Cardinals Outside The Window

Can you tell which one is the female cardinal and which one is the juvenile cardinal in the photo below?

The cardinals in my neighborhood had two broods this summer. As soon as the first young were out of the nest and feeding, they started courting right away and laid a second set of eggs. The young from the second nesting are just now leaving the nest and the adults are bringing them around to our feeder. I was just telling Non Birding Bill this morning over breakfast that after all the work this week, I could really use some time to go out digiscoping and as soon as I looked out the window, these two perched on one of the wires in the alley.

This is the juvenile cardinal alone on the wire--it looks so dejected now that the female flew away and isn't feeding it. An easy way to tell them apart is that the female as the bright orange bill and the juveniles have the black bill. Soon the juveniles will molt into their adult plumage--they they'll really go through that awkward phase.

The Benefits Of A Dead Tree

"Did someone say there's a dead tree? Yum! Count me in!"

We've had some powerful storms in our neck of the woods for the last month. Non Birding Bill and I have been fortunate in not having any storm damage (heck of a light show, though), but Mr. Neil has lost some trees, one being a very large oak near the bird feeding stations--NOT the oak that supplied us with a tasty harvest of Sulphur Shelf--it's still standing tall (although the fungus has dried out).

This oak has been kind of the staging area for all the feeder birds. Up until a large bolt of lightening struck the giant tree a couple of weeks ago, all the birds would hang in there and make sure the coast was clear before coming down to the feeders. Woodpeckers would check for bugs, nuthatches would cache suet and nuts, mourning doves would flirt, and immature birds would beg from parents high in the branches as the adults fed, trying to show the young how to use the feeders. I always thought to myself that if something happened to that tree, it might affect the bird activity. Initially, it was thought that the tree had just lost a large branch, but an arborist came and pointed to where and how hard the tree was struck and needed to be cut down since it was so close to the house. When the yard crew cut the tree, you could see the charred core for the powerful bolt of lightening.

After the tree was cut down, I asked Mr. Neil what he was going to do with it. The tree fell into the woods (away from the house) and he was considering the idea of leaving it there to rot. I strongly favored the idea, though we lost a tree for the birds to hang out in before they go to the feeders, it would become a great brushy area and an awesome food source. Even though the tree has only been down a few weeks, the birds are already digging it.

Here is a black-capped chickadee going for tiny insects working around the dead leaves. This birds kept bouncing from clump to clump of dead leaves. As I was watching this chickadee, I could hear soft pecking from several different sources around me. As the oak had come down, a few other trees came down with it, so there are several dead trees surrounding the oak--an Old Country Buffet of all natural food for the birds (hm...can you have "all natural" and "Old Country Buffet" in the same sentence?).

One of the birds pecking was this tufted titmouse. The bird was really hammering away at this jagged edge of a broken branch. First it started at the top, and then the side. Anytime another titmouse flew it, this bird would chase it off. Something must have been good in there...

Eventually, the bird really started pecking away at the bottom and really excavating. The behavior was so fascinating, I thought I would digivideo what it was doing. Be alert, this clip is only six seconds long:

As soon as I had pressed record on my little digital camera, the titmouse got its reward--did you see the size of that grub?? I couldn't believe my luck of getting a quick video of the bird getting the food. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I can't wait to see what happens over the winter.

Another benefit to the missing large oak is that now the late afternoon sun casts a gorgeous glow on the feeding station--perfect for digiscoping. I found this female ruby-throated hummingbird preening in one of the small trees next to the nectar feeder. Earlier, when I had been filling all the empty seed feeders, she buzzed by head twice (I wasn't wearing red, so it wasn't like she thought I was food). The third time she buzzed, I turned around and followed her with my eyes. She flew twenty feet away to the hummingbird feeder, hovered for a moment and flew up into the tree. Hm, what is it Lassie? Is Timmy in the well again? Or is the nectar nasty in the hummingbird feeder. I took the feeder in, cleaned it out, put in fresh nectar and not five seconds after I hung it back up, she flew down and started feeding on the nectar. This bird has me trained--three buzzes and I fill the feeder. After she fed, she went to the tree to preen. Here's a video of her ablutions. Note how she periodically flicks out that tiny tongue:

And for those interested, a bee update will be coming up later today.

