Making Progress With Mr. Neil's Barred Owl

Mr. Neil has a few owl species on his property. There is a resident barred owl who occasionally duets with a second bird. This bird has been the cagiest of barred owls that I have ever encountered. Most of the time when I walk through the woods where it roosts, it takes off even if I'm far away. A few weeks ago, I found it just across the creek and for once it didn't move. However, I think it was forced to stay in one spot because a few trees away was a roosting great horned owl and if the great horned found the barred owl, it would have been an ugly fight. You can read about that here.

I figured that the barred owl had finally decided to stay across the creek and went walking through the pines where it normally roosts. While exploring the pines and checking out a large stick nest, I had that feeling I was being watched. I turned to my left and there was the barred owl roosting. This was the closest it had ever allowed me to come. Typically, it would have flown off. I didn't have my scope and snapped the above photo with just my camera. I looked behind me and noticed up on the hill was Mr. Neil's writing gazebo. It has a deck and I thought that if I went there, I could get a better view of the barred owl--maybe even be eye level with it. I took note of the base of the tree that the barred owl was roosting on and went back the way I came on the trail and took the long way back to the yard and gazebo so as not to get any closer.

I set the scope on the deck of the gazebo and aimed it towards the owl. Can you see it? It's right there in the tangle of trees. Don't worry, I can't see it either. Here it is through the scope:

There it is roosting in the pines. It stayed all day and later, at around 4pm while I was digiscoping the robins and waxwings, I could hear it call from the pines. This is excellent progress--I think the owl is finally learning that the people who come through that part of the woods for the most part ignore it or just watch it a bit from time to time and leave it alone. Incidentally, this is the same deck and gazebo where I recorded the pair of barred owls hooting a duet.

Birds were moving through Mr. Neil's yard today. As I was photographing this goldfinch, I could hear tons of birds moving through the woods. It sounded like hundreds of goldfinches and some waxwings and robins. I looked down towards the woods and I could see the bodies flitting through the trees.

I went in to see what I could see. Some of the robins and waxwings must have just flown in. You could see some of them tucked high in the trees dozing. One robin had tucked herself into the crook of a branch and a tree trunk, her wings drooping. I didn't have my scope with me at that point, but decided to go up the hills to get it. I had to find a long and winding path down to this part of the woods, with some of the snow melt and refreeze, the hills were slick and not easy to traverse while carrying a spotting scope.

I found a way down but the birds were awake and feeding--above is a cedar waxwing, stretching and getting ready for action. I did see a couple of bugs and I know on a warmer day like this that snow fleas are active. The waxwings were feeding on some kind of flying insect. They would wait out on a branch and fly out to catch something just like a phoebe or flycatcher.

I found a buckthorn tree that we missed and the robins and waxwings were taking full advantage of the food source--perhaps they will replenish all the buckthorn we removed-curses!

Here's a head on shot of a robin and big beakful of buckthorn--noooooooooooooooooooo!

As I was digiscoping the birds eating the buckthorn, I could hear them overhead and I heard rustling all around me. I looked and the floor of the woods was covered with robins flipping over leaves searching for edible bugs and who knows what else. It was really quite something--there were so many robins that it almost sounded like a small herd of deer were moving through.

I didn't get photos, but Mr. Neil still has a common redpoll and a few pine siskins hanging around. Winter is not over yet.

Not Another Nebraska Entry

Hey! If you need a sandhill crane and or waterfowl fix, the National Geographic Crane Cam live at Rowe Sanctuary is up and running.

You're probably asking yourself, "How much longer is this chick going to go on about Nebraska???" This will be the last post and then later this week I'll be opening up the Olga hive and feeding her some pollen and try and figure out my mojo with the new digiscoping camera at Mr. Neil's bird feeders--I know the new camera is capable of sharply focused photos, that Harlan's hawk doesn't look bad. Perhaps it will get better when I get new glasses?

In an offbeat bit of news, an artist did a rendering of a photo that was on Cute Overload and included a reference to Disapproving Rabbits. I love being combined with one of my favorite websites and sometimes it's weird to think that we coined a phrase that's part of the Internet Lexicon.

