A Sunday Afternoon Walk

 

 

It's March 11th and it feels more like April 11th. This is the month we should be getting our spring blizzards and hoping to survive until warm weather but instead we're going to have temps in the 70s this week. Lots of birds are moving in significantly ahead of schedule. The lakes usually look like the picture above but most are very close to opening. I wouldn't be surprised to see many lakes ice free by Friday. 

Yesterday I headed down to the southern part of the county to Lake Byllesby Regional Park and saw thousands of geese milling around on the lake. The group was made of of 3 species, Canada, Greater White-fronted and Snow. Lots of Pintails and Green-winged Teal too.

I decided to get out and enjoy this afternoon down at the Old Cedar Bridge area of the Minnesota River Valley National Wildlife Refuge. One of the first signs of spring was singing Redwing Blackbirds all over the place. Song Sparrows flitted through the grasses along the edge of the trail and every open bit of water was full of waterfowl. The complete list of species for the day is as follows:

Greater White-fronted Goose
Canada Goose
Trumpeter Swan
Wood Duck
Gadwall
American Widgeon
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Ring-necked Duck
Lesser Scaup
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Hooded Merganser
Common Merganser
Bald Eagle
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
American Coot
Killdeer
Ring-billed Gull
Hairy Woodpecker
American Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
American Robin
Song Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird

I can only imagine that many more migrants will show up this week with the warm temps and the strong winds from the south. Get out and look up!

Golden-crowned Kinglet

The weather in this part of the country has been, to put it mildly, strange. First it's warm and then it's cold and then it rains and then it freezes and then it snows before deciding to get warm again! March has always been a tough month to live in Minnesota. It makes April seem like a luxury. So to make a long story short, I haven't been out birding beyond staring at the feeders in my backyard. That doesn't mean I don't have a little something to post...

Some of the littlest birds that we see here in Minnesota are the Kinglets. Ruby-crowned are, by far, the more common of the two species around. They'll be here in October on the way south and then we'll see them again in April as they head back north. Once in a while we'll see the guy pictured above - a Golden-crowned Kinglet. We have a spot we check every December during the Christmas Bird Count because it is not unusual to find a few overwintering in the pine groves. An even better day is when we find one or two of these birds in our nets while we're banding.

In the hand we get to see characteristics that might otherwise go unnoticed. To determine the sex of the bird we part the crown feathers and look for orange-red feathers along with the yellow ones. As you can tell, this bird had a nice crown full of both yellow and orange feathers making this a male. Females will only show yellow feathers in their crown.

Seeing this in the field is more difficult, so telling a male from a female at a distance is usually not possible. We should start seeing this species later this month as they head to their breeding grounds up in the spruce forests. Keeps your eyes peeled and your ears open. The next 3 months should be fun!

Fun at the Feeders

When the days get busy around the house (and with three teenagers when isn't it busy?) I appreciate the fact that I can still look out my windows and enjoy some of the visitors to my yard. Even though I can't remember a time when bird feed was more expensive, I still consider it a bargin when compared to what I get out of seeing some of the local residents.

 

This Common Redpoll was one of two individuals that showed up at my feeders on New Year's Day and I haven't seen any since. I was lucky enough to see lots of these birds when I was up in northern Minnesota last month but around here this is a great bird for the yard list. The birding gods must have been smiling down on me in order to start my year list with this bird.

The Red-bellied Woodpecker is a year round visitor to my yard. I can count 7 species of woodpecker that have come to my yard/feeders but by far this bird along with Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers are the bulk of my visits. I did hear and then see a Pileated Woodpecker today as he was making his rounds of the neighborhood. They look absolutely prehistoric in flight. I'm hearing lots more spring songs as the day lengthen.

Here we have the classic White-breasted Nuthatch pose, head down. It won't be long before this female is hunkered down in a cavity, sitting on a clutch of eggs. By then the migrants will be making their biennial trip across the landscape. I expect the radars down south to start showing migration pretty soon. Our first red-winged Blackbirds are due back in a couple of weeks. With the way this winter has been I wouldn't be surprised to see birds arriving ahead of their usual dates. On the other hand, I'm not putting the snow shovels away just yet.

