More Crow Pictures

Yesterday I posted a couple of marginal pictures of a crow in my yard with a strange growth on its face. The responses I've gotten so far land on either an engorged tick of possibly avian pox. Luckily the bird returned and I was able to get much better shots of the growth in question. I'm now pretty sure it is not a tick.

The cooperative bird gave me views from both sides of its face and the structure of the growth is much more visible. I still don't have a clue to its origin but if anyone has a guess I'd love to hear it.


The bird still seems normal in all respects except for this object. I hope the bird will continue to hang around my yard so I track any changes in its behavior or in the growth itself. Meanwhile, I think it's time to start looking for migrants. Cheers!

Strange Growth on Crow

For the past couple of weeks a family of American Crows (2 adults and 2 young) have been visiting my feeders everyday. The youngsters are VERY vocal and I wouldn't be surprised if the neighbors think something is being attacked in my yard. I have a good time watching the kids beg for food and try to figure out how to get to the suet in the hanging feeder.

One day while watching the commotion in the yard I noticed what looked like an acorn stuck to the upper bill of one of the crows. I can't tell from the photo but it might be an engorged tick. Below are a couple of relatively poor photos taken through a window screen that show the growth close-up.


Anybody have a guess or has anyone seen something like this before. The object appears to be located right about where the base of the upper bill or perhaps just anterior to it. Is it just a tick or some other type of growth? I suppose if the family keeps coming around and the growth is gone it was probably a tick.


The bird appears to be healthy not displaying any symptoms of illness or injury, behavior is normal and feeding is unimpeded. So I'll leave it up to those of you who know a lot more than I do and wait to see if anyone can give me a definitive answer as to what I'm seeing. In the mean time the kids are back in the yard raising a ruckus. I think I'll go watch.

Puttting Bands on Purple Martins

The month of July in Minnesota has been just oppressively hot and humid. Not a great combination for getting out into the field to do some birding. That's O.K. though because the first two weeks of each July are taken up with banding young Purple Martins before they can fledge. We work with several martin "landlords" in the Twin Cities metro area and this year have had a banner year for putting bands on young.

People wonder what the purpose of banding is and there are several things we're learning by doing this but in the case of Purple Martins, it is to find out more about their movements after they leave their colonies and how much movement there is between colonies of birds. After 3 years of marking birds with both federal USFWS silver bands and red alpha-numeric bands (showing a letter and numbers) we are starting to find out some cool stuff.

We head to the colonies when young birds are between 13 and 20 days old and pretty ugly. Old enough so that their legs are actually thinner than when they hatched. Baby birds have thick legs because they store fat along the bones. Bands won't fit well until the birds use some of that fat up. We put 2 bands on each bird, a silver band on their right leg and a special red band on their left leg. In Minnesota, all Purple Martins that are color marked get a red band with white letter and numbers. The 3 numbers on the red band match the last 3 numbers on the silver band so we can identify a bird without having to catch it again. Birds are placed back into the houses after they've had a good cleaning and then we just sit back and wait to see young birds soaring around eating mostly dragonflies.

In this photo you can see the bands on the birds legs. Once the birds fledge they leave the colony and head for what are called "pre-migratory" roosts before heading south for the winter. Here are some of the things we've learned so far:
-When young birds first start to fly, they will often return to a nest cavity in a martin house that is not the one they hatched in. Parent birds don't seem to care and will feed these intruders along with their own young.

-Purple Martins in Minnesota actually move north after they leave their colony and spend time in north-central Minnesota in huge flocks of up to 30,000 birds, roosting at night in cattails around the edges of large lakes.

-When arriving back in the spring, most Martins show up at the colony they were born in but some will go to a nearby colony and take up residence at a new site.

Anybody out birding and seeing Purple Martins should check their legs as they perch. We banded 535 young this year and now have over 1600 martins with bands flying around (we hope). Citizen science only requires a good pair of binoculars and some patience to help add to our understanding of Purple Martins and where they go.

So That's Why They're Called Waxwings

It has been a while since I've had anything interesting to post about. This summer is proving to be hot, humid, stormy and not as "bird centric" as I would like but it has been busy. In a future post I'll talk about the Purple Martin banding that occupied the first 2 weeks of July. Hard work but a record year for us!

