NBC Nightly News...again, maybe

I just got a call from Stephanie at NBC Nightly News, the owl segment will probably air Tuesday night February 8 between 5:30pm - 6pm. It supposed to be the final segment to finish on a happy note. Because of this, if something super exciting happens in the news, it could get bumped.

Slacking Off Leads to a Gyrfalcon

After having been out of commission from my oral surgery I really needed to get out today, even though I have not finished my Urban Bird Feeding Book. I justified by going down to Redwing to check on bald eagle at Colville Park for our trips next Saturday and Monday (space is still available for Monday if you with to take your sweetheart to see bald eagles on Valentine's Day (952-473-4283). Anyway, eagles are there so we should have a great time, plus I found one of the eagle nests we visit occupied with a resident pair.

My main focus going down was to check out the gyrfalcon that had been reported. You can see of photo of the bird at the MOU website's Recently Seen Page. I was driving around the area of Hwy 55 and 42 when I noticed two cars pulled up next to each other. "Birders" I thought to myself. I saw lots of arm waving and point, but nothing that really signaled either one had found the gyrfalcon yet. I noticed in the rear view mirror of the car directly in front of me that the driver had a well kept beard, "Denny!" I thought to myself. Eventually more birders showed up, one being Paul Budde from the MOU who had a bird in his scope. It was near another bird that was for sure a red-tail, but at the distance we were I couldn't be sure the other bird in Paul's scope was a gyr. Drew Smith showed up and he confirmed it was the gyr. We all moved our vehicles to a closer spot and still the bird could only be safely identified with a spotting scope, but if you had access to a good scope you could see it was a gyrfalcon.


Steve Weston, Paul Budde, Barb Martin and Drew Smith gleefully enjoy viewing the adult gray phase gyrfalcon in Dakota County.

I really enjoy going to "stake out birds" (for those not in the know a stake out bird is a rare or unusual bird seen that is posted to a listserv that birders all go to see). They are like impromptu parties people work together to find the bird and once the bird is found everyone helps each other to see the bird, shares stories of past stake outs and you learn how to identify birds you're not familiar with. When we were far away, the bird looked very erect in the scope but I thought for sure it was a red-tail. When we got closer there was no mistaking it for a hawk, you could see the malar stripe, the white front, the gray back. It's a huge falcon and was worth slacking off the day for.

You could see why it liked being in this area. The surrounding farm fields were full of Canada geese and mallards getting some last minute food before flying off to Black Dog lake for the night to roost. The large falcon had it's pick of waterfowl for food.

Also interesting to note today were lots of red-tailed hawks pairing up. I even saw one sitting on a nest on 494 near 35E.

Mystery Egg Solved, but more to learn

I got several responses with ideas of everything from little blue herons to screech owls. Here was one interesting post from the Minnesota Zoo:

I showed the picture to Jim Pichner, Avian Supervisor here at the MN Zoo
and he's guessing it's a Hooded merganser egg. If you still have the
egg, you can test it by rubbing your fingers on surface of the egg. If
the green rubs off and it starts to turn to an ivory white, it's a
hoodie egg.

The other option could be a Goldeneye, but we thought it looked too
small.

Steve Estebo
Avian Zoologist
Minnesota Zoo

I tried that and nothing came off the egg. Then I got this email with an interesting article link from Anne Hanley about nest parasitism in wood duck boxes followed by this:

Hi Sharon,

I forwarded your original email, with the link to the photos, to Mike Zicus,
a good friend of mine who is a waterfowl research biologist for the MN DNR
at the Wetlands Wildlife Research Group in Bemidji. He has done extensive
research on cavity-nesting ducks and has handled countless numbers of eggs
from Wood Ducks, Hooded Mergansers and Goldeneyes.

Here is his response:

I'm certain that the "wood duck" egg is a hooded merganser egg. The key is
the almost spherical shape and whitish color. They look a lot like cueballs.
Wood duck eggs would be more elliptical or ovate and smaller too (assuming
the "chicken" egg is "medium to large" in size), and they are beige in
color. Their shells are much thinner than hoodies too. Hoody eggs have a
very solid "sound" to them when knocked together because of the thick
shells. Of course, that's not evident from the photo.

I'm almost as certain that the "mystery" egg is a goldy, but it's hard to
tell from the photo. Was it collected where goldies occur? The color in the
photo looks a bit off (goldy eggs are decribed variously as "pale green,
blue-green, olive green, or malachite green"), but goldy eggs often discolor
as they sit around putrifying. Often they get darker and can get kind of
blotchy. The shape and size are OK for a goldy (assuming the "chicken" egg
is "medium to large" in size). Common mergs have much larger eggs that are
buffy to beige in color.

Hope this is helpful.

Jim Barrett
Duluth

It was also recommended that I get A Guide to the Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds by Paul Baicich and Colin J. O. Harrison and after reading that book and photo comparisons I agree that the mystery egg is a common goldeneye egg...but this leads to another mystery. I thought the egg came from a wood duck box in the customers backyard in the west metro of the Twin Cities--not a known breeding area for goldeneye. I will have to confirm with him the next time he comes in if this was from the metro area or a cabin up north. Also, after reading the book and the emails posted above I agree that the egg is a hooded merganser egg and not a wood duck egg. What a fun winter mystery this was! Thanks for all the responses.

Mystery Egg

One of my job perks are the bird mysteries people bring to us. I love trying to id birds from grainy photos or pieces of feathers, beak and legs. We've had guy come in and tell us that this past fall when cleaning out his wood duck box. He found one white egg--presumably wood duck and one bright blue egg about the size of a chicken egg. We couldn't find any cavity nesting bird that laid a bright blue egg the size of a chicken's egg so thought maybe his neighbor pranked him. Yesterday he brought in the eggs. The egg isn't blue but more of a greenish color with light brown speckling. The thought he remembered the color incorrectly but egg color can fade. I'm not sure what the egg is since I'm not an oologist, my best guess would be some type of merganser but I'm not sure. If anyone has any idea, please email!

The mystery egg next to a wood duck egg.

Chicken egg, mystery egg and wood duck egg