Shorebird Immersion Course

I told Doug Buri that if he ever offers his shorebird identification workshop again, he should call it a Shorebird Immersion Course. Number one, you're surrounded by shorebirds, up close and personal (like the short-billed dowitcher and pectoral sandpiper above). Number two, you are out in the mud flats and could sink.

Here's my buddy Amber out taking photos of the many shorebirds that we saw. You can see that the ground surrounding her was a tad wet. Doug's motto was that the way to id shorebirds is to get up close, out on the mud flat. The birds would initially fly away and then come back and feed near you--a human shape is not a known predator so they don't worry about us too much. During one of the morning trips, we were walking on the mud flats. As we went along, I felt my feet sink a little with each step. As long as we kept moving, it wasn't a problem. But then the group stopped to watch some birds and I noticed the world getting taller. I looked down and discovered my Keens were engulfed in mud. We stayed and I tried to quietly free myself--it wasn't happening. Doug said, "Well, at this point we can either go forward or go backwards, whatever the group wants to do."

"Maybe we should go back, I'm starting to sink." I said in a calm voice.

Doug laughed and said something to the effect of "How can you tell, you're always low to the ground." Our group was in a line and I was in back, so no one could really see the situation. I tried again to free my shoes and said, "I kind of am sinking." Again, in a calm tone.

One of the group turned around and saw my shoes and said, "Oh!"

"Yeah, seriously," I said. "I'm sinking and can't get out."

It took two people, but we freed my shoes and I continued on, although a little muddy. Fortunately, there were lots of puddles nearby and I was able to rinse of my shoes.

Doug made us work for those birds, whether it be standing on unsteady mud...

Working on id in a coming storm...

Descending loose rocks near a dam...

Or trudging through eight foot high cattails.

But it was worth it! These little least sandpipers were within about five feet of our group. They were too close to digiscope so I just aimed my camera the old school way--point and shoot.

However, I did get some up close shots of the leasts.

This is a semi-palmated plover (above) not to be confused with the semi-palmated sandpiper (below):

And if you're wondering what the heck "palmated" is all about, it's a throw back to when bird id was done with a shot gun. If you hold a dead semi-palmated sandpiper (or plover) in you hand, about six inches from your face, you will see some slight webbing between their toes. Not all shorebirds have this and as a regular birder, it's not something you're going to notice out in the field. The semi-palmated plover is one of the cutest shorebirds out there--kind of like the kid brother of a killdeer.

"I wish he'd quit copying me. Sigh."

I have to say, Doug had some unconventional methods for teaching us id. Here he was doing a slide show on the finer points of sandpiper identification at a local restaurant. The walls were kind of a peachy color and to help keep the colors true, he borrowed a cook's apron to use as a screen.

In our final class he made us identify old decoys. Actually it worked, we used the hints that he gave us and we were able to figure out what species the artist was trying to carve.

Some questions came up in the comments section about the bugs. I have to say that for all but one of the field trips, we didn't have any mosquito problems. My biggest concern was sunburn and heat exhaustion. When I took most of these photos (like the above dowitcher), it was in the upper 90's and high humidity. I was covered from head to toe with my third application of sun block--I could feel my pores staging a large acne protest on my face, and I could feel sweat dripping down my back and my legs. Stinky mud oozed through my Keens enveloping my toes. It was late afternoon and we were watching some of the birds bathe, I risked the spongy mud to dip my feet in the water, hoping for some cool relief only to be greeted with warm bathwater temperatures. But it was awesome and I had a GREAT time. I was in the middle of nowhere, unable to hear any mechanical sounds (no planes, no cars) and just the sounds of calling shorebirds.

