Rainbow of Birds

Last night I met Garrison Keillor and told him how much I appreciated that his bird references were always accurate on his radio show. He looked at me strangely. I don't think he got how huge a compliment that is from a birder and how hungry we are for more accurate birds in movies and radio. Ah well.

The birding has been just too easy. I don't need to go for a walk, but just sit at the kitchen table and watch. I've been sipping coffee and digi scoping images with my camera and Vortex binoculars.


Can you stand it? Right outside the window a male indigo bunting and a male goldfinch eating side by side. A feast for the eyes! This is just too weird, birding is not supposed to be this easy.


Here are two male rose-breasted grosbeaks. At one point five males and one female all came down on the whole feeding station. It must have been a migratory flock, because they were fairly tolerant of each other.


Here is a male Baltimore oriole and a female downy woodpecker. The weather is so chilly and damp that orioles are heading to suet feeders for extra protein. There was an amply filled grape jelly and orange feeder nearby, but this guy wanted the suet. By the way, if you are curious as to what the best suet is, it's this stuff called No Melt Peanut Butter Suet Plug. It was originally made to go into suet logs but the company recently started making it in tub form. It won't melt even if it's 100 degrees out and the birds absolutely love it.


Okay, she may not be the prettiest bird on the planet, but she sure is cute. This is a female rose-breasted grosbeak. I was surprised to see one feeding off of this clinging style feeder, but after migrating thousands of miles you perch anywhere for a good bite to eat.

Breakfast Birds

I'm spending the weekend at a friend's place in Wisconsin. They get the best birds. This morning over breakfast I saw the following:

Blue-winged warbler
Rose-breasted grosbeaks
Baltimore orioles
White-crowned sparrows
Ruby-thoated hummingbirds
Goldfinches
Pine siskins
Red-breasted nuthatches
White-breasted nuthatches
Black-capped chickadees
Chipping sparrows
House Finches
Hairy Woodpeckers
Downy Woodpeckers
Red-bellied Woodpeckers
Gray catbird
House wren
Crows

Not an ugly bird in the bunch! I love birding over coffee in my pajamas!

I have all kinds of fun things to test out. Cameras and recording equipment mostly. I'm carrying so much stuff I'm practically getting a workout while birding.

Where does the time go???


Here is a young gadwall chick that is currently at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota. I love how they use feather dusters for the chicks to snuggle up to in lew of a hen.

Boy, migration has hit and I am having a tough time keeping up. Monday I tried to do some birding and filming in Dakota Co and kept getting distracted. It started with an injured Canada goose that I found on hwy 55 that I picked up and drove to the WRC. The goose unfortunately didn't survive but at least it was off the road. While at the WRC Tami was kind enough to give me a brief tour. They had a duckling that didn't look like the mallard ducklings that were there already. Turned out they had a gadwall. They are already innundated with young squirrels and rabbits (most of which didn't need to be there). The avian nursery was very quiet, they only had in a few species which included house finches, robin, rock doves and house sparrows. I kind of miss my volunteer days there, but alas do not have time to help out this summer. If you are looking for a fun summer volunteer project, I can't recommend the avian nursery at the WRC enough. It's only 4 hours once a week and each week is a surprise. You never know what species will end up in there and it's fun to have the chance to feed live mealworm so young woodpeckers. Of course you end up having to take care of grackles and the like as well but it's still fun to watch them grow.

Brown Bird Excitement!

Migration and hormones have really kicked in! All hell broke loose today on the wetland behind the store. Female red-winged blackbirds had landed and the males who had so far been peaceably hanging together in the cottonwoods were chasing each other like crazy. After I closed the store, I went for a walk and twice was almost rammed by a couple of male red-winged blackbirds duking it out over territory.

Sparrows are really pouring in! Saturday I had to work a booth at the MN Landscape Arboretum but before I headed out, I stopped and picked up a few things at the store. Right away I found three Harris' sparrows, a Lincoln's sparrow and Savannah sparrow under the feeders. At the Arboretum, white-throated sparrows were everywhere in the gardens.


This particular male was so accommodating I was able to digiscope him with my binoculars. He was so accommodating it made me worried--was he ill or just spying on me? Or was he just tired from a long night's journey?

The trend of exciting brown birds continued at the store this morning. As a clay-colored sparrow was mixed in with our chipping sparrows. I digi-scoped a photo of that, but it wasn't nearly as exciting since i took it through the back door window and it's VERY dirty.


That's a chipping sparrow with the rusty cap and that's a clay colored sparrow on the right. They are feeding on a combination of white millet, cracked corn, and a finch mix that has thistle, sunflower chips, flax, canary seed, canola seed and German and Siberian millets.

I'm not just favoring the brown birds, I was also excited to have Tennessee warblers, yellow warblers and one northern parula outside our apartment this morning.

