knew instantly: a pileated woodpecker. Knowing how cagey these guys can be, I just set the scope up and started to photograph hoping I might get a shot of the head.

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Then, the pileated flew over to the window feeders! I was way too close to digiscope, so I took a photo old school style--just through the point and shoot. I went to the back of the room and tried to digiscope.

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However, the feeder was swinging violently due to the bird's weight. It was a tall order trying to get the head in the frame and in focus at the same time. I have about 50 blurry and blank photos.

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Okay, there's the head, and it's kind of in focus...but the suet feeder is in the way! Although, I did like this shot because if you look at the bottom of the lower mandible you can see it's white. I have never had the opportunity to see that part of pileated, who knew it was white?

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Okay, still not quite in focus but I love this because the woodpecker was in mid peck and had its eyelid lowered to protect its eyes. This looks thicker than a nictitating membrane (extra eyelid birds have that is transparent--they use it to protect pupils in flight so dust won't damage it). I'm sure they have some sort of eyelid protection since they chip off such large chunks of bark when pecking.

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Whoot! It's in focus, it's not head on, but you can still see the face very well. I like how you can see the crest feathers come together in the back. Kind of reminds me of a kewpie doll.

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I couldn't believe how accommodating this bird was. The whole group had gathered in the room to watch at this point. I asked one of the naturalists if the windows were tinted and she said that they are not, these birds are just that used to people. There was also a female flying around, she was eating at the tray feeder. She tried to bump the male from the feeder, but he always won.

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She was fairly close to and I was able to get a head shot of her. For those who can't tell the difference between male and female pileated woodpeckers, here is what you need to look for: the female lacks the red mustache and her red crest starts halfway up her head as opposed to right at the bill. I was pretty jazzed about this photo. Finally, a crisp head shot! Double whoot!!

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The female started working her way around towards another empty suet feeder. However, instead of flying up to the empty feeder...

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She went right underneath us to forage for all the fallen suet chunks! What a treat to look right down on a pileated woodpecker only five feet away! I was so excited, I almost peed my pants. There were still about ten of us in the room and we call crowded around the window.

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Here's my buddy Carrol Henderson taking a photo of her. It's not uncommon to see pileateds on the ground, they do forage a bit, not quite as much as northern flickers, but they do know how to dig around old fallen snags for juicy bugs.

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The male didn't stray too far away. When he was finished at the other suet feeder, he flew to a tree to keep an eye on the female. My goodness, were we watching a pileated lunch date? Boy, if things keep going this well, he'll be at third base in no time.

Eventually, the birds flew off and we had to finish the rest of the meeting. Sigh.

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The naturalists told us about a barred owl nest right along one of the trails. While we were finishing our meeting, I saw Sue who volunteers with me at The Raptor Center walk by the outside window. I flagged her down to say hi. She was going to look for the nest, so I told her to let me know if she found it on her way back. Five minutes later she walked past the window and gave a thumbs up--she saw the owl. Afterwards we went to look for it, we found the nest hole, but she was hunkered down for the day doing some hard incubating. Now quite what I was hoping for, but after the pileated show how can I really complain?

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One last thing, we did find a disapproving jack rabbit at Eastman Nature Center. Apparently, he didn't approve of being stuffed.

Urban Eagle Nest Near My Home

Yesterday I was driving home and I was on Hwy 77 heading onto Hwy 62 going west. As I rounded the exit, I noticed a very large stick nest in a residential area. I made a note to myself to check it out this weekend. A pair of red-tailed hawks have been hanging out in this area.

Today, Bruce Fall posted to the Minnesota bird listservs that he found an eagle nest at Hwy 77 and 62. An eagle nest? Well, last week I did see an eagle thermalizing above where I saw the nest yesterday. Since it's only five minutes from where I live, I decided to go check it out today.

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I know some people get all upset when you post exact raptor nest locations on the Internet because the nests can be disturbed, but this pair of bald eagles are obviously not too worried about humans disturbing them. It's right on a street in a residential neighborhood and you can't see it, but to the right in the photo is a VERY busy highway. These birds made an informed decision to nest in a busy little neighborhood. Did I mention that this is adjacent to the Minneapolis/St Paul Airport? This is a busy and NOISY neighborhood.

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With all the leaves off of the trees, the nest sticks out like a sore thumb, but once the buds leaf out, it will be well hidden. The nest is easily visible from the 5-8 Club (Home of the Juicy Lucy Burger) and from a church parking lot just across the street from the club. I digiscoped the above photo from the church parking lot, if you look close you can make out her yellow bill.

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While I was there, the male flew in for a quick copulation (is there any other kind for eagles) and then perched for some preening. When I took this shot, a plane came in for a landing. Whoot.

Yeah, I think it's time to take the bald eagle off of the endangered species list.

Spring Movement

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One of the more evil participants on our crane tour just emailed over this photo. On the ride home, I made a little nest for myself on the luggage and fell fast asleep. I was happily dozing when I heard, "whisper whisper...is she awake...whisper whisper...oh if only we could put this on her site..."

Now it all becomes clear...

blackbird

Leave it to spring to get people excited about blackbirds! The red-wings are starting to descend on the feeding stations here in Minnesota. Yesterday was an insane 81 degrees in the Twin Cities. Above 80 in Minnesota in March--that was a record. Non Birding Bill and I took a walk around the neighborhood before his rehearsal and heard at least six species singing on territory: mourning dove, house finch, kestrel, cardinal, rock pigeon, and starling. There was one intrepid grackle giving it a try but his call was even squeakier and rustier than usual. They always sound like that when they first arrive in spring. I wonder if it's because of the journey or if it has just been several months since they've given that call? It sure is the equivalent of a bird cracking its voice.