But all his torturous techniques worked, I can now identify my own photos with confidence, instead of sending them on to friends to help id:

This is a pectoral sandpiper.

This is a short-billed dowitcher.

Here's another of the oh so cute least sandpiper.

Here we have the diabolical lesser yellowlegs, not to be confused with the even trickier...

greater yellowlegs. Okay, I know some of you out there are saying, "Yo, Shaz, that bird looks EXACTLY like the photo above it! How can it be different?" Well, this bird was 30% larger than the bird in the other photo and if you look close, it's bill is "two toned" it's lighter at the base than the tip. The lesser yellowlegs has an all dark bill. Really, it does. Honest.

All in all, this workshop was a great time, I learned a lot and I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to learn their shorebirds. Part of my block is that there aren't any places where I live that I could watch shorebirds up close several times. I didn't necessarily see several species, but I needed the repetition of the common species in different light to really get them down. Doug has a relaxed teaching style that makes learning fun and helps you feel encouraged. I almost feel like I could take on gulls sometime in the next five years.

Shorebird Workshop Day 1

Today was hardcore! Yes sir, this was some mighty fine birdin' in some sloshy areas. We drudged through wetland vegetation to get as close as possible to some shorebirds--and they didn't care! Okay, some cared a little but for the most part they just probed away at the mud, oblivious to our presence. That's our fearless leader Doug Buri above. I don't know if you can see it in the above photo, but here are some dark specks in the sky--those are swallows, thousands and thousands of swallows (of several different species) swarming over our heads. Doug said that the winds pushed insects from the lake to one end and the birds were above catching them. That's really cool and all, but I did wonder...how may insects are just overhead to cause the skies to cloud with swallows? Eep!

The least sandpipers didn't care about us in the least (har har--sorry, I couldn't resist). A minor problem that I had was that they were so oblivious to us that they would turn their backs to us and ignore the six large creatures and I had to wait to get a head on photo.

Doug has really planned this workshop well. He brought up a common problem that I can relate to. When you go out to watch shorebirds, you will go someplace where there are hundreds, if not thousands (the more there are the easier, right?) and it can be tough to learn id that way--too many species to focus on, too overwhelming. The birds constantly move and it's like watching a pot of boiling vegetable soup--it's hard to focus on just one vegetable. He chose areas for today where there would be 3-4 species for us to really focus and learn--species that I have trouble with like pectoral sandpipers, semi-palmated sandpipers, killdeer (okay, I don't have problems with killdeer--I'm not that bad), and least sandpiper (three of those four species are in the above photo). I really, really needed this because goodness knows I have misidentified quite a few shorebirds in this blog. Doug is also using The Shorebird Guide as our text for the workshop--a book that I love. Not only is it full of useful info, but the photos are just gorgeous--really works of art. It's a great book buy it--it won't teach you shorebirds over night, but it will help.

Killdeer are really helpful in the field, they are everywhere, you see them all the time anyway, so you have an idea of their size and they make great comparisons--how big is the bird in relation to a killdeer? Check out the bird behind the killdeer--we probably would have figured this one out without the aid of the killdeer. You notice the neon yellow legs and you may think, could this be a yellow legs? No, way too buffy...

So it's a buff-breasted sandpiper. We weren't really looking for that today, but it was a great and welcome find.

Here we have a couple of birds, the larger is a pectoral sandpiper and you'll note the gray mottling goes halfway down over its chest and makes an abrupt stop. Next to it is a smaller bird. Ack! What could it be? Doug asked me, "If you have to choose a color for this bird, brown or gray, what would you answer?" I answered gray. Then he asked, "Does the bill look like it's the same color as the legs or do the legs look like a different color?" I said that they looked the same. He said, "Semi-palmated sandpiper."

That's all well and good, but the hard part is how do I tell the semi palm from the least--they're almost the same size. Even though the least is a half inch smaller than the semi palm, that can be a hard difference to see in the field.