My binoculars are supposed to be great a close focusing so I tested them out at the Arboretum. I guess the next thing for birders to be interested in are butterflies but I can never find frogs when they singing in spring. Now, I know why--they are teeny tiny! I sat by a pond with chirping chorus frogs and after scanning with the binos at about four feet, I found one, I even saw it's little throat bubble up. Not long after that, I heard a very tired sounding tree frog and went to look for it and sure enough I found it as well. I tried digi-scoping the frogs, but found that I wasn't as successful with the closer focus. It did manage a souvenir photo of the tree frog:

On a final note I have to say that happiness is coming home from a hard day's work and finding a freshly baked cake on the kitchen table that your husband made for you because you had been craving it like crazy for the last two days.

Birding Dakota County


I headed down to Dakota County and stopped at one of my favorite spots, the Empire Substation. While there a male kestrel (digi-scoped above with my Vortex binos) did a food pass with a female.

The substation is an interesting place. For those who watch anime and have seen "Lain" this area reminds you of that series because of the constant hum of the electrical wires. Besides being an eerie electronic place, it's great for sparrows and I must say that there was a butt load of clay-colored sparrows in. They were all trying to claim top perches and sing their buzzy little song. Another fun aspect of this spot is that you can hear both eastern and western meadowlarks singing at the same time.

For those interested in going from the Twin Cities, take hwy 52 south into Dakota Co. Turn right onto 200th street. Take 200th to Clayton and turn left. As soon as you turn left stop at the clump of trees on the right, this is a great spot for indigo buntings (didn't see any today but it's still a little early). I did find palm, yellow-rumped, Nashville and black-throated green warblers here today. Take Clayton to where it "T's" off and you will go right. This will be 210th street and it will turn into a gravel road. Drive until you see the chain link fenced area in a farm field on your right and that's the substation. It's a great spot for birding by ear.

Other birds found in Dakota Co today include:
Lincoln's sparrow
solitary sandpiper
blue-winged teal
Swainson's hawk
blue-gray gnatcatchers
eastern bluebirds
brown thrashers
turkey
chimney swifts
and a surprise mammal: red fox

I spoke with Gordon at Adventure, the calendars are being printed at this very moment. I can't wait until they are here!!

Another Nest

Denny checked the birds behind the store today and flushed a female blue-winged teal. Her nest is mere feet from one of the swallow nest boxes:


She has six eggs. I went out immeadiately after Denny told me about the nest and found it. Since she was still off I was able to snap a photo. When I went to check the nest that evening with Melissa and Lori we were not able to relocate it. She has done an excellent job of keeping it hidden.

This means we have the following known nests around the bird store:
4 - tree swallow
1 - hooded merganser
1 - black-capped chickadee
1 - house finch
1 - blue-winged teal

Oops

We went to Neil's this weekend. He has a chickadee nesting in his bluebird box and I discovered that a kink in the finch feeder I put together for him. I put the top half right side up and the bottom half I put in upside down. Fortunately, finches can improvise:


Note the two goldfinches hanging upside down to eat. Also, on the top right hand side there are two pine siskins feeding that haven't migrated yet.

Too darn cold for some nesting

I checked all our swallow boxes on Saturday and discovered two very interesting things. One, all off the boxes on our trail have a nest inside them. Two, all the swallows are gone! I think a couple of things are happening. It's been so cold that there aren't substantial insects out at the moment so the swallows have either gone to bodies of water looking for insects or have just backtracked south. I think that since some swallows left, others who stayed behind tried to take advantage of the situation by taking over territories not occupied by the original pairs and setting up nests in empty boxes.

The weather is supposed to warm up tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see what happens Saturday in the swallow boxes. I bet there will be some heavy duty territory battles.

The chickadees are still adding nest material to the hole in the wall and the hooded merganser is incubating away. The house finches are flourishing:


Isn't that a lovely ring of poo surrounding the nest? All five eggs appear to have hatched and survived this cold weather. The male has been bringing lots of food and the female has been brooding them quiet a bit to keep them warm. Although now that they young are fully feathered, they should be able to keep warm on their own. They should fledge Tuesday or Wednesday. I hope Wednesday, it should be warmer.

Ugly Birds Get Blamed for Overfishing

Sharp shooters to kill 4,000 cormorants suspected to be eating all the walleye in Leech Lake.
Link
This is so emarassing that this is happening in my state. Walleye populations are down on Leech Lake so last summer the DNR killed about 500 cormorants to see if they were eating the walleye. When they checked the birds' stomach contents they found mostly perch and came to the natural conclusion that since the birds ate all the walleye, they are now only able to eat perch. Never mind that we had a similar situation here years ago on Red Lake and after all the studies the true culprit ended up being commercail overfishing. Grrr. It's just because these birds are ugly that no one is stepping up and saying, "Hey, this logic makes no sense. Here's an idea, let's maybe not fish from this lake so much over the next five years."