Updates

Some interesting updates on blog entries this from this month:

First regarding this week's snowy owl. An interesting email came on the birding listservs from Linda Whyte regarding the owl being seen now and that there apparently was another snowy seen earlier in the winter:

"For those interested, the owl currently being seen at the airport is not the same one that was seen earlier. Apparently, a couple of weeks ago the party hired by the airport to trap the snowy succeeded in doing so. That bird, a very white male, was examined at The Raptor Center, found to be in good health, banded, and then taken for release (where is unknown) by the party that captured it. Raptor Center personnel recommended against removal, because the owl hadn't been in trouble, and due to their territorial nature, it was likely another one would take its place as soon as it was gone. It appears that has happened, as this one has the black widow's peak and lots of barring."

I've heard that snowy owls are sometimes trapped at the Minneapolis/St Paul Airport and relocated because the official airport statement is concern that they owls might collide with a plane and cause an accident, but I wonder if it has more to do with the influx of birders coming to view the owl and making a headache for airport security?

Interesting to note that there have been two owls and the first was missed by many of us. Also, this is quite the photographed owl. Lots of peeps are posting links to photos on the Minnesota birding listservs, check out EcoBirder's shots--he got shots of the snowy in the sun--those eyes just glow. Rumor has it that Jim Williams of the Star Tribune will have photos in his column soon.

The other interesting note that showed up on the listserv was regarding the Bonaparte's gull observed on December 9 on Black Dog Lake ( the gull circled above). When I was out trying to bone up on my gulls, this was one of the eight species observed. Jim Mattsson was excited when it was first observed and commented that it was late for a Bonaparte's to be in Minnesota this time of year. When Jim talks gulls, he gets a twinkle of excitement in his eyes. He even wondered, where had this gull been all this time. Well, we might have our answer from Linda Sparling:

"Many of you may remember the gull reported as as a possible Little Gull at Lake Calhoun in mid-October. Throughout the day after it was first reported, many noted that it was on death's door, wouldn't make it through the day, was going to die at any moment, etc. It also became apparent that the gull was in fact a Bonaparte's Gull.

Update - I took the gull to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota. They nursed it back to health. They noted that it was very weak and depressed and had trouble walking. Today I received a card from the Center indicating the gull recovered well enough to be released 12/9 at Black Dog! Coincidentally, three observers reported seeing one Bonaparte's Gull in Dakota County on that same day. I was surprised to hear it had been released up here. When I spoke to the folks at the Center, they felt there weren't enough BGs around for a safe release. They were willing to put it on a plane for points South to ensure a safe release. It ended up being such a fighter, I gotta think it's doing well!"

It is interesting that it was late and there weren't any Boneparte's around that the gull was released at Black Dog, but in this economy, perhaps getting the bird on a flight was difficult. There's no doubt that the bird in the photo is the released gull. Interesting, I guess we have the answer to Jim's question about where it had been all that time. Here's hoping it either finds warmer climates or manages well the rest of the winter.

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!

Raptor Center Birds

Since the weather has been below zero degrees Fahrenheit, many of the education birds at The Raptor Center need to sleep indoors at night. For the most part, the birds can sleep outside when it's cold--bald eagles and red-tailed hawks live in Minnesota in the wild, so they can usually take it. However, some species like female kestrels migrate--it's the weirdest thing, most kestrels leave Minnesota for the winter, but a few stay--and they're all males. I met a researcher from Ohio who studied this and his theory was that the female kestrel is larger, needs more food in a day than a male. The females go further south where there's more variety of prey and a little longer daylight (more time to hunt). With the temps getting to -15, all the birds are coming in at night and sleeping in their travel crates. Even if some could survive it, why risk it any chance for frost bite? Because there are so many birds and crates, some of the crates are stacked.

All the owls are getting very hooty right now, mating season is upon us. Yesterday, I was hooting to one of the great horned owls who was in a crate stacked on top of the turkey vulture crate. I had just come in and still had my coat and scarf on as I hooted a response. Someone on our crew pointed to the vulture crate beneath the owl crate:

Nero, the education vulture was trying to sneak through a gap in his door to get to my scarf! Or maybe just me in general. I don't work with him and on the few occasions I've gone in to retrieve old food in his mew, he's displayed some aggressive behavior towards me (he once tried to rip off the tassels on a pair of my capris.

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.