We looked at this bird and again, Doug asked, "If you have to choose a color for this bird, brown or gray, what would you answer?" I answered brown. "Does the bill look like it's the same color as the legs or do the legs look like a different color?" I said that the legs and bill did not look like it was the same color. That makes this a least.

These are just some of the great tips we are learning from Doug, we're also learning lots of other id clues. He also had us look at a shore line in the distance without binoculars. You could easily see the whites of the semi-palmateds. In some cases, you could see that the birds were quite gray with the naked eye. When you put up your binos, you could see the browner least sandpipers which weren't so visible to the naked eye. In the scope, you can also notice that the bill on the semi-palmated sandpiper is more blunt tipped at the end and the least comes to a finer point.

So, here we go side by side, can you tell which bird is which?

I have to say there are a TON of frogs and toads here. At our first stop this morning we were totally surrounded. Every time someone took a step, twelve frogs would jump in different directions--sometimes ricocheting off of our legs. I guess lots of frogs are a good sign of healthy water.

There were also quite a few toads. I don't think this is an American toad and am wondering if this is a great plains toad. I sent a photo to Stan, but haven't heard from him yet. Anyone out there familiar with these guys? It was kind of spikey and made me think of Delmar in Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou when he says, "She loved 'im up and turned him into a h-h-hooorny toad."

And now I must rest up so I can soak up more shorebirding knowledge tomorrow. It's a great day when all you do is learn new things all day long. I'm still glad that there are birds I don't know and I can have the "ah-ha" moment and finally understand the difference between hard to id birds.

Bald Cardinals and Other Bald Birds

All of a sudden in the last two weeks, I have been getting comments to an old post from July 25, 2005 (way back when I worked at the bird store). The post is about bald cardinals.

Every year about late July and early August there are questions from people asking about black headed birds, miniature vultures or bald headed feeder birds. Most of the time, people are describing cardinals without any feathers on their heads, but I've also had reports of bald blue jays and grackles.

While I was down in Indianapolis, my mom had a bald cardinal coming to her feeding station. So, what is the dealio? No one knows for sure, even Cornell Lab of the Big O admits that the case of the bald cardinal is not well studied. There are two possible explanations. Number one, this is the time of year when many songbirds (including cardinals and blue jays) are molting (shedding old feathers and growing in new feathers). For some reason, the birds drop all of their feathers on their heads at once. I've seen this with captive birds like great horned owls and even our education screech owl at The Raptor Center. The birds are healthy, they just molt everything at once (interesting to note that all of those species mentioned are tufted: cardinal, blue jay, great horned owl, eastern screech owl--hmmmmmmm).

Alas, my mom didn't have just a bald male cardinal, she also had a bald grackle (so much for the only tufted bird theory). This grackle was much more wary than the cardinal and this was the only shot I got of it. The bird seemed to sense the spotting scope and flush right as I was about to take a photo. I don't blame it, the bird kind of looks like a Skeksis, I wouldn't want my photo taken either. This bird leads me to the number two reason birds can go bald and that is that they can get feather mites. Generally, birds can use their bills to remove pests like mites when they are preening. However, they would be unable to get to mites on their heads and so the mites eat away the feathers. It's tough to say what really is going on, without trapping the bird and looking for the mites, you really can't tell for certain if it's molting or mites causing the lack of feathers.

There was another grackle coming to mom's feeders that was starting to lose its facial feathers. Interesting to note that the cardinals are dark skinned under the feathers and the grackles are light skinned. Since my mom had at least three birds that were either bald or starting to become bald, I wondered if this was a case of mites being passed around. The birds appeared in good health and were eating well, looking alert--all good signs. And mites don't usually kill a bird. Annoy it and make it look grotesque--yes, but kill birds--not so much. Check out the video I got of the male cardinal eating a berry off of mom's fuschia plant:

Did you note how he scratched the back of his head? That also makes me wonder if mites are the cause. Although, I would bet a bunch of pin feathers growing in at once would be rather itchy.