One of the fun parts of visiting Nebraska this time of year is watching the cranes fly off of the Platte River from one of the crane blinds at Rowe Sanctuary. The first time I was in one of these was about ten years ago. I had no idea what to expect, we went out in the morning to the giant blind, crammed in with about 30 other people. We were given the lecture to be quiet and not use any flashes so as to not scare off the cranes. We walked out in the cold, you could tell there were quite a few cranes on the river. You stood shivering in the dark, mesmerized by the sheer number of birds. As the skies became lighter you could make out bird shapes and see birds standing on islands and suddenly got an idea of how many thousands of birds were in front of you. Eventually, an eagle would fly over or a coyote run through, frighten the cranes and they would lift off all at once, each individual call merging into a gigantic roar--an overwhelming and powerful experience and something I have tried to come back to every year since.

Over the years, I've found other places to watch the cranes. Rowe Sanctuary can sometimes provide a closer view but really, if you know where to go, you can watch the cranes outside of their blinds. The above photo was taken from the shores of the Platte River on Tom Mangelson's cabin. It's interesting that at Rowe you are given all these rules--don't stomp too hard in the blind, don't stick your camera lenses outside the blind, no talking inside the blind, no lights period on the front of your camera, etc. When we were on the shores of Mangelson's property, we weren't in a blind, we talked (not loud), we walked around (we didn't dance or do jumping jacks) and cranes flew in and landed without any problem. There was even a big bonfire going on not too far from us and if that doesn't disturb the cranes, I don't know what would.

Check out the five young thugs (immature bald eagles) hanging out in a tree at Mangelson's--are they thinking what this eagle was thinking? Don't get me wrong, Rowe's rules are important. You have several people sharing one blind and a person could conceivably stick their arm out of a viewing window and cause an early fly off. I don't know, I think that since I've been coming here so long and know places to stay and watch free, I'm getting spoiled about how I view the cranes and the geese.

It's interesting to see how things are changing at Rowe. Something to keep in mind now when booking time in a blind is that tripods are an issue. In the past when I took field trips to Rowe, I always tried to get a blind just for our group--it's never been a problem before, Rowe has many blinds. This was the first year that I wasn't given a blind just for our group (even with the offer of paying extra). The morning our group arrived for our first blind visit, a volunteer mentioned the blind they had us in had limited space for tripods for a spotting scope or camera--and we were sharing the blind with another group. When they saw how many tripods our group had, they ended up giving us our own blind. However, when we returned for evening crane viewing, we didn't get our own blind and since all the windows were sold, we were told that our tripod legs could not fall into the space of the window of the person next to us or you wold have to put your scope and tripod away. Our group lucked out a little because we had a couple of people cancel last minute and Rowe didn't refund the money so we had some extra windows for space.

I think everybody should visit Rowe Sanctuary at least once in their life and it's a great place to start off if you've never been to Nebraska to see cranes (and you can get some fun crane souvenirs) but I'm starting to see the fun in hanging out on the Fort Kearney Hike and Bike Trail Bridge for crane viewing.

And I end with one final digivideo of sandhill cranes (and some geese) flying over Mangelson's.

Loves Me Some Minimum Maintenance Roads

Oh, the places we took this bus on our field trip!

Saturday in Nebraska we went to explore other birding areas. We drove by Funk Waterfowl Production Area which in the past few years hasn't been all that great because the cattails had grown up and hidden the ducks. But the powers that be had improved the area for wildlife viewing and it would have been perfect for our field trip--if the water had not been frozen--doh!

So we headed south for Harlan Reservoir. You can take one of the main highways, but we opted to take some minimum maintenance roads towards our destination instead. These barely maintained roads have produced some of our best birding and wildlife opportunities in the past. This time we saw came across a prairie falcon (the blurry bird above). The best part was that this falcon flew right over our group so that we got a chance to see its black armpits (a distinguishing characteristic).

One of the challenges with birding Harlan Reservoir is that you are not allowed to stop your vehicle at some of the best places to watch for waterfowl. This was near the town of Alma, that's mostly cackling geese and greater-white fronted geese in there.

We were happy to see so many geese. One of the volunteers at Rowe Sanctuary said that there wasn't much at Harlan the day before, just some diving ducks. We decided to drive the length of the lake and headed east. We found tons of robins, bluebirds, rough-legged hawks, bald eagles and gulls.

There were quite a few redhead ducks and I took an opportunity to try and figure out my mojo with my new digiscoping camera. While I was photographing the ducks, I noticed a strange sound. I had a tough time trying to determine if it was animal or mechanical. When we scanned the other side of the lake with my scope, we could see thousands of gulls, but it didn't quite sound like a flock of gulls. I decided that it was some sort of farm machinery and didn't give it much thought.

