Come on Minnesota Birders!!!

Attention all Minnesota Birders!!

Dawn Fine of the blog Dawn's Bloggy Blog and Sharon Stiteler the Birdchick are coordinating a bird outing and social on Saturday, August 15 here in the Twin Cities. Dawn formed a Facebook group called "Birders who Blog, Tweet and Chirp." It's a network of birders and nature lovers who blog and/or use Twitter and Chirptracker. There's even a website: Birders who Blog, Tweet and Chirp. You can read about it here and here

Dawn will be traveling through Minnesota and wants to do some birding and meet other bird/nature bloggers, Tweeters and Chirpers. So on August 15th Dawn's BwBTC will meet Birdchick's Birds and Beers!

I'm not sure where the outing will be but as soon as I hear I'll let you all know.

So come on Minnesota birders!!

Let's get together and meet. I've been fortunate to meet quite a few bloggers and to be very honest, it's a blast. Lets meet and put faces to names, share our knowledge, our love of birds, our stories and laughs.

So, take a big black marker and circle the date:

Saturday, August 15th!!!

"Birders who Blog, Tweet and Chirp" meets "Birds and Beers"

here in the Twin Cities!

Let's get the word out there readers- If you think you'd like to come (or even if you can't make it) please publish a post about this get-together so we can let all of our readers know about this fun day.

News Flash!

I have big news!

I worked the 4th of July weekend but we were able to take a few days midweek before the holiday weekend to go up to Hasty Brook. I am thrilled beyond words that we signed the contract and construction will begin soon! We've decided to build a big garage (32x32) with a roomy loft above. The loft will be roughly 32x15 and there will be two 12 foot dormers in the center of each side giving us a "plus sign" shaped living space. There will be big windows on three of the loft ends and on the fourth we will have a sliding glass door that will open out to a balcony! The balcony will have a wonderful view of Hasty Brook (that's really the name of the creek). Included in our contract is the installation of a septic system and a drilled well. We plan to put a small bathroom on the garage level. Running water and a flush toilet!! It will be like a palace! Work started on clearing the garage site while we were up there. Art and I had all ready taken down the trees in this area in early spring. It's hard for me to believe that we are finally moving forward with our dream of having a home up there. We think the loft will make a great place to stay when we visit Hasty until we build a home in the future. We'll be doing a lot of the finishing work ourselves but we hope to have a completely closed in building by late summer. We've chosen the vinyl siding, steel roof, windows and trim. We'll do the wiring, insulating and sheet rock/indoor siding ourselves.

The creek water level was way down from our last visit. It's still a really birdy place though.

Chestnut-sided Warblers are singing everywhere.

American Redstarts are nesting near one of the tall spruce behind the camper.

We enjoyed watching these White-breasted Nuthatch babies beg (and beg and beg and beg) for food from their tired looking parents.
"Yank-yank-yank-yank-yank-yank-yank"

I love the song of the Red-breasted Grosbeak. Any opinions out there- is this a first year male? He sure looks tatty.

Red-eyed Vireo's song is a bit repetitious.

On one of our trips in to town to the hardware store I spotted two Purple Martin houses. They were just outside the nursing home. There were several faces in the windows watching the Martins swoop and dive. A friend gave me an old Martin house. I'll need to find out from Katdoc if our place at Hasty is a good spot for Purple Martins.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I left my feeders up and filled two weeks ago when we were there last. When we arrived this time the poles were bent to the ground and the feeders were smashed and/or gone.

Bears.

I should have known better than to leave them because the same thing happened last summer in June. Art and I went on a long hike along an old logging trail through our woods. We came across an enormous pile of bear scat on the trail. Hmmm...

I know there are plenty of bears up there and I'd be thrilled to see one . I'd just like it to be

from a safe distance. Maybe from the high loft balcony!

Buddy

We said good-bye to our bunny Buddy this afternoon. We don't know why he stopped eating two weeks ago, but after several vet visits, many doses of medicines and force feedings that he hated, it was time to let him go. Knowing it was the right thing to do doesn't stop my heart from aching.

Friday's Fledgling

Country Roads in West Virginia

Cute vs Fierce!

Ruby-crowned Kinglets are adorable.

Cuteness cubed.

Like little olive colored Easter Peeps-

Couldn't you just pop one in your mouth?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While I was watching the Kinglets at Hasty Brook I felt I was being watched. I saw a big bird- a raptor out of the corner of my eye. It flew from right to left behind me, swooped down twenty feet to the creek level and disappeared. I didn't get a good look but had a feeling for wide wings. I've seen Northern Goshawks punch through our woods chasing Ruffed Grouse on several occasions but his bird was smaller. I felt that the bird had buzzed me, it came pretty close. Later that afternoon, coming out of the camper I caught a quick look at a hawk flying off from the birch snag nearest the feeders. Same one? The next day I was quite sure I saw the same bird perched in that snag as I walked up the driveway. As I got nearer it dropped down into the trees and flew off across the creek. Later on, sipping a cup of coffee, it flew back into the birch. A Broad-winged Hawk!

It sat in that tree about twenty feet away and about fifteen feet over my head. I watched it for a bit, then slowly brought my camera up. It looked at me a few times and started calling. High pitched but soft, two part kee-eeee. It gave me goosebumps.

The birds at the feeders went silent and still. The hawk didn't seem interested in them. It was looking around the ground-

There- one of the chipmunks. The chipmunk seemed oblivious to the raptor glaring down. The hawk's head swiveled up and down, left and right but its eyes never left the chipmunk. Just as I though it would launch itself toward the ground, my dog let out a woof and trotted over to defend her yard from those wicked little "chippies." Poor old Gidget makes occasional half-hearted attempts to catch chippies and then has to lie down from the hard work.

The hawk flew off and I haven't seen it since. It was only a few minutes but it's a memory that I won't forget.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks to Susan Gets Native for confirming my id on the Broad-winged Hawk.

Seven Seconds With a Black and White Warbler

My sit still and wait method paid off.

It was seven seconds from the first shot to the last.