By the way, don't feel too bad for him, he's still gettin' some play. Not long after I took that video, this female flew in and he jauntily bounced over to her and fed her some of the fuschia berries--very clear mating behavior. She didn't seem to mind his bald pate one bit (perhaps she likes that Christine Lavin song). Although, if you look right behind her eye, there's a small bald patch--mites? Will she be bare headed soon as well?

As I was watching the cardinal, I noticed something new. Check out where his ear canal is. Do you see it? It's that large hole right under his eyeball (there's a small red feather over it). How cool--who knew that their ears were just below their eyes...and about the same size. I wonder if anyone has done any studies and the hearing capability of cardinals? So much we don't yet know...

And just for comparison and to not leave you with grotesque cardinals, here is a photo of a proper male cardinal. Whether the birds in the other photos have mites or an odd molt pattern, don't worry too much. In most cases, the feathers do grow back in plenty of time before the winter sets in and all will be right with the cardinal world once again.

Chickadee Eating A Sunflower Seed

And now I present you with a video I digiscoped (or digivideoed) of a black-capped chickadee eating a black oil sunflower seed. Note how it works the nut meat apart bit by bit. Also, note how this bird is not eating at a feeder, chickadees fly away to another perch with their food--presumably to eat it out of a potential predator's view.

When you see the chickadee puff up in the video, another chickadee has landed nearby, and it's trying to look intimidating to protect its food--it's a mini mantle.

Osprey Banding

I don't know how many of you readers have been following the Zickefoose Blog about blogging styles: as a blogger, are you an ant (writing posts ahead of time and having a store of well thought out, well written, typo free entries) or are you a grasshopper (posting as the muse strikes you, never bothering to have a larder of entries)? If you haven't been able to catch on by my typos, I am very much a grasshopper. I would say that for the most part, that works for me. However this week, the blogging has been a struggle. Nor for lack of inspiration--but lack of time and alertness to do many posts. I have a back log of entries.

Now, on to Thursday's osprey banding:

My friends, Amber and Reier picked me up Thursday morning for some osprey banding with Mark Martell. We stopped at four different nests and had some interesting discoveries.

Nest 1: only one chick to band (mark did two nests on Sunday and each had three chicks) and the adult female had a transmitter on her back--she's from Milwaukee. Can you see the chick in the nest in this photo? When the osprey parents call the warning, the chicks go flat like a pancake, this only shows their brown feathers and hides the white feathers. To a passing aerial predator, the nest would look empty.

Nest 2: three chicks, one died as soon as it was taken out of the nest--very similar to what happened in 2005. The necropsy of the 2005 chick showed that it was severely weakened from a liver problem and that it died from cardiac arrest. The stress of being taken from the nest killed it, but had it been healthy to begin with it, then it would have survived the banding. The problem that the chick had would have killed it either before it left the nest or not soon after. I have a feeling, the necropsy for this bird will show that they same thing happened. Bummer.

Nest 3: Two healthy chicks. Although, besides just the pair of adults screaming at us as we banded, a third flew over and joined in the screaming and yelling. You should be able to see three birds in the above photo, flying in the sky.

Nest 4: Empty. What was interesting about this nest was that chicks were observed in the nest this past Sunday but a mere four days later they were gone. It was way too soon for them to have left the nest and even still, there should have been some osprey activity and it was dead quiet. A new eagle nest was built withing half mile of the osprey nest and Mark speculated that the eagles at the chicks sometime between Sunday and Thursday (guess the pancake defense didn't work so well that time). Talk about getting two birds with one stone (har har)--they get to juicy birds as well as cut back some of the competition for fish in the lake.

Sometimes great horned owls will take osprey chicks, but they aren't strong enough to carry the body away and eat it right in the nest. An eagle, is much larger and can easily carry an osprey chick. The lack of feathers and body parts in the nest points the finger to the eagle.

