First Bird Seen (and Digiscoped) in 2009

Stumbled down to the kitchen this morning and there were birds everywhere and the first bird seen and identified was a pine siskin. Well, technically there was a junco too, but couldn't fit it into the shot. So, I'm going with siskin.

Also, in my inbox this morning is an interesting story from the Telegraph of a kingfisher photographed eating six different kinds of fish! Check it out. Thanks for sending it, Laura.

Hope you all had a good time last night and here's hoping for getting along, good bees, good bunnies, good times and good birds in 2009. We had a quiet night of me, Non Birding Bill, and Mr Neil playing Wii Fit and watching Father Ted and The Muppets. It was a quiet highbrow affair until about midnight when...well...I think the Muppets did a fine reenactment here.

That Wii Fit is mean. It assessed me out to be a 50 year old, overweight, unbalanced tart. Mr. Neil and NBB both assure me that as I play more and figure out what the Wii wants, I'll get younger and fitter. I've never had a bird do that to me before. Perhaps I will stick to trudging in the woods.

Black-capped Chickadee Butt

Oh, the dangers of talking while digiscoping. I've said it before and I'll say it again, when you digiscope, you get hundreds of not quite perfect photos. If you're just trying it out and you feel that most of your photos are crap, don't feel bad, it takes several tries and maybe even a little tweaking on the computer to get good shots. The other day I was taking shots at a feeding station at a local nature center. When you plant yourself in a chair with your spotting scope and digital camera, people have questions. So, as I was shooting, I was chatting. When I downloaded the photos, I discovered a disturbing amount of chickadee butt photos while it was on the feeder. I'm not sure what my subconscious is trying to tell me.

Ballistic: Turkey vs Squirrel

I stopped at Richard Nature Center for a bit of digiscoping. When I arrived, the place was chock full of turkeys and like the flock at Minnesota Valley, they took turns fluttering up to the top of a feeding station to get at the seed in the flythru. A flock has been regularly seen at this feeding station, coming and going, but the turkeys are now rather stationary. They fed and roosted and didn't seem too interested in moving on. Many of the turkeys were dozing off right under the feeders.

I don't know why, but this drowsy turkey just makes me laugh. She looks like she should be listening to a Morrissey CD.

As much fun as turkeys are, there was a long tailed sparrow lurking under a cedar tree that caught my attention. I got it in the scope and was surprised to find a white-throated sparrow still around. They are usually out of Minnesota by now. Hopefully, this bird will find a good food supply, a nice place to roost and evade the sharp-shinned hawks and survive the winter. I tried to get a better photo of it...

But the turkeys kept walking between my scope and the sparrow! That big dark blur above is a turkey--thanks, dude.

Earlier, I posted a photo of squirrel in the flythru feeder with a turkey on top. I asked the question, of the squirrel and the turkey, which one would come out victorious in the fight for the feeder. Well, here's a video with the answer, I was surprised:

The turkey gave up without the squirrel putting up too much of a bluff!

It was enough to make a downy woodpecker go "Baroo?"

The squirrel eventually made it's way over to the suet feeder and after filling up on some beef fat...

The squirrel looked rather pleased with itself.

A Little Post Holiday Banding A Carpenter

After several days of butt chilling temperatures, we finally had some warm weather. It started on Christmas Day. Non Birding Bill and I noticed the temps were in the twenties and then stepped outside. It was so warm, we took a walk to Lake Calhoun. By Friday morning the temps were down right balmy in the thirties. The snow started to melt and fog took over the landscape as did a little freezing drizzle, but it made for somewhat pleasant weather banding birds at Carpenter Nature Center. We had several juncos in the traps (like the bird above).

I processed one that had a very odd eye! It was oval instead of round. It looked as though there was some type of swelling above the eye and feathers out of place. The bird had been banded earlier this winter, but there was no notation that it was injured when it was originally banded. I had to look at the eye color under a light to try and determine age and the pupil seemed fine. We let it go. I'll be curious is to see if we get it again.

