Winter Finches and Hasty Sparrows

After the pelagic trip two Sundays ago, with dry clothes and a nice rum drink warming me from the inside out, I settled in to see what birds were visiting the feeders at Hasty Brook.

A beautiful male purple finch bullied the rest of the birds away when he wanted this feeder.
I have a hard time telling females from immature purple finches. Is that a fox sparrow watching from above? There were many fox sparrows in the thickets- they were reluctant to come into the clearing.
A new lifer for me!! Pine siskins! I've had glimpses of pine siskins before but this day I got to watch them up close for quite a while.
A purple finch and two pine siskins on the feeder gave me a chance to compare their sizes and bill shapes.

In among the many juncos was this lones sparrow. My first thought was that this is a chipping sparrow but it didn't seem small enough compared to the juncos.
It doesn't seem to have the dark eye-line.The beak is pinkish and it has a white eye-ring.

Field sparrow? Am I off the mark?

Wordless Wednesday in Motion

101 Ways to Help Birds

It's human nature to worry about the people and things we love. Often we feel our contributions are small, our efforts ineffective. Friends, I love birds and I'd like to share my thoughts on a book I bought called 101 Ways to Help Birds by Laura Erickson.

Laura's book is direct and practical in offering concrete ideas, ways we can help birds. She starts her approach in the home- from composting and recycling, to making your windows safer for birds and knowing what to do if a bird does strike your window. From the home she moves out to the yard. She suggests we learn about the flora and fauna in our yards, neighborhoods and regions. She offers many suggestions in managing and caring for our backyard habitats and beyond. We need to make choices that effect birds in the larger world too and Laura reminds us to be compassionate and ethical in our birdwatching, wherever it takes us. Laura cares passionately about the environment and believes we can and must have a positive impact on it. She explains 101 ways to do just that. We all have an obligation to protect the birds that we love and this book has given me some new ideas. Please check it out- or better yet, buy it. You'll learn a lot and find yourself empowered with ways to help.

I am fortunate to have met Laura on birding trips here in Minnesota. She is gracious and very generous in sharing her birding knowledge and experience. She is an ornithologist and lives in Duluth.

Laura Erickson has a wonderful blog called Laura's Birding Blog. There she also has a link to her informative and entertaining podcasts about birds.

I feel strongly about this book. Are there any birding books you would recommend?

After the Boat Ride From Hell

Since Deb and I were still soaked and chilly from the pelagic, we decided to duck in to a restaurant for a hot lunch. Neither of us had to get right back to our families so we decided to drive along Park Point to see what there was to see. Not far along we spotted a group from our trip with binoculars and spotting scopes focused on this group of water birds. (that's what you call easy birding- looking for other birders!) We got our field guides out to id what we were looking at. Thank you to all the other birders who were happy to point out and help id the birds in this group. there were:

Redhead- lifer

Greater Scaup- lifer

Surf Scoter- lifer

Black Scoter- lifer

Common Goldeneye

Common Merganser

Horned Grebe- lifer

Red-necked Grebe- lifer

Can you tell I don't know water birds? It's easy to get lifers when the majority of your birding is in your backyard. And note, not all of these birds are in this picture. We saw more water birds along the harbor side at another stop. Kim Eckert, a noteworthy Minnesota birder id'd a Barrow's Goldeneye but my inexperienced eyes couldn't see the difference between the Barrow's and Common Goldeneye so I won't count it.

After birding the harbor side Deb and I decided to check out the beach house on the lake side. It's a good spot for scanning for rare gulls and shorebirds.


Thank you to Mike Hendrickson for the help in identifying these Sanderlings and Dunlins. I am painfully inexperienced in identifying shorebirds- and even worse than shorebirds are GULLS. When we