For me, the best part of the day was at the Lake Josephine nest. There were some kids who came to watch the banding and while this bird waited its turn to be banded, I let them touch it and even better--smell it. Since osprey only eat fish, they have a very distinct aroma. They also became our helpers, holding the bands and other equipment before we put them on the birds. They did a good job. Perhaps future naturalists?

And, because I feel like everywhere I go, I'm finding grasshopper sparrows, I'll include the above photo. This bird was near one of the osprey nests, perched on top of a sapling covered with a plastic tube (to keep deer from chewing it) and then covered with netting on top (to keep bluebirds from going into the tube looking for nest cavities and getting stuck). It tried not to move, hoping I wouldn't notice it just sitting there with some incredibly incriminating billful of food, on its way to feed a nest of hungry chicks. I was more entranced by the insect that whipped around in the tiny bill. I wonder what it was?

Birds Are Fledgin' Out All Over

Young chickadees are invading the feeders at Mr. Neil's house. If you look closely at this photo, you can see a little yellow where this young chickadee's bill connects with it's face. The remnants of the gape young chickadees have to help stimulate their parents to feed them. This young chickadee was figuring out how to hold a peanut between its toes and then peck out bite sized pieces. The adult chickadees are now ignoring the young birds crying for food and eating themselves. The ravenous young birds are following what they see the parent birds do and learning how to use the feeding stations. Once they figure out how to grab peanuts from the mesh feeder and sunflower seeds from the tube feeders, they explore further for food. This young bird is contemplating the eye hole on this decorative bird on top of the feeder pole. It is asking itself, "Can I eat this?"

"Let's find out!" PECK! The young bird pecked and prodded the eye hole a few times and then gave up. It was fun watching the young chickadees trying out new things. One intrepid youngster flew to the hummingbird feeder and ate the ants trying to get past the ant moat.

The young chickadees were looking fresh and well feathered.

The adults, well, they were looking a little rough. I'm sure it's a combination of the nonstop work of nesting and it's time for a summer molt (dropping those old feathers and growing in new ones).

Young titmice were also learning to feed too. The adults kept going to the peanut/sunflower feeder over and over again while the young birds begged in the tree. Eventually, one impatient young bird followed the adult to the feeder and continued to beg. As the adult continued to feed only itself, the young bird finally got the idea that it had to dig out it's own peanut or sunflower.

As the young bird finally mastered the feeders, it seemed triumphant in its discovery. "I am king of the peanuts, master of all the feeders I survey!"

I found another grosbeak photo and I'm just throwing this in to the entry to add a little color.

Lost Weekend

This weekend wore me out. I am not a creature meant to spend lots of time in high temperatures and hot sun, but I found myself in it quite a bit. The upside is that I don't notice while I'm having fun and observing birds, but the downside is that when I get home, I am exhausted down to my bones.

Check it out, the monarch chrysalis on our radiator came out this weekend. That was timely because I had my Monarch Ranchin' class on Saturday morning at Staring Lake Outdoor Center. Stan helped out a little...well, actually he started out by distracting the group by releasing a chicken in the outdoor center--wacky boy. But after we had been out searching for monarch eggs and caterpillars, he put them under the Outdoor Center's microscope-it was very sweet to see the details of the eggs up close.

As soon as I was done at the Outdoor Center, I had to zip right over to meet my buddy Amber to do 2 back to back bird programs for The Raptor Center at CONvergence. This is our third year doing it, you may recall some of my photos from last year. I didn't have time to do the parties this year. After we finished our programs and drove back to TRC to put the birds away, I had to zip home and get ready for a friend's birthday party.

This is one of my favorite bird programs that I get to do as a volunteer. For one thing, people at a science fiction and fantasy convention are happy and in a good mood, they are seeing old friends and discussing a favorite topic--and they're in costume (note the lovely lady dressed as a fairy in the above photo). This year, one of the new staff at TRC came along to observe the program and at one point she leaned over in surprise and said, "I just saw a Dalek! I mean, a life sized actual Dalek!"