More Sax-Zim Photos

      Looking through the photos I took up at the bog in January I found 3 more to post for people to see. The first shows both species of chickadees that are found at the bog. Just click on the photo for a better view.

    One of the real treats to visiting northern Minnesota is the chance to see both Evening and Pine Grosbeaks close up. When I was a college student in northern Wisconsin, Evening Grosbeaks were the most common birds at feeders in the winter. It wasn't until the populations of these birds began to decline that I understood just how lucky I had been to see them in the numbers I did.

    Finally, as birders know, some of the best sightings happen as you're traveling along and just happen to look in the right place at the right time. This Rough-legged Hawk was sitting off the side of the road as we were heading to another location and was found just by the fact that there were lots of eyes looking in lots of directions.

    Hope you enjoy the look at some northern birds!

Late Winter Bird Banding

 

     It's only the middle of February but it feels more like the middle of March and the birding feels more like late winter rather than mid-winter. We have had such a strange season with very little snow and relatively mild temperatures that it is hard to know how this will affect the spring migration season. We here in Minnesota are suffering a really significant drought which bodes well for spring flooding but we could use some precipitation soon for soil moisture to be adequate for the growing season.

  

     Regardless of the weather we still are holding our regular banding sessions and on Saturday we banded for 4 hours at the Lowry Nature Center in Carver Park Reserve near Victoria, Minnesota. The totals were good for the morning with 26 individuals captured.

    Only 3 species were caught even though we were using both traps and nets. The American Tree Sparrow above was not one of the species we handled. This picture was from January when we handled a good number of these guys. The species we worked with Saturday were Black-capped Chickadee, Downy Woodpecker, and White-breasted Nuthatch.

    As an added photo of interest the White-winged Crossbill above was photographed during a trip up north to the Sax-Zim Bog area of Minnesota. This is the mecca of winter birding in Minnesota and this year I was lucky enough to go up there twice. The goal was to see as many boreal species as possible and this year was good but not great. We did not have a big owl invasion this year except for the impressive number of Snowy Owls that have showed up. Many of them moved through the state and ended up in places like Iowa and Nebraska. I did get to see a Great Gray Owl on the first excursion. The most interesting birds were the many flocks of White-winged Crossbills that seemed to be everywhere. Strangely, we didn't see any on the second trip.
    With the days getting longer and the temperatures remaining warm, I am starting to get the itch to get out in the field and do some heavy duty birding and banding. Until migration really kicks into gear I guess I'll have to spend my time mending nets and thinking of new places to explore.

The Radar is Lit Up Tonight!

My friend Sue alerted me to the fact that the radar is really active tonight (actually 3 am Friday). I usually see returns like this in the spring but it sure looks like a huge movement of birds southward tonight. Most of the concentration appears to be in the southern Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois area.

Based on what has been around here lately I'm guessing that most of what is moving are the late warblers, especially Yellow-rumps which have been here in big numbers for the last week and sparrows. I have seen reports of birders seeing flocks of migrating sparrows with multiple species.

The forecast for my area of Minnesota is for cooler temps but precipitation should stay away for the next couple of days so we'll see how birding is this weekend. I know that the big influx in my yard has been of Dark eyed Juncos. The ones here now will move on and the winter residents won't be here for a few weeks yet.

Time to get out birding!

Sometimes when birds show up they show up in waves. Such was the case on Sunday when I opened my nets on a clear and warm day. The winds had been steadily out of the south for several days so I wasn't expecting lots of migrants but from the first net run it was obvious that there were birds everywhere. For the next 7 hours it was a bird bonanza. I hadn't had a day this good in a long time and there were so many birds in the nets I wished I had some help but alas I was a one man show. By the end of the session I had netted 54 individuals of 10 different species.

The most common species for the day were what I would expect in this area in early October. Yellow-rumped Warblers and White-throated Sparrows made up the bulk of the days catch. Yellow-rumps in the fall can be quite a challenge to age and sex but after seeing so many it became easier. Along with these species I banded 2 other warbler species and 3 other sparrow species. Below is a complete list for the day:
Nashville Warbler - 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 1
Orange-crowned Warbler - 2
Lincoln's Sparrow - 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler - 29
Swamp Sparrow - 1
White-throated Sparrow - 16
Fox Sparrow - 1
Hairy Woodpecker - 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker - 1
This weekend is the regular banding session at the Lowry Nature Center in Carver Park Reserve near Victoria, MN. The weather is supposed to hold until then with no big fronts coming through but a gradual decline in daily high temperatures. If you would like to come out and help band birds we start right at 9 am. See you there!

