Morning Red-shouldered Hawk

Kris Rowe of Connecticut sent me this photo of a red-shouldered hawk taken in Connecticut. I love how it looks like it's contemplating the bee, but Kris assures me that it is in fact contemplating a small rabbit hidden in the grasses below.

I have one heck of a banding entry coming up, but once again I find I am frustrated and irritated at bird nomenclature.

Whole Lotta Woodcocks Goin' On

I don't know where this week has gone! Between the snow, an expected house guest, giving programs at the Northwest Sports Show, banding class--aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

I'm leading a woodcock trip on Saturday night through Staring Lake Outdoor Center in Eden Prairie and I needed to double check the spot where we usually see the woodcock display. Non Birding Bill and I hit the spot and we heard them peenting and doing the flight display right away--one flew right past NBB's head as he was texting on his phone. We even heard a couple of them fighting each other--they kind sound like Bert on Sesame Street when he laughs.

There were so many and they were so loud, I got some video so you can hear the peent and when you hear the twittering sound, that's the woodcock doing the flight display.

Junco Goodness

Today has been such a weird day. So what do you do on April 1 and you wake up to eight inches of snow?

Well, you could go a little crazy like Lorraine did and melt some beeswax and drop globs of snow in to watch it form hard yellow clumps of wax.

I opted to spend some quality time with a brush pile. It's covered in juncos as usual and I was surprised to find a Lincoln's sparrow lurking among them. Alas, it moved way too quickly for me to digiscope it.

I scattered some seed on some of the branch ends that were sitting in the direct light of the setting sun. As soon as I would turn my back and walk ten feet back to my spotting scope, the juncos would hop out to feed.

A few chickadees flew in to partake of the seed as well.

If you look closely at the above bird, you might notice little pin feathers around its face--it's molting. I always wonder what it must be like to molt and feel little pin pricks where new feathers are poking through--and some species do this twice in a year. Do you suppose there's bird PMS (pre molt syndrome)?

Speaking of PMS, my goodness the snow made some people cranky. It's funny because in November we smile and welcome the snow, knowing more is yet to come. By the time it's mid March we have run out of love for the snow. I felt the crankiness coming over me and decided that I just need to pay attention to the juncos, after all they will be leaving our area soon.

The juncos are getting a bit more tetchy lately, there's a bit more fighting over food and you can hear some of them start to do a territory song which they haven't done all winter. Soon they will be gone and I'll be swooning over warblers and vireos, only to be tired of those in September and longing for juncos once again--it's a vicious cycle.

Aaron Eckhart Is A Super Nice Guy

Once again, I marvel at how birds are the best ice breaker! I had an appearance on Showcase Minnesota today and the producer told me that Aaron Eckhart was going to be on. I had an eastern screech owl with me from The Raptor Center to promote the Open House this Sunday.

When his group came in, the whole posse stopped to look at the owl--this worked well for me because I could focus on bird talk instead of blathering like an idiot about him being a good actor and having a cute chin.

I explained how this owl was a partial imprint and more likely to try and mate with a human (like himself) instead of another screech owl. I asked if he wanted his photo with the owl and he said, "No thank you. Unless the owl wants the photo?" I said that I wanted the photo and he very graciously accepted. He then asked, "Should we make out?" and I'm pretty sure that he meant that as a joke in reference to the owl being imprinted, but when I tell the story drunk in a bar, it's totally going be that he said it to me.

Anyway, really nice guy in person.