Urban Birder Video and a little Holy Crap

Across the pond, Bird Guides has been up to some really cool stuff. One is the first in a video series called "My Local Patch" series featuring different bird watchers and their favorite birding site (the outdoor kind, not the web):

I also found a really interesting and disturbing video on their channel that's up there with the heron vs rabbit photos: it's a video of a grey heron vs a starling. I'm just putting the link to the video, it has a kind of happy ending (depending on your point of view towards starlings) but this video is certainly not for everyone. Incroyable--as the French might say.

Also, in my recent rants about the lack of bird field guides available for iPhones and iPod Touches, Bird Guides sent me a sample of their guides for the iTouch. Before I had a chance to really play with it, Non Birding Bill did a review of it for a site he works for called Appletell. What the heck is the world coming to when NBB is doing bird product reviews?! Anyway, Bird Guides offers video guides (currenty of British birds) but I love the idea of video and photos in a field guide. There are definetly birds that have certain behaviors and postures that cannot be illustrated in a standard field guide. I'll probably do a video review on these guides withing the next few days...that is if Non Birding Bill doesn't beat me to it.

Birds & Beers & Banding

The last Birds and Beers was a huge gathering. Some regulars and some new peeps came to join in the fun.

We had a drawing from some prizes courtesy of Woodlink. We gave away a few of their "Happy Hour Hummingbird Feeders." They're nectar feeders in the shape of a daiquiri, margarita, and martini--how appropriate! In the background of this photo is Liz Stanley who runs The Overlook Circle Feeder Cam. She warns on her site that images are uploaded every 30 seconds during daylight hours, Central Time. During the winters here, days are short so daylight is only 7:30am to 4:30pm. In the summer, it's much longer, lasting from 5:30am to 9:30pm. If the image is completely dark, please check back in the morning. Check it out! There's also Jim Ryan in the background who runs Jim Ryan Outdoors Blog.

The big excitement came when Mark Newstrom arrived with extra copies of the new Peter Pyle book, Identification Guide to North American Birds Part II. Some readers have seen Pyle referenced in this blog before, it's a sleep inducing tome essential to aging and sexing birds if you are a bander. Up to this point, we've only had Part I which had warblers, chickadees, sparrows, vireos, etc. This year part II was released which tells banders how to age and sex waterfowl, boobies and spoonbills. We took turns doing dramatic readings of Part II. There's a bit more talk of distended cloacas (great band name) and duck penises in this volume, but that's about as exciting as it gets. Here's a sentence from the zone-tailed hawk section:

"Shape and color pattern to the retrices by feather generation and sex in Zone-tailed Hawk. R5 is shown and is usualy the last feather replaced during molts and the most likely to be retained during the PB2 and DPB."

Or there's this on molt in Canada geese:

"PF partial-incomplete (Sep/Nov-Jan/Apr in HY/SYs), PB2 complete (Jun-Nov in non-breeding SYs), DPB complete (Jul-Dec in breeding AHYs); PA absent."

And if you can understand either of those sentences, then you'll want a copy of the Peter Pyle book. If you don't, take heart that you have a life and run before you get sucked in to the point of no return.

Speaking of banding, we had an interesting and busy morning at Carpenter Nature Center on Friday--lots of juncos! I think they sensed the impending blizzard that was about to hit. Above is a Potter's Trap and it has 2 doors and usually only gets 1 or 2 birds at a time. This trap had three juncos in it!

We also got in some chickadees and a blue jay (the blue jay got in the traps before I arrived, so no photo).

We did get another interesting retrap. I was processing this black-capped chickadee that already had a band. When I read the number to Mary who helps us track the data, she looked it up and found that we originally banded this chickadee on November 10, 2006. I checked the archives of the blog to see if I had a photo of when it was first banded, but discovered that I was in Harlingen, TX at that time and wouldn't have been there on its original processing date.

Scott Weidensaul

I was reading comments made by Mike McDowell about the Endangered Species Act changes this morning and noticed he linked to comments made by one of my favorite birding authors Scott Weidensaul. I followed the link to Scott's blog--which I was aware of and the last time I spoke to him he wasn't sure where it was going, just wanted to try it out so I didn't mention it too much here (or check that frequently either).

I read the first sentence of Scott's post, "Although I've been blogging almost daily about our owl research project, I haven't been updating this blog - though there's lots to report. Wait a minute, there's been a blog combining Scott, banding, and saw-whet owls?? Where have I been. Check out Saw-whet Owl Research! You can even follow specific saw-whets. Another great cleanse from the news.

Cleansing Titmouse

When Non Birding Bill and I do holiday cards, we usually take one of my photos and he doctors them up. I sent him a few and the above was one of our finalists. Just cracks me up the way the hat sits jauntily on the crest.

I thought it was a good cleanse after the recent news.