Banding Programs This Weekend

Just a very short note to let folks know that this weekend we will be running 2 bird banding programs. On Saturday we will be holding the monthly program at Carver Park Reserve just outside of Victoria, MN from 9 - noon. This session is scheduled to be at the King Blind location down the road from the Auburn Lake boat launch.

On Sunday we will be holding the last fall banding session for the year at Ritter Farm Park in Lakeville, MN. This session runs from 9 - noon. Cost for participants 10+ is $2. Younger kids are free.

Come on out and say hi. Hopefully we will be very busy with southbound migrants.

September Migrants

We held our second banding session of the fall at Ritter Farm Park near Lakeville, MN yesterday. For early September is was unusually hot. We started the day in the upper 50s but very quickly got up into the 80s and we weren't sure how that might affect the days catch. To put it simply the birds were very cooperative. This Brown Thrasher was just one of the highlights of the day.


A big aim of our programs is to introduce kids to birds and show them how science is done in the field. We encourage kids of all ages to come out to watch and have some of them help us let the birds go. The thrasher made this young fellows day when it just sat there for about 30 seconds until it figured out it was free. This picture is of a memory that I hope this kid never forgets. When we wonder how to bring more young people into birding nothing tops something like this.


We only ran 3 nets for the program but we were busy from the start. Many of the birds were obvious migrants with a good number of young birds. This Purple Finch is a young bird with the last bit of yellow gape (edging of mouth) still visible at the base of the bill. We see PUFIs in migration but they nest north of us. Besides the visible characteristics that identify Purple Finches, we can always distinguish them from House Finches because PUFIs really bite!


The Northern Waterthrushes have been moving through for a couple of weeks and this one was netted in classic habitat, right along the edge of a wetland, skulking along low in the bushes. I even predicted this species for the day.


Finally, a preview of the next birds to come through in big numbers, the sparrows. We caught 3 species of sparrow including Song Sparrow, Field Sparrow and this Swamp Sparrow. Swamp Sparrow and Field Sparrow were the most common sparrow catch of the day.

Below are the totals for the day. The weather prediction for the next week is for a drastic change in temperatures. We are going from upper 80s for highs to barely reaching 60 degrees. We have 2 programs next weekend - Saturday at the Lowry Nature Center and Sunday is the final program at Ritter Farm this fall. With the change in conditions we may see a real change in species. Ya gotta love migration!

Totals for Sunday:

American Redstart - 1
Field Sparrow - 3
Common Yellowthroat - 3
American Goldfinch - 2
Northern Waterthrush - 1
Swamp Sparrow - 3
Purple Finch - 1
Red-eyed Vireo - 1
Song Sparrow - 1
Gray Catbird - 3
Brown Thrasher - 1

Total Individuals = 20
Total Species = 11

New Bird Species Discovered

I love the fact that the more we look at the world around us the more we see. This is something I try to impress on my students all the time. Well, someone has been looking more closely at a seabird from the Pacific and has found by appearance and by DNA analysis, there is a new species of shearwater called Bryan's Shearwater.

To read the whole story see the article from the Smithsonian's National Zoo press release.

Ya just gotta love science!

A Wave of Warblers

I had a chance to spend some time at my banding site for four days last week (Thursday - Sunday) and while the numbers weren't high the variety was exciting. I also netted a couple of birds that prompted the "What's the heck is this one?" reaction. The photos below are a selection from the 4 days. See if you can guess # 2 and #3 before you look at the label!


#1 This is one of my favorite fall warblers to catch. The Chestnut-sided Warbler has such a different look in fall migration that if you didn't know better you might think it's something else. I've seen these birds flitting through the woods on gray, rainy fall days and the color they display almost glows.