We continued driving and stopped at Republican City to have lunch at the prairie dog town--always a crowd pleaser.

I noticed a new addition this year to the prairie dog town. See the large stick nest in the above photo? Let's look through the scope and see who is nesting inside:

There we see a red-tailed hawk head. What smart hawks...and what unfortunate neighbors for the prairie dogs! Ah well, that's the food chain for you. Amber and I had birded here before, but Stan had not. We told him that if we went a few blocks away we had a pretty good chance of finding a great horned owl nest.

Sure enough, there it was. It's so weird to me that Amber and I know this area fairly well just by birding here one a year for the last several years. I think the red-tails switch nests with the great horneds from year to year. I wonder if next year the owls will be in the nest over the prairie dog town?

Even still, a red-tail right over the town and a great horned a mere few blocks away...it's a good thing prairie dogs breed like...prairie dogs.

As we continued around the reservoir we found this rather cooperative hawk in a little marina community. It had such a tiny little head I almost thought it was some weird dark morph broad-winged hawk, but it was a red-tailed hawk. Now we just had to figure out what type of red-tail. It's a dark morph red-tail, but is it just a dark morph or is a dark morph Harlan's red-tailed hawk? It had some white on the chest...

It had some what on the scapulars, and no red on the tail. The striping looks like the striping you would see on an immature red-tail. We came to the conclusion that is was an immature dark morph Harlan's red-tailed hawk. And when I checked my Wheeler books at home that seems to support the id, but if anyone cares to add their two cents worth, please feel free. We don't get too many of this type of red-tail in Minnesota.

As we worked our way around the lake, I told Stan to stop the bus and let me out. I looked at the lake and asked, "Is that ice?" If you look in the distance of the lake, you can see a long line of white. I looked through my binoculars. It wasn't ice. It was all snow geese. I felt kind of like Sam Neil's character in Jurassic Park when they first saw the dinosaurs. We had seen strings and strings of snow geese flying over all day and didn't realize they were heading towards Harlan. We decided to drive closer.

We kept taking minimum maintenance roads to see if we could get closer and we finally found a road that let out on a hill. We stopped to see if we could get out and get a clear view of all the snow geese.

I got to the top of the hill, I saw this view to my left...

And this view to my right. The snow geese just went on and on and on and on. We estimated the flock to be a mile wide and two miles wide. The sound was unbelievable and remember how I said that I heard some unidentifiable sound earlier? I now realized that I had heard the ginormous flock of snow geese.

More still came in and the flock seemed to be in a constant state of flux, rearranging itself on the water. When we later told some of the volunteers at Rowe Sanctuary they said that the day before the lake was devoid of geese and that this was the third round of snow geese to come through on the reservoir--wow.

Here is our field trip group in front of the geese. Nebraska is known for its cranes, but in some ways the geese are even more spectacular. I wonder how many Ross's geese were mixed into that flock? As amazing as the geese were to watch, we still needed to get back to our crane blind and had to keep going.

Talk about your roads less traveled! We started to go off map at this point. We had an idea of where we were but didn't know for sure. Some of the road zigged and zagged but we felt that if we went on, we would at some point reach the other end of the reservoir and a major highway to get us back to Kearney. I think we made a couple of people nervous with our exploratory ways, but Stan whipped out his iPhone and we found exactly what road we were on and were able to figure out an alternate route when the road became too muddy to continue.

One of the great things about traveling with Stan is that he knows a lot about all sorts of stuff and he is easy to egg on. My favorite things to do on a trip with him is point out a hole and tell him to stick his hand in there...sometimes he sticks his whole body! Most of the time he can id it, I think this hole was some sort of fox.

We continued to find all sorts of gems like this opossum. We also found pheasant and a flock of about 50 wild turkeys. We finally made it back onto an actual road and Stan I noticed that the signs telling use the miles to the next town specified that they were in Nebraska.

Then we passed this welcome to Nebraska sign. Somehow we had taken the minimum maintenance roads into Kansas. Who knew?

Then we passed a speed limit sign and saw this bird--can you tell what it is? If not, no worries, it was most cooperative. We pulled ahead and got out to put the scope and cameras on it.