The great thing about our regular banding sessions is that we often catch birds that show us characteristics up close that you just wouldn't see from a distance. This Cedar Waxwing is an example.


Lots of the Cedar Waxwings we handle don't show their namesake waxy tips on the wing secondaries. This fellow however was in full display mode. I've personally been seeing and hearing more CEDWs lately than usual. There should be lots of young mixed in with any flocks that may be around. Look for waxwings with streaky fronts and raggedy crests.


A close up of the wing reveals the waxy tips to look like they were made from bright red crayons. They feel that way too.



An extreme close-up lets one see the point from which the tips are produced. An interesting tidbit about waxwings is that they extract the color chemicals for their feathers from their food and in some places waxwings have been found that have orange tipped tails instead of the expected yellow tipped tail feathers due to their diet.

If you'd like to have waxwings around your yard plant some berry bushes or trees and the waxwings will find them before you know it!

A Piece of Advice

Rule #43 When you're out bird-banding and the storm rolls in faster than anticipated, don't go running through the fields carrying net poles.

Interesting Rose-breasted Grosbeak

This past weekend found us banding at a program in Lakeville Minnesota where we have been banding for several years. The day was fantastic! We had so many birds around and in our nets we had to close the nets after less than an hour and ran out of bird bags. It was the kind of day we will tell stories about for years.

The bird that got us really excited was this Rose-breasted Grosbeak


If you look at the bird you can see lots of indications that this is a second year male. The brown edged feathers, brown primaries, etc. made the age of this bird a bit of a no-brainer but...


This bird was banded! We had banded this bird in 2009 and aged it as a second year bird at that time. If this had been an unbanded bird we wouldn't have thought twice about its age.


So the question I'm throwing out there has two parts. First, has anyone else ever seen a case of a known age RGBR showing characteristics that didn't fit their actual age and second, am I correct to guess that this might be a case of a hormonal condition in this individual?

Nice to Get Some PR

In spite of lousy weather last week, we had a reporter from the Star Tribune hang out with us at Ritter Farm while we banded. This morning there was a nice article in the paper about us. See it here.

Weekend Arrivals

As May progresses I look out the window every morning hoping to see long absent birds at my feeders. Saturday morning was one of those mornings when it seems like birds have appeared by magic. Going from not much to large numbers of White-throated Sparrows and trees full of warblers is a birders fantasy.

Needless to say, I took the chance to throw some nets in my yard to see if I could put some "jewelry" on birds headed north. Lots of sparrows ended up in my hands. mostly White-thoated Sparrows. They showed quite a bit of variation from this brilliant fellow above to the drab tan-stripe individuals.


A local nester is the Chipping Sparrow. This one may be moving through or it may be on territory. All I know is that they have been singing in the neighborhood for a couple of weeks already.


Sunday was the first banding session for the spring at Ritter Farm Park. Cold, very windy and spitting snow was what we dealt with all morning. It was a trick just to find a place to set nets where they didn't look like spinnaker sails.In spite of the terrible conditions, there were birds everywhere. Mostly on the ground and along the edge of the nearby lake. It took a while but we did catch s few individuals for the day. Our first catch was this Palm Warbler, one of the early arrivers in the spring.


The Ruby-crowned Kinglets have been here for a few weeks and are still flitting around like mad. We caught two females so no chance to show off the hidden crown patch.


Finally the biggest numbers of warblers were the Yellow-rumped Warbler. Lots of places reporting this species in numbers. They were almost all feeding on floating vegetation along the edge of the lake. There wasn't any insect activity on land and hopefully the birds were getting enough food to make it through the next couple of days.

Other warblers seen included:
Black and White Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Northern Waterthrush
Yellow Warbler

Also had first of the year House Wren, Eastern Towhee, Swamp Sparrow.

A Sunday Evening Surprise

Before you go on see if you can guess what this bird is from this angle. I hate to admit it but sometimes this is the best look I get at a bird. If you don't want to play the game just scroll down and see what I stumbled onto.