I was really impressed that she knew what a Dalek was. She already had cool points in my book anyway, she's the one who has been rehabbing the young porcupet.

It's fun to try and guess different costumes, (I think the one in the photo above is an Andorian) I also recognized Dr. Who, Brak, Sailor Mercury, and I saw at least four different Indiana Joneses at four different ages. I even saw someone dressed like Young Frankenstein! The woman who arranges for us to come is named Erin. As we were packing to leave, we thanked her for having us out and the generosity of the group (we always get great donations from this group on top of the program fee). I asked that she keep us in mind for next year. She said TRC would be back and added, "I always ask for you and Amber because you guys get us and what we're about." What an awesome compliment and it totally made my day.

This morning I was back at Staring Lake to lead an "urban bird trip". I would have advertised in the blog, but it was a last minute trip for me--I was subbing for the original trip leader. I took the group to couple of spots on the south side of the metro area, near the airport. There were a couple of unusual birds (for Minnesota) reported there and also, they are just great general birding spots. We heard and glimpsed and Acadian flycatcher at The Old Cedar Avenue Bridge and we heard and glimpsed a Bell's Vireo at Black Dog Preserve. I find that both of those species are more exciting to hear than to see.

The real star of the show ended up being Virginia rails. We passed another birder while listening for the Acadian who told us that the rails were putting on quite a show, so our group hightailed it out to the observation deck. When we arrived, a sora scuttled out of the way and is wasn't long before we heard the Virginia rails grunting. We were able to glimpse an adult chasing a younger bird. I played the Virginia rail call on my birdJam and the adult gave up the chase and came straight for us. He ran under the deck, around us, and zipped in and out of the reeds. It even paused to give its grunt call right back. The bird was moving way too quick for me to digiscope it (I snapped the above photo with my point and shoot), however someone in our group had a nice camera and...

Rob Grant got the above shot of the Virginia rail! Thanks, Rob, for letting me use your image in the blog. I have to say, I've called rails out before but these were hands down the best looks I've ever had at a Virginia rail. The bird soon ignored our group and continued its chase of the younger bird. We stayed for quite some time observing other species of birds and still the rails would scurry about us.

We also had great looks at marsh wrens--this guy popped up and sang for so long that everyone in the group got a good look through my spotting scope and I had a chance to digiscope it. Wow, a wren sitting still--who knew? I really enjoy doing these low key birding trips where we just enjoy the usual birds and get a few surprises in the process.

After the trip, I came home, took a long hot bath and napped a good portion of the afternoon. Tomorrow, I have to do Showcase Minnesota and then it's off to check the bees. Last week, Non Birding Bill and I put in some frames from the healthy Olga hive that were full of eggs and larvae in the hopes that the queenless Kitty hive would raise one of the eggs into a queen. I'll check for queen cells and if there aren't any, I'll have to combine what is left of Kitty with Olga.

Grosbeak Enjoyment

Ah, this is the life: sipping a tasty cup of shade grown coffee while digiscoping a rose breasted grosbeak in gorgeous light:

Mr. Neil has several grosbeaks at the feeders this year--and they are feeding the entire summer long. There have been no orioles nesting this year, but the abundance of rose-breasted grosbeaks more than make up for it. The are becoming braver and more tolerant at the feeders. Typically, they feed off of the trays on safflower and sunflower, but this summer they are feeding quite comfortably on the perches of tube feeders.

Check this out! The dude is hanging upside down just like goldfinches do on an upside down finch feeder--clever boy! Actually, this feeder isn't an upside down feeder, just a copper Aspects tube feeder, so this grosbeak is hanging upside down and leaning back to feed out of a port that's behind him...do you suppose there was a lady grosbeak nearby he was trying to impress? I never cease to be amazed at the adaptability of birds.

I just love this shot--true to grosbeak form, he's cracking a sunflower and you see the little seed husks exploding all around that massive bill. Love it.