Check it out--an owl on speed! Seriously, this is a short-eared owl perched on a sign. Its back was to us and then it turned it After we got a good long look, we loaded back into the bus and continued on our way, it took off and we got to watch its bouncy flight over the fields.

What an awesome day of birding! I think its one of the best I have ever had in Nebraska. And to give you a hint of what all those snow geese sounded like, here is a mini video that I took:

Butt Load Of Snow Geese

I'm doing another interview on Talk Shoe, this time with a show called Conscious Living on Wednesday. It will be interesting to see if there are the same naughty forum questions as the other show I was on. Then I'll know if it was me bringing them out or just a weird one time thing. If you're interested in listening, go to the Talk Shoe site on Wednesday at 4pm Eastern Time.

This was a massive flock of snow geese that we found on Friday just driving around Nebraska. It's interesting that the focus of the Platte River birding in Nebraska is the sandhill crane, but the sheer numbers of snow geese are more intriguing to me. When Stan asked about doing a field trip to Nebraska through his nature center, I suggested early March. There may be fewer cranes, but enormous amounts of snow geese. And really, the numbers for both are still pretty amazing--60,000 sandhill cranes, 2 million snow geese.

I think this is one of my favorite photos from the trip. This is just a long, long line of snow geese. As cool as this is, it may be cause for environmental concern. According to Birds of North America Online the current estimates of the snow goose population is between 5 and 6 million, a number that may be environmentally unsustainable. When snow geese return to their breeding grounds, they pretty much eat the crap out of the habitat which in the long term could mean that they eat away the habitat so quickly that it won't recover for future breeding seasons causing a crash not only in their population but other species like sandpipers and phalaropes. Despite all of that, it's still pretty overwhelming to witness.

Below is a video of the above flock flying over our heads. You can hear Stan, my buddy Amber and myself giggling like fools. Non Birding Bill says it sounds like we are high.

Coldest Day In The Blind

Of course, it makes sense--I have about 80 million photos and entries from Nebraska (not to mention a few hundred emails and messages to deal with) and I'm wasting hours because blogger won't load photos (insert Yosemite Sam tirade here).

I have to say that Friday morning in the crane viewing blind at Rowe Sanctuary was the coldest morning I have ever spent in a blind--my camera batteries were totally hating me and I wasn't bummed when the cranes took off before the best morning light for photography (above photo).

Like my cold observation blind fashion? I borrowed the Fargo Hat from Non Birding Bill. When I was watching the forecast throughout the week it predicted temperatures in the teens--that's chilly, but doable to me. When I woke up and checked the weather Friday morning, the temperature was 7. When I checked right before we loaded the van at 4:45am, the temperature was 6.2. Thanks to Stan's iPhone we were able to get a temperature update while standing in the crane blind...1 degree Fahrenheit. I was seriously beginning to question my sanity. I had pushed for coming to Nebraska in early March because we would see millions of snow geese as well as thousands of cranes. I didn't think about the possibility of it being this cold in the blind at dawn.

And just to prove that I wasn't being a wiener about the weather, take a look at the above photo of a crane in flight. Notice anything weird? If not, take a look at this next photo.

Do you see the difference? Note how the legs are hanging out in back? It was so cold, that as the sandhill cranes would take off from the river they would tuck up each leg into their body. I watched one individual do it. As soon as it had cleared the ground, one leg bent forward and then the whole thing disappeared into its belly feathers and a few seconds later it repeated the same movement with the other foot.

Here is a photo of a whole bunch of cranes in the air. Some crane experts said that only the young tend to do that, but on Friday morning--all the cranes were doing it. It seems to me that the legs in back would act like a rudder--I wonder how much they are affected in flight with them tucked in? The did look like large, strange geese in that flight position.

After we left the blind, the birds went to the field where they usually forage, but in the cold temps, they seemed more focused on hunkering down and staying warm. Above are some sandhill cranes and cackling geese.

More in coming...

Where Is The Sky????

Thursday in Nebraska

We saw a super rare bird today! We're not even in Kearney for thirty minutes when Stan says, "Hey, check out that light crane out there."

I was ready to toss it off as light colored plumaged sandhill crane, but when we got it in our binoculars we discovered that it was a common crane! Amber and Stan got photos and I will try to post one in a few days. I called Rowe Sanctuary and apparently we are the first to report it this season. Not sure how to top the rest of the field trip after that one.