Among all the juncos, we got in a few of the dreaded cardinals. Dreaded because of that bill and their ability to squirm just right and nail one of you digits. Owie. One of the nice things about cardinals is that you can sex them fairly quick--this is a male based on plumage color. But aging is a different story. I wondered if he was hatched this summer since he had a bit of black on the tip of his beak (juvenile cardinals have black beaks). Our banding leader, Jim Fitzpatrick had me look at the iris of the cardinal and it was dark brown. That coupled with feather condition of some wing and tail feathers made this bird an AHY (After Hatch Year, which basically means we don't know exactly how old it is, but we know he didn't hatch this year).

While I was processing the male cardinal, Jim was processing a female cardinal. They came into the traps at the same time. We had some members of the public watching us process the birds and they asked if the cardinals were a mated pair. It's not the breeding season and cardinals are typically in large winter flocks this time of year. However, there can be pairs in a flock and according to Birds of North America Online, some cardinal pairs will stay on their same territory all year. I wasn't sure if these two cardinals were in the same trap, but my guess was that were. We also couldn't say for sure if they were pair, but it was a possibility.

After we processed them, I tried to get one more photo before we let them go. Note the male is still giving my thumb the what for. We opened our hands and off they flew. Sometimes when we release two of the same species like that, they split in different directions. These two not only took off in the exact same direction, but landed on the same branch of a tree! I dashed back into the center to grab my digiscoping equipment.

They adjusted themselves in the tree and by the time I got my scope on them, the female had perched a bit higher. They seemed relaxed with each other and I think it's a good guess that this is a mated pair. They stayed that way for several minutes. The clouds, fog, and drizzle did not make for the best photo, but it's bloggable.

I took a few more shots of the male I had just banded while he perched in the tree. I noticed that he had some brown feathers on his flanks. I showed the photo to Jim and the other banders. I asked if we should rethink whether or not he was a hatch year bird since there was some brown. Jim wisely pointed out that the base feathers for cardinals are brown (I assumed black, since their skin is black). He also reminded me that the male's eye color was dark brown. Had he been a hatch year bird, we would have seen gray brown. Only Peter Pyle can take a seemingly easy bird to id (like a cardinal) and make it a challenge!

After I let the cardinal go, I got a shot of my thumb--check out the indentations he left! It's now turned to a minor blood blister. Thanks, dude. After banding, we went down to where the Mississippi River and St Croix River meet along the Minnesota/Wisoconsin border to look for ducks and gulls.

There had been a a harlequin duck reported and we had little trouble finding it among all the goldeyes. The fog made for terrible digiscoping conditions and I'm going to have to go back to see if I can get it on a sunnier day. That's a cooling looking duck that deserves a better photo.

Bird Feeder Rush Hour

One of my favorite things is to watch a really active feeding station. Even if it's birds I've seen a bazillion times, I love watching bird feeder activity, especially in winter before we get a snow and birds are coming from all different directions. Tuesday had subzero temperatures and the start of snow fall and birds were ready to take advantage of a feeding station. I laughed when I arrived at the Minnesota Valley NWR visitor center because of the turkey activity. Note all the turkeys on the ground and all the songbirds crowded into the feeder on the right. Now, note the turkey on top of the feeder on the left...and now songbirds!

It was fun to watch the large bird balance its body and avoid sliding as it went after the food in the platform feeder. Periodically the turkey would slide down and then feed on the ground for a bit. But soon it would again try for the food on the feeder. The activity of all the birds and the snow was intense. I tried to get a video:

It was a steady stream of turkeys, house sparrows, cardinals, blue jays, woodpeckers and chickadees.

Some of the turkeys would just park themselves right next to the windows and sit there. I'm not sure if the bird was looking at its reflection or feeling some of the heat off the building. I've always found it curious that turkey vultures migrate out of Minnesota, but wild turkeys stay. Turkeys have bald heads, but they do have some bristly feathers and from the above photo, it looks like those are enough to keep them off the face.

A big surprise to me was a small flock of about 16 brown-headed cowbirds hanging out. They really looked like they were hating life. I'm sure they were asking each other, "Okay, who had the brilliant idea of not migrating because it would cost too much energy and be dangerous?" The mostly stuck to roosting in the trees and the few who came to the feeders were not their usual bossy selves. They were slow and lethargic. One lone male kept feeding on the ground and almost got stepped on (or tasted) by a turkey.

I like sit on the visitor center on cloudy days in winter. If you sit inside you can watch the feeders without the sun directly behind them. So, I was able to sit inside, get some decent photos, and stay warm.