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I think this is my favorite nuthatch shot I've taken so far. I have no other reason for posting it, other than I thought it was cool. I'm having trouble thinking at the moment. We were incredibly busy at The Raptor Center this morning, it was non stop programs and tours. My final program was a very rowdy group of kindergartners. I'm bushed.

Hey, did anyone else see the corgi on Cute Overload this morning? I wonder if that's Phoebe, the Stokes' dog? If so, I'm very impressed.

Fox Sparrow Sunday

Well, Sunday was a free day since we came home early from the tour. It was an incredible 60 degrees in the Twin Cities in the morning, so what should I do with that free time--finish up an article that's due Monday for a friend who will be nameless or go birding...hmmm...birding....article...which to choose?

I went birding of course! And got some kick arse digiscoped photos of fox sparrows:

fox sparrow food

I ended up at the Minnesota Valley NWR. Oooooooo. Ahhhhhhhh. I love the above photo of the fox sparrow with the tiny morsel of food with a bit of dirt in its bill. How do these guys find anything edible?

fox sparrow head on

There were at least six sparrows mixed in with a huge flock of juncos. All were a bit cagey, but after me standing still for a bit, got used to my presence. The fox sparrows were constantly kicking with their feet to move the leaves and other natural debris to get a s tasty seeds beneath.

For a brown bird, these sparrows really are very pretty and very striking. Well, I better get to work on finishing that article due Monday.

Friday Nebraska Adventures

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So, Friday morning our group went to a crane blind at Rowe Sanctuary. They were kind enough to give our group our own blind that holds about 16 people so our group of 13 fit right in. It was a two story blind, people upstairs got to kind of look down on the cranes, while those on the floor got a head on view. I was on the bottom floor, above is the view from the window.

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Here is the view of the cranes through the scope. The sandhill cranes use the Platte River as a roosting area at night during their spring migration. Our group watched about 17,000 - 20,000 cranes hanging outside of our blind.

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During spring migration, cranes will paint themselves with mud, giving their feathers a rusty appearance. You can see on the bird above with wings outstretched, that it has already gotten underway in painting its plumage.

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You do see some other birds on the river, like this greater yellowlegs pictured above. I'm calling this a greater yellowlegs because it was larger than the killdeer running around and because when it called it said, "you you you". Generally, lesser yellowlegs will only give a single "you" or a double "you you", while greater will give three or more. If you're Kevin Karlson, I'm open to other options on the id.

We also heard a great horned owl calling outside the blind. I did see a few red-winged blackbirds and wondered why they even bothered singing on territory since the din of 17,000 cranes tended to drown out their song.

crane group

Normally at a crane blind you sit in there for about an hour and a half to two hours and then they all fly off at once--a big noisy lift off and you can leave the blind. The cranes Friday morning were total slackers and we were there almost three hours and no lift off. Our volunteer guides let us vacate the blind and we thought the cranes would take off, but they didn't. Don't get me wrong, it was still very cool, but I was hoping our group would get to experience watching the several thousand cranes take off at once. Ah well, another adventure for another day.

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The weather was absolutely gorgeous and I suspect the cranes we were watching were planning to take off and head north on Friday, so perhaps they were getting in a touch more rest? By mid afternoon the cranes were catching thermals overhead and the easiest way to watch them was to just lay on the ground. Temperatures in the sixties, bright sun, cranes flying overhead--what a great way to spend an afternoon.

disapproving prairie dog

Nebraska is still fairly dry and we had a tough time finding waterfowl in potholes as compared to previous years, but a visit to Prairie Dog Waterfowl Production area proved some great entertainment. We found loads of prairie dogs and some distant waterfowl including snow geese, pintails, shovelers, and greater-white fronted geese. Stan gave a great talk on prairie dogs and tried to get them to bark. All he got was the disapproving look above--I felt surprisingly at home.

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There were quite a few killdeer running around amongst all the mounds. They both look so distrusting. I guess they have good reason--well, at least the prairie dog does. It's hard to find love for prairie dogs among ranchers. I don't know what the killdeer's excuse is.

lone crane

One of the tour participants said that she was having a tough time getting a photo of a single crane. After going through my photos, I had to agree with her. I have the above shot thanks to some cropping. I took this shot on our way to Fort Kearney. We were going to the bridge to watch the cranes fly in.

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The bridge was packed. Some of our group was there on Thursday and not many people were around, but Friday night the Kearney night life came out. Above is a group from a local school who are part of an after school/outdoor club. This trip had some fishing and crane watching.

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One of the really fun and cool things about this group was the willingness to share bird information and to corrupt Nebraska youth towards birding. I let the kids borrow my binoculars and look through my scope. The guy pointing towards me is Howard, a tour participant who let the kids look through his scope.

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Wow, I thought I was trendy with the digiscoping, but here Howard is helping a youth photograph cranes with a cell phone through his scope. Now that, my friends, is high tech. The kids got some great veiws of the cranes thanks to our optics. I'm grateful the local schools have these outdoor programs and hope the kids know how lucky they are to grow up with multitudes of cranes every spring. They seemed really excited.