#2 This was the first of two tough IDs I had. It took a while to key it out but I was quite pleased to have figured it out. In the hand are a couple of characteristics that you might not see easily in the field. First, there is no white on the underside of the bird. It has yellow undertail coverts and no white spots on the tail. It also does not have dark legs.


#2 The thing that threw me at first was the white eye ring. Adults of this species don't have an eye ring. As I walked up to the net I thought this was a Nashville Warbler but, in fact, it is a young Mourning Warbler! Not a species we handle much anyway but this youngster really was a challenge.


#3 This was the second bird that made me scratch my head. My friend Mark was with me this day and he immediately recognized it as one of three fall warblers that are really tough to ID. We both take a bit of a perverse pleasure in catching a bird that's is not easy to ID. Part of it is that we know we probably haven't handled the species before and it gives us a chance to learn some of the more subtle characteristics that are only apparent in the hand.


#3 This adult, female Bay-breasted Warbler was the first of that species I have ever handled.


#4 A more typical warbler to catch during migration is this Wilson's Warbler. Large black-cap with quite a bit of olive green edging is something to look for in the fall.


#5 Common in the area during both breeding season and migration is this American Redstart. The only trick to banding these in the fall is to know that young males of the year look like an adult female. The glossy black and bright red feathers of the adult male take a couple of years to develop.


#6 Not a warbler but a species that we catch at the same time as the warblers are moving through here is the Red-eyed Vireo. All the REVIs that I've caught so far are young with brown, not red eyes.

Here's hoping the next banding session is just as much fun as this one.

Fall Migration is Revving Up.

Saturday morning found us at the Lowry Nature Center for our monthly banding session, but we were also anticipating the appearance of the first south bound migrants of the fall. Word from up in the northern part of the state was that the first flocks of warblers were showing up and with the winds out of the north we were hoping that some of those birds had made it this far already. Shorebirds have been moving for about a month now but seeing them is a matter of finding good habitat. It's been pretty dry the first part of this month.

We set nets in the usual lanes and and had a steady but not overwhelming number of captures. The only birds we banded that may be migrants are a couple of Least Flycatchers. All the other species caught are known to breed in the area. Here is a full list of the days catch:

Eastern Phoebe - 2
Trail's Flycatcher - 1
Least Flycatcher - 2
American Goldfinch - 1 (in spite of lots being around the banding site)
Black-capped Chickadee - 3 new, one retrap
Field Sparrow - 1
American Redstart - 1 retrap originally banded in spring 2009
White-breasted Nuthatch - 1
Downy Woodpecker - 1
Rose-breasted Grosbeak - 1
Northern Cardinal - 1
Gray Catbird - 1 new, 1 retrap

Total species = 12
Total individuals = 18

This week I hope to get out to a different site and do some banding. I had a Wilson's Warbler and a Canada Warbler in my apple tree Saturday evening so there is good stuff around. Now they just need to find my net. I was going to go out this morning but I spent yesterday afternoon hand clearing my net lanes with a weed whip and had a hard time rolling out of bed this morning. Complaints of an aging bander!

Banding Program on Saturday

Just a quick post to let everyone know that tomorrow, August 2oth is our regular banding session at the Lowry Nature Center located in Carver Park Reserve just outside Victoria, Minnesota. The program goes from 9 am until noon and there is a chance we'll be seeing some early southbound migrants in our nets.

Hope to see you there!

Mystery Solved

Well I think my questions have been answered. After receiving a number of replies to my questions, the majority opinion was that the crow was suffering a case of avian pox. Some folks offered other possibilities and I am impressed by the depth of knowledge that people possess and are willing to share.

The bird reappeared this morning and the growth has disappeared. I was able to get a couple of shots that show an open wound where the growth was. Again, the bird seemed none the worse for this and was happily feeding with its sibling and parents.

Profiles from both sides show a sore that looks like it was centered just above the base of the upper bill.


The photo below has been enhanced a bit to brighten the image and is the best image I have of a frontal view of the wound. All in all a pretty interesting few days following this individual.


My sincerest thanks to all of the wonderful people who weighed in on this question. I continually learn from you and realize that I will never know enough to be satisfied so don't be surprised if you see a new question soon!

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.