There are more geese than cranes right now but it is spectacular. This is mostly a flock of cackling geese with a few snows and greater white fronts thrown in.

We stopped at Forte Kearney and got a kick out of seeing about ten Harris's sparrows where we saw one last year--great little sparrows.

I need to get to bed. We have to meet up at 4am to drive to the blinds and it's going to be cold--14 degrees. It's snowing big fluffy flakes out the hotel window...hope it clears up before morning.

New Digiscoping Camera

I need a new digiscoping camera--my Fuji FinePix E900 has been awesome, but I've dropped it many times, there is a permanent spot on an inner lens, much of the rubber coating is off, and it's covered in proposlis.

Swarovski keeps an up to date list of the cameras that work best with their scopes and one of the top cameras at the moment is the Cannon A570 IS--it's a great camera and it's currently on sale. I got it at B&H for $149!

I got it on Tuesday and took it for a test drive yesterday. The view screen on it is HUGE, I think I'm going to love working with this camera. I wanted to have some working knowledge of the camera before I try it out in Nebraska, but I think the transition is going to be a smooth one.

I remember thinking my Fuji camera has all sorts of settings, but this one has way more bells and whistles--it even has a setting for taking photos in snow--handy in Minnesota. It even has a setting for fireworks, pets, and the macro seems decent. All the photos in this entry were taken with the new camera and I'm pleased with the initial results.

I have to say that I saw a sign of spring in the Twin Cities yesterday. I didn't get a photo, but I saw a female brown-headed cowbird. Oh Joy!

Okay, now I have to get ready to leave for Nebraska.

Birding In Sax Zim Bog

Sunday was a much needed day--take in that common redpoll! At Thursday's Birds and Beer, people were talking about the Sax Zim Bog festival and Ecobirder was talking about his photos from the bog. (by the way, did you see his eagle release entry--very cool). My friend Amber was there and having been so sick and seeing the mountain of catch up work that I had coming, I desperately wanted a day in the bog. I had led a field trip there this year, but I just needed a day of just worrying about showing myself birds. I said, "Hey, Amber, do you want to do a day trip to the bog on Sunday?" There was only one answer to that question. And away we went! It was a blast. We used to bird quite a bit, but careers have changed our schedules and it had been awhile since it was just the two of us hanging out and birding. We ended up spending a good portion of the day talking in I Can Haz Cheezburger language--which will probably seep its way into this blog entry. Our first stop was at a residential feeding station open to the public on Blue Spruce Rd, about a mile north of 133. Someone asked in an earlier comment what the redpolls are eating. This is a mixture if Nyjer (thistle) and finely ground sunflower chips. There were also eating black oil sunflower seeds.

The pine grosbeaks were still hanging around. As we were getting photos a huge flock of evening grosbeaks flew overhead and landed in the surrounding trees--we froze, excited at the possibility of getting photos. But they chirped for about five minutes and flew away! We got totally rejected by evening grosbeaks. Jerks.

But the pine grosbeaks more than made up for the evening grosbeak dis. Look at those fluffy feathers under the chin--I could get lost in those pink floofy bits.

We just kept getting great bird after great bird at this feeding station. Some gray jays flew into the feeders as did some downy and hairy woodpeckers. And then a boreal chickadee flew in. That used to be a challenging bird to get in the bog--let alone get a photo. I aimed my digiscoping setup and prepared to get the best (and only) photo of a boreal chickadee I'd ever gotten in my entire life:

Even with a feeder, this is still a challenging bird to photograph. I could bore you with the twenty some odd photos I have of its butt, however, I did manage one photo of its head:

Digiscopin' Skillz - I has dem! This is just the best fun to me! I love living where I do. I love how I have great birds in my own neighborhood, but just a day trip away is completely different habitat with completely different feeder birds. I love how the community at Sax Zim, with the help of local birders and photographers has found away for people like me to safely enjoy the birds without irritating the crap out of them. What a treat to be able to stand in someone's driveway for awhile and just watch some of the coolest birds in the bog. This beats a few years ago with me stopping along the road watching for flocks of chickadees and pishing them out.

We drove around the bog a bit and headed to the deer ribs hanging in the tree on Admiral Rd. That had been a good spot for woodpeckers and jays this winter. The tree had changed a great deal in the weeks since I visited. Last time I was there, it was just one deer torso and now had become some strange looking bird feeding altar. It now had a deer rib cage, some store bought suet with a butt load of bird seed on the ground. It looked like some crap mix full of milo and then some all purpose mix with sunflowers. If you look at the ground in the above photo, you can see that I set the Wingscapes Camera in the seed.