One challenge is that the heaters are right next to the windows, so you do have to deal with a little heat shimmer, but that combined with the snow can make for some arty photos like the above digiscoped image of a female cardinal. And though the birds were active at the feeders full of sunflower seeds, there was plenty of other food around:

Tree sparrows (above), cardinals, and juncos were feeding on seeds in the grasses. It's a myth that if you start to feed birds in the fall that you have to do it all winter or they will starve to death. They find plenty of food in plants that we look at and see nothing. I think that falsehood was started by some seed seller out there to try and keep his customers coming all winter.

If you have to go for a bit without feeding the birds, they will get over it, some birds like the above blue jay stash food away in a cache for just such an occasion. That said, birds may not visit your feeder as regularly as one that is always filled, but they will come back and they will not starve. They treat your bird feeders the way we should treat fast food restaurants. It's a convenience, but not a sole source of food.

Here's a downy woodpecker on a mullen. The woodpeckers mostly perched on this but they would peck on it from time to time, so I wonder if they were getting some food out it as well?

The mullen also made nice perches for the juncos too. It was just a gorgeous snow scene.

Red-tailed Hawk Encounter

I just have too many photos that I took Tuesday during what the local weathermen are calling "an inconvenient snow" (because it was only 2 inches that fell, but it hit during rush hour snarling traffic in the worst way). The first was the snowy owl and then I headed over to the Minnesota Valley NWR Visitor Center. I figured the feeders would be active between the snow and the sub zero temps.

They were so active, I have to divide up what I saw, otherwise we might get 45 photos in one blog entry.

One of the coolest things that happened was as I was leaving the visitor center. A young red-tailed hawk (young because the tail is brown and stripey, not brick red like it would be on an adult) was perched on the parking lot security camera. I wanted to get home because it was after 3pm and I knew with the snow, traffic would be snarled. I took a few shots and walked to my car.

I tried not to stare at the hawk while I walked to my car. Staring can make a bird nervous and this one seemed to be actively hunting and I didn't want to add to its effort in the cold and snow. It paid very little attention to me and I digiscoped one more image before my aching, freezing fingers alerted me that they had had enough. I opened my car door and turn to load in my scope when I heard what I can only describe as hawk wings hitting something (I hear it from time to time at The Raptor Center and at the hawk blind). I looked up and saw that the red-tail was no longer on the camera post and at first thought that it had flown away, but that would not account for the sound I heard. Then I looked to my left and just a few yards away in the grass I saw...

The hawk with some sort of prey, I think it's a mouse! Fortunately, my scope was still up, I quickly slid the camera adaptor back on the scope (thank goodness for that DCA adaptor) and got the above photo. My camera batteries finally died right after I took it but I watched the hawk swallow the rodent whole and then it took off.

It took a good five minutes before feeling returned to my fingers and I got stuck in traffic, but it was so worth it to see that!

Snowy Owl At The Minneapolis Airport

Last week at Birds and Beers, we talked about snowy owls that are usually seen at the Minneapolis/St Paul Airport in winter. None had been reported at the airport yet (they've been showing up all over elsewhere in Minnesota and in Wisconsin). I've been checking the airport a few times a week (I live nearby) and we had a couple of people who actually work at the airport show up to Birds and Beers and they had not seen or heard any reports. Then, last night someone reported on the local birding listservs that they saw one on Cargo Rd.

When I finished my volunteer shift at The Raptor Center at about noon, I headed over to try my luck. Normally, I would search of the owls after 3pm, since they are more likely to be seen later in the day but the temps were below zero degrees Fahrenheit and a snow storm hit, so I figured my chances were good.

And they were! I drove right underneath a snowy owl! The challenge at the airport is that there are few places airport security would like you to stop and take photos. I think MSP Airport Security must have my license plate on file by now. So many people have made such a big show of writing down my plate number when they see my digiscoping equipment and I never get pulled over by security. They must think, "Ah, it's one of those birders again." I make sure to follow the rules--do what the signs say, like stay six feet away from fences. Also, the glycol plant manager used to collect owl pellets for me, so if I pull over for a photo, I do it in their driveway and only very briefly. I avoid stopping in the road, because it's not safe. Today someone stopped in the road on a downhill curve and I almost hit them since the roads were slick with the freshly falling snow--not cool and the kind of antics that make airport security less forgiving of birders. I'm not sure if the stopped person was a birder or just some regular person shocked to see a huge owl on a light post in the middle of the day.