After having a family get together on Sunday I got a couple of hours to myself to get out birding after a week of cold, drizzly weather. Sunday evening was gorgeous. No wind, warm and sunny. It couldn't have been better. As I was scanning birds at one of the best wetlands in the area, I looked down at the edge of the water just below my feet and saw a small bird skulking in the dead vegetation.

This Sora Rail was absolutely cavalier to my presence. I got out the camera and started shooting. I must have spent 20 minutes watching this bird and only stopped taking pictures when the light started to fade.


I was really taken aback by the colors of this bird. The blue edging on the back feathers was stunning.The markings on it's side and head were something I hadn't had a chance to study before. There was a point where I thought the bird might be sick or injured because it showed no reaction to me. I've decided it just had other priorities. It just kept hunting along the water's edge and from what I saw was finding plenty to eat.


There were other nice birds at the site like Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Vesper Sparrow, a nice variety of ducks and a singing Meadowlark on a power line. Water levels have finally risen in the area wetlands so there should be good habitat available for birds throughout the summer.

The weather is going to deteriorate the next 2 days so anything that is around will probably stick around for a while. It seems like spring will never arrive!

Bird Banding Video from Three Rivers Park District

My friend Kirk M. posted this video that I had never seen on his blog. Surprised to see me tromping around catching birds.



With the lousy weather we've been having this video sure gives me hope!

Coastal Fallout?

This morning I took a look at the radar images for the southern U.S. and saw what I think is a big movement of birds across the Gulf of Mexico. I am not as familiar with these sorts of images as I am with overland images so I'm looking for a little feedback. I'm especially interested in the area around Brownsville and southwest. It looks like some of the returns around Galveston might be weather related. Anybody along the Texas coast seeing a fallout or anything that might confirm that the image posted is of birds and not something else?


Up here in Minnesota we're bracing for a bit of April snow and wondering if spring will ever get here. Early migrants like Yellow-rumped Warblers and Fox Sparrows are here in good numbers but the warblers will have a hard time finding food the next couple of days. Hopefully things will turn around in time for Earth Day.

Another Big Movement of Birds

Checking radar show another night of big movement in the eastern U.S.. The images below show the build-up of birds moving in Texas but the entire area east of the Great Plains shows lots of birds except near the low pressure system moving through Nebraska and the Dakotas.

I got a couple of comments from my last post I'd like to address. 1) The colors do represent the density of birds present. Green shows more density than blue. These patterns are pretty typical of spring movement.

2) One commenter cautioned about assuming these returns show birds. There have been decades of study done on tracking birds with radar during migration. The patterns we're seeing are literally millions of birds moving north. The suggestion that the images might be due to other atmospheric conditions is possible but the returns are too widespread and too consistent with what we underestand about radar ornithology to write these off to anomolies. A look at the information sites addressing radar ornithology such as Clemson University or this excellent primer by John Idzikowski should clarify how we interpret these radar images.

Long story short - Texas is hopping tonight!

Radar Series -April 10

The following 3 screen images show the change in radar returns for the evening of Sunday April 10th as birds lift off at sunset and head north. In a live, looping image the change is impressive. Notice how the spaces between the radar locations fills in with color and how the center of each radar "donut" gets more green as time has elapsed. It looks like lots of birds moving in the southeast tonight. The shots cover approximately one hour of time.

Little Visitor

With the change in weather things are starting to become much more active. This morning I heard my first of the year Eastern Phoebe singing away along with a Song Sparrow and a drumming Downy Woodpecker. It took everything I had to walk through the door to work. Today would be a good day to play hookey.


A friend at work has this little guy show up in his backyard and got this nice photo to share with me. He hasn't seen him in the last couple of days but if he shows up again I may try to sneak over and get some pictures myself.

Here in Minnesota the weather is supposed to improve with a string of warm days this week. A look at radar tonight may give a clue to where the birding is going to be good tomorrow.

More Radar Fun

A check of Nexrad tonight showed a bit of migration along the east coast just ahead of the big storm moving through. Behind the front, little if any movement. A look at the radar in the Florida Keys shows some activity.