I did get some redpoll photos. I'm not sure if all that seed is a good idea, I'm not sure who is leaving it, maybe just visiting birders and photographers. It's fun to see the redpolls there too, however that much seed on the ground in melting snow mixed with a few hundred redpolls is the makings of a salmonella outbreak. There were also about three dozen black-capped chickadees popping in and out for seed and suet.

I love this photo. The redpoll looks like its gleaming the cube (yeah, I went there).

Here's another boreal chickadee. It's interesting to note that the birds preferred the complete meaty deer torso over just the rib cage with the fat attached. It could be that they are just more used to the meaty torso and will turn to the rib cage as its there longer.

Here's another back shot of the boreal chickadee. Look at that faded brown cap where a black-capped would be black. What a fun, different little bird. The fun thing about digiscoping is that these birds move so fast that you don't always get to appreciate all the little details of these birds. Just fun to sit at home and just look at all his little plumage differences.

We did have one freaky instance up there and really, a trip to the bog isn't complete without something weird happening--that's part of the charm of birding there. We didn't get photos of what happened, so I'm going to use some of my many redpoll photos to go along with it.

We drove back to the Blue Spruce feeding station. Blue Spruce is one of those roads that curves around a few times, changes names and then dumps back out onto 133. We were creeping along Blue Spruce looking for black-backed and three-toed woodpeckers and then just kind of kept going on the off chance we could see anything else on the back roads. When we got to the end of Aspen, where it curves and changes into Birch we could see about six large dogs shoulder to shoulder in the road. I've seen a couple of dogs on this road before but not this many. I slowed down because the road was icy and figured if I drove through slowly, the dogs would part and we could get through. The dogs didn't move, in fact, they charged the car and started barking.

We couldn't get through and stopped. I tried honking but that didn't do anything. I tried to creep forward and they would just run around on all sides and wouldn't let us through. I honestly didn't know how to get around them without hitting one.

Eventually, a woman came out and tried to call them in, but it did no good. She came over to the car and it explained that the dogs get dumped here. She said that at one point someone had dumped 50 some odd huskies at this corner. These dogs didn't look like huskies, more like some type of boxer. As she was talking to us, the dogs were jumping and bouncing off my car--they were jumping to the top of the window and we could see more dogs coming out of the woods. We could also see in her truck off the side that there were at least three more smaller dogs inside. All the dogs looked well fed and I was grateful I was at least driving down the road and not walking.

I told her that I didn't know how to get through without hitting one and she said if I went fast, the dogs would part ways. She said that they just want to race the car and if I hit one, it was no big deal. No big deal to her, but a big deal to me.

We pulled ahead and the pack followed us, still surrounding the car. Some kept running and stopping in front of the car and others continued to jump up to the side--one jumped up, I heard a bump and then yelping. They followed us around the corner for about a quarter of mile running in front of the car as soon as we would try to speed up seemingly aware that we would stop to not hit them. There were just so many coming from so many different directions that I was really in a panic that I would hit one or run it over. Amber was great with the encouragement and helping to keep me calm. I don't remember exactly what we said to each other, but I'm fairly certain it involved lost of words starting with the letter F. I don't know how I would have made it alone. Doggies, don't eatz meh car plz, ok, thx, bye.

We eventually made it through, but it was incredibly unnerving, the dogs seem to sense that you don't want to hit them and just run in front of you and bite your bumper. When I got home last night, I posted the experience on the Minnesota listservs and got six emails right away from people who had a similar experience and weren't sure about posting. About half of them told me that they also saw a 400 - 500 pound pig mixed in with the dogs!

Mike Hendrickson has been great about sending our experiences to local city officials and trying to contact animal shelters up there to maybe do something about the dogs. The mayor advised that if you have this experience that you call 911--stress that it's not an emergency, but describe the incident and where it's happening. The more calls, the more likely something can be done to control the dogs.

After our experience, I told Amber that I had to go back to the bird feeders and soak up some cleansing redpoll action. We soaked up the redpolls, cleansed ourselves of the scary not so lol dogs and headed back to the Twin Cities.

Another great day in the bog.