Not only did I manage to digiscope a few snowy owl photos quickly, but I heard the owl vocalize (some weird bark and nothing remotely hoot-ish) and then watched it dive for prey. Alas, it came up empty taloned, but was cool nonetheless.

The owl returned to the light post and I managed one more photo before airport security pulled up behind me and gave me the hairy eyeball. I paused to make sure he didn't want to come out and wag his finger, but with the temps so cold, he stayed in his truck and glared. I hightailed it out of there to do some more digiscoping at the Minnesota Valley Wildlife Refuge Headquarters and ended up with a general awesome afternoon. More on that later.

Black Dog Lake Gull Watching

When it comes to gull id, I've always depended on the kindness of strangers to point out what birds are in the flock. I haven't had a huge interest in them, they all looked the same and when someone would point out the differences they were seeing on a particular gull, I wasn't seeing those differences and felt that they may have been on some mood altering substance.

Part of the problem is that gull id is hard and not easy to explain. And quite honestly, no one has done a good job of making it understandable to a general audience. All the books that I have found are written by hardcore gull people for hardcore gull people. The books that are currently available are not organized in a way where you can easily do side to side comparisons. They are big clunky and well, just not organized for someone starting from square one. I've even tried looking at websites and haven't found any that are easy to navigate, at least for species in this area. Seriously, I just looked up "gull mantle color" and found this chart--oy! It's not easy for someone to get into. I wish there could be a book with side by side comparisons, a little less natural history info, maybe even flash cards. I'm seriously thinking of scanning my Sibley and making some flash cards.

That said, I'm forcing myself out to get to know gulls. Partly because I want to get over this hump and partly because I'm helping on a gull trip at the Space Coast Bird Festival in January. I really lucked out on Tuesday and ended up having an 8 species of gull night, which for the Twin Cities is pretty darned good.

And might I add that gull watching in Florida in January is going to be 10 times more fun since it will be warm whereas here in Minnesota it's snowy and the temperature is in the teens. I was bundled up, but still got numb fingers while watching gulls the other night.

The power plant keeps the water open and gulls and other waterfowl come in to feed and roost as nearby lakes and the Mississippi River and Minnesota River freeze up. Part of the problem with gull watching is trying to find a place where they are fairly close to try and id. This road next to the power plant is turning out to be an okay place. The birds are fairly close and easy to see...if you have a scope. In the evening, the sun is behind you and you can get some beautiful light on the birds.

So here are some answers that may even lead to debate on the hidden gull in the photos. My goal was to jut be able to pick out a bird that looked different from the expected herring gulls and ring-billed gulls. That's all I wanted to be able to do. I was surprised that I was actually able to mentally id a couple on the spot.

In the first photo, here is the gull in the red circle that is different from the herring gulls and ring-billed gulls. It's in its first-cycle or immature plumage but it's different from what a herring or ring-billed would look like.

Here in the profile, you can see a big difference (and a male common merganser). The bird is pale and it's wing tips are roughly the same color as the back, not dark like the bird below:

See bird in the front that is all gray has dark wingtips? This is a young herring gull.

So, back to our gray, yet very pale gull. The coloration in some ways reminds me of gyrfalcon coloration. When I arrived, another woman was at Black Dog scanning for gulls and she had spotted this one. I scanned and was pleased that I was able to tell it from the other gulls. I noticed that it was pale and I noticed that the wingtips were the same color as the back. I wasn't sure if it was a Thayer's gull or and Iceland but thought I would watch and take photos and check the id when I got home. Other birders arrived and MN gull guru Jim Mattsson came in and called it an Iceland gull. He said that the bird's overall paleness, the wingtips being the same color as the back and having a frosty appearance, as well as a rounded head make this an Iceland gull.

When I first arrived, I found a very large gull, bigger than any of the others. With its large size, checkered back and blunt bill, I felt confident in calling this a great black-backed gull. All the gulls got up and disappeared for a bit so at first I was the only who saw it. Fortunately, it landed again and the whole group got to see it (and I got confirmation which felt good).