In this image the returns over the keys is actually a movement of birds that came out of Cuba and are headed to Florida. In the past there was a radar image in Cuba that was viewable but it was often not functioning and I haven't seen an image from there in a while.

Once this big storm system moves offshore and the winds switch around the movement of birds should resume. The next 2 nights should see birds headed north.

Movement in the Southeast

From the posts on the local bird chats it appears that there was a good movement of birds into Minnesota and Wisconsin last night. Kinglets (both species), Eastern Phoebes, Killdeer and Hermit Thrushes have shown up in lots of places this morning.

A look at radar at 2100 (9:00 pm) shows lots of movement south of a front traveling across the upper midwest and Great Lakes.


Areas of heaviest migration seems to be northern Florida, Georgia, Alabama and just inching into South Carolina.

Most locations in the gulf area show good movement tonight. Storms are anticipated moving through the region the next 2 days so what arrives may hunker down for a bit.

Reports from a bird banding station near Vera Cruz Mexico is reporting lots of warblers moving with hundreds being caught and banded each day. I can't wait for them to get here!

Another Secret of Migration

This is the time of year we are all itchy to watch the migrants moving through wherever it is we live. How these little dynamos do it has been a question that still doesn't have a complete answer.


A report in New Scientist describes a paper that sheds a new piece of information on part of the answer. This is a very important paper and should lead to a whole new study of migration from a molecular level.

On a more personal level this may lead to me understanding why my spouse is so bad at understanding directions....

...just kidding dear!

House Finch

We had great hopes for the banding program on Saturday morning but apparently the birds had a different idea. We did hit double digits for individuals caught but had about 5 times that number of visitors so we talked a lot about just a few birds.


The final bird of the day was this second year House Finch. I can remember the first HOFI we caught years ago and we were very excited to see House Finches just getting to Minnesota from the east. Now they are pretty ubiquitous. Surprisingly we don't catch that many in our banding areas. We only catch them in sets near the nature center building.


One of the up close details we got to look at was the emargination on some of the primary feathers. Primaries are numbered from from nearest the body outward so the farthest wing feather out in House Finches is number 9. In the photo above you can see primaries number 8, 7, and 6 are emarginated on the leading edge. In other words, the feather shows an uneven leading edge. I don't know that this is important in identifying House Finches but in some species the shape of some of the primaries can actually be diagnostic for identification. In this case I think it just looks cool.

Totals for the day were 10 birds of 4 species, Black-capped Chickadee (6), Dark-eyed Junco (1), White-breasted Nuthatch (2), and House Finch (1).

I'm looking forward to things picking up!

March Bird Banding

Just a quick note to remind everyone that if you are in the Twin Cities area we will be having the March bird banding program at the Lowry Nature Center in Carver Park Reserve tomorrow, Saturday the 19th from 9:00 am until noon. The park is located just west of Victoria, MN.

With the warm weather and the early migrants moving in we might have a chance at catching some birds that are on their way north. On the other hand we might be aging and sexing a lot of Juncos.

Come visit if you're in the area!

Migration Tonight

A quick peek at radar tonight shows an increase in migration in the midwest. Radar returns in Iowa, Missouri, Illinois and the rest of the Ohio River Valley show significant movement.


The forecast for the next 5 days in Minnesota is high temps in the 50s. The warm weather appears to be promoting the move north of early spring migrants. Waterfowl numbers in Minnesota continue to increase even though most lakes are still frozen. First of the year birds such as Killdeer, Sandhill Cranes and Red-winged Blackbirds are showing up in many places. With continued melting of snow cover in the upper midwest the excitement of migration is tempered by the threat of significant flooding in many locations.

The next week to ten days should be good for birding. Lucky for me it occurs just in time for our March banding program on Saturday and my week off for spring break. If the weather holds out I hope to log lots of field time.

If you would like to check out the radar a link is provided here.

"Oregon" Junco Visits Minnesota

I love when birding is as easy as looking out the window from my rocking chair (boy does that make me sound old). It's doubly fun when something unusual shows up like it did this morning.