I also noticed another super large gull that was really, really pale. Can you pick it out in the above photo?

Here's another photo of our large pale bird. This is a glaucous gull. I really felt good that I was actually seeing different gulls and figuring them out. This is a BIG step for me, I think just picking up gulls here and there at festivals and spending the last week studying Sibley and the overwhelming Gulls of the Americas has helped as well. I'm not as bad off as I thought.

Other birds did distract me a bit. While we were there, we watched the gulls soar around the smoke stack at the power plant. Jim pointed to a pepper speck at the top and said "peregrine":

Sure enough, looking through the scope, you could see an adult peregrine falcon. At one point it even called out. Not sure what that was all about, but it was nice to have the distraction from the gulls. We got a total of eight species that evening: ring-billed gull, herring gull, Iceland gull, Thayer's gull, glaucous gull, lesser black-backed gull, greater black-backed gull and...

...a Bonaparte's gull. This one flew in and I heard a member of group call it out. I found it right away and breathed a sigh of relief that this one was easy to pick out from the numerous gulls on the lake. It was super tiny compared to the others, had a dainty bill, and a little black spot behind the eye. All in all, I felt as thought I would have positively identified all the gulls in my photos when I came, except maybe the Iceland gull (that one I would have struggled between Thayer's and Iceland).

Quite a few other species of birds were out on the water including the trumpeter swans see above and white pelicans.

As the sun began to set, the water became more and more pink--it was quite beautiful.

And don't panic, the usual birds will resume on here soon!

Non Birding Bill Has Been Digiscoping

I was out at a meeting today and when Non Birding Bill picked me up he said, "We had a visitor while yo were away today. Then she showed me pictures on his iTouch of...

...a Cooper's hawk. I asked how he got the photos and he said he used my digiscoping equipment. Which is pretty incredible since he's never used my camera, let alone my birding equipment. I've shown him birds through my scope and he's been around when I digiscope, but he's never put the equipment together, let alone got a bird in scope view--which can be challenging if you haven't used one before.

He had a dickens of a time with it when he started. First, my camera batteries were about dead, but fortunately I always have some charging so he was able to put some fresh ones in. His second challenge was trying to figure out how to put the adaptor for the camera on--which only took three tries (and a couple of zoom errors).

Once he had the camera and adaptor together, had it on the scope, and zoomed out the vignetting, he had the challenge of shooting through the window pane, the storm window pane, and heat shimmer coming off the windows from the radiator.

But he got a few good shots and with a little tweaking in iPhoto on my part he got some VERY blogable photos for a husband who claims to be uninterested in birding. I asked how he noticed it and he said he was on the futon and saw it fly right into the tree outside the apartment windows. A few crows flew into the tree but were not seriously mobbing it. He got a video of it too and when it moved, you could see that it had a full crop and must have eaten recently. Also, the bird is sitting on one foot, I think it was digesting. NBB also said it perched in the tree for a good ten minutes. He tried to open the windows to get even better shots, but as he was lifting the storm window, a screen slammed down and startled the Cooper's hawk.

I love this kind of confused look the hawk is giving the camera in this photo. I wonder if this is the same hawk who showed up as an immature bird last year and took a bathe on the apartment building roof across the way from our apartment? Since she's not banded, there's no way to know for sure, but it's fun to wonder.

So, with a little tweaking and a good stationary bird, even a non birder like NBB can use my digiscoping set up.

December Birds & Beers

It's time for another Birds and Beers!

Thursday, December 11 at 6pm at Merlin's Rest!

I don't know if it will be the rip roarin' scotch tasting it was last time, but I can guarantee that it will be fun and we'll talk some birds. We can talk about the MOU Paper Session, the Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas, owls, crossbills, upcoming bird festivals, bird feeding, Christmas Bird Counts, banding, the topics are limitless. And unlike all the other holiday parties out there--you don't need to bring a gift or baked good! We'll get it all from Merlin's Rest!

Birds and Beers is an informal gathering of birders of all abilities--if you're interested in birds, you're invited. You can meet other birders--maybe find a carpool buddy, ask about where to find target birds, share cool research projects you might be working on, ask a bird feeding question, share life lists--the sky is the limit. It's low key and it's fun.