This "Oregon" race individual of the Dark-eyed Junco has been visiting my feeders off and on most of the winter. I've been trying to get a good photo of it but hadn't any luck until this morning. Interestingly, my backyard hasn't been very busy all winter. With all the snow cover we have I thought I'd have more of a concentration of birds taking advantage of the free meals.



I have heard the Juncos starting to sing as they chase each other around the pine trees in my yard. The American Goldfinches are starting to show some yellow molting in and the Great Horned Owl nest I've been watching has young as of this week. On the other hand, all the reports I've been hearing from just south of us makes me expect to see some Red-winged Blackbirds, Grackles and maybe even a Killdeer any day now. I'm surprised they're not here yet.
A warm front is predicted for the middle of the week so it may be time to put on the boots and slosh through some trails and see what's around.

How Smart Are Crows?

Another really cool video from Science Friday shows tool use in the New Caledonian Crow. They even put a small camera on a crow for some video footage.



This makes me wonder what the crows in our woods are doing that has never been observed.

Banding Totals From 2010

Since today is officially "meteorological spring" and that means the 2011 bird banding season is right around the corner I thought I'd post the totals from my banding efforts of 2010. When I look at my numbers they sure don't reflect the amount of banding I actually did. When I'm working the programs at Carver Park in Victoria, MN or Ritter Farm Park in Lakeville, MN the bands are not mine so are not reflected on my records. The following list is just those birds I banded at my own locations.

Totals are 196 individuals of 42 species. I'm really hoping to bring those numbers up this year if the weather cooperates.

Top 5 species banded were:

Black-capped Chickadee
Purple Martin
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
White-breasted Nuthatch

The complete list in alphabetical order is as follows:

American Goldfinch
American Robin
Baltimore Oriole
Black and White Warbler
Black-capped Chickadee
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Bobolink
Clay-colored Sparrow
Cedar Waxwing
Chipping Sparrow
Common Yellowthroat
Dark-eyed Junco
Downy Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Eastern Tufted Titmouse
Fox Sparrow
Gray Catbird
Hairy Woodpecker
Hermit Thrush
House Wren
Indigo Bunting
Nashville Warbler
Northern Cardinal
Ovenbird
Pine Warbler
Purple Martin
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Red-eyed Vireo
Savannah Sparrow
Sedge Wren
Song Sparrow
Swainson's Thrush
Traill's Flycatcher
White-breasted Nuthatch
Wilson's Warbler
White-throated Sparrow
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Yellow Warbler

The common consensus around these parts is that last springs migration was one of the worst in recent memory. Hopefully it will improve this year and the nets will be busy. Keep checking back to see when we start to catch birds!

Ground Truthing

Yesterday I posted a couple of screen shots from National Weather Service radar showing what appeared to be migratory movement in both Florida and Texas. I love how the kind folks who read this blog are willing to send along their observations which help us understand what is going on in far away places.

Steve Hawkins from San Antonio, Texas wrote to say that migrating geese had been observed on the 26th of Feb. in two locations around San Antonio. He knows they are migratory because geese are only reported from his county during migration.

Jeff Bouton in Port Charlotte, Florida sent a summary of some of the signs of spring in his region. Purple Martins have returned to colonies as of late January. Great Crested Flycatchers have become more vocal as they move onto territories. Chuck-Wills-Widow have started to sing just this week and Jeff also heard singing Northern Parula and Pine Warblers for the first time this spring.

Even locally there has been a noticeable change in the backyard. Northern Cardinals are becoming very vocal in spite of the cold weather and the Downy Woodpeckers are drumming away as they stake out territories for the spring. In the countryside there is an increase in the occurrence of species like Horned Larks and the American Goldfinches are just beginning to show the yellow of their Alternate (breeding) plumage.

The bird activity will only get better as time goes on. It is what keeps some of us going when it's snowing and cold in the backyard.

Keep looking up!

The Beginnings of Migration in Fla. and Texas

The days get longer and spring progresses in spite of the weather in some locations. A quick peek at the radar for Sunday night shows the telltale signs of migrants moving north.


The composition of these flocks is unknown but the obvious candidates are waterfowl, blackbirds and some of the early songbird migrants. Is anyone down in Florida or Texas seeing any indication of birds moving?


With time, these radar signatures will become stronger (larger and different in color) and they will appear further north. What you should look for if you are checking the radar are what look like colored rings around every Doppler radar station where birds are moving. For those of us in the north this is just a tease for what we'll be seeing locally in a month or six weeks.

Keep looking up!

Northern Birds

The snow storm last week reminds us that it's long way to spring in these parts some years. There's talk of another "event" this weekend but we'll see. What the snow always reminds me of is being up north in the pines. A couple of birds that are real indicators that you are in a different habitat are the Boreal Chickadee and the Pine Grosbeak.


Last time I was up in Sax-Zim Bog I was lucky enough to see these species up close. Using our van as a rolling blind I got to watch these birds at a feeding station. Their colors just popped against the dull background of snow and gray sky.


The most common species for the day was the Pine Grosbeak. Every feeder we looked at and every flock sitting in the tops of the spruces turned out to be grosbeaks. We did see an Evening Grosbeak here and there but they are not nearly as common as they used to be.

Soon we'll be talking about Red-winged Blackbirds and Sandhill Cranes but for now I'll enjoy the winter residents.

Burrowing Owl Video

Well we're surviving the recent snow storm as well as can be expected. The kids are upset because we have the day off for President's Day instead of getting a snow day. Best numbers I can find say that we got around 15" of snow between 9:30 am on the 20th and 10:30 this morning and it's still snowing! To take our minds off of the weather I found a nice little piece to post.

This is a video from Science Friday and is just wonderful. Not the stodgy "science" film you might expect. Just some fun with a beautiful bird on a beautiful summer day.

Northern Saw-whet Owl

Today was our monthly bird banding program at the Lowry Nature Center located in Carver Park Reserve near Victoria, Minnesota which is just west of the Twin Cities. The morning was cold and we just used Potter traps on the feeder stations but had a good session.

The totals were 20 birds of 3 species - Black-capped Chickadee, White-breasted Nuthatch and Red-bellied Woodpecker. However the big surprise of the day was a very cooperative Northern Saw-whet Owl just down a trail from the nature center. A couple of the volunteers got to take some very nice photos without disturbing the little fellow. One volunteer also collected 6 pellets to see if she could figure out what the bird was feeding on.


From the number of pellets present and the amount of whitewash on the perching tree it is obvious the bird has been around for a while. It was in a classic location, sitting about 6 feet up in an Eastern Red Cedar along the edge of a hiking trail. I watched several people walk past the bird without having a clue it was there.


The last week around here was quite pleasant with temps in the 40s and lots of melting. We lost about 40% of our snow cover but it caused the surface of the snow to crust over. The owl must still be able to hunt even though I could walk on the surface of the snow and not break through (and I'm not the smallest person around, trust me).


We're going to remember this spot so that if we try to band migrating Saw-whets we will probably set up in this location. There is a winter storm warning out for tomorrow and Monday with a prediction of 8-14" of snow before it's over. Hopefully the little owl will hunker down and be just fine.

Biological Spring

Last Friday morning it was -27 degrees F as I drove to work. We have had quite the run of cold weather and lots of people make their hate of winter the main topic of conversation. However in the natural world it is already "spring". We have gained about a half hour of daylight since late December and that is causing lots of bird activity. This morning I heard the first Northern Cardinal singing it's spring song in spite of it being 12 degrees and barely light. Great Horned Owls are dueting in the woods and here in Minnesota the first nests with females on eggs should happen very soon. Black-capped Chickadees will be doing their territorial call before we know it.

It will still be a while until our local winter visitors decide to head north but movement of some of the earliest migrants is probably underway. Horned Larks come to mind as early movers. If there is a desire to see Great Gray and Northern Hawk Owls in the bogs of northern Minnesota there is still time but in a month they'll be getting restless for their move to the spruce swamps of Canada. And while it will be months before we have a warbler wave move through the backyard, in the tropics our northern breeders will be gone from the wintering grounds by March.

So as you look out the window at home and see the snow drifting across the driveway and the thermometer reminds you why you spent so much on a winter parka, take solace in knowing that spring is here. It just doesn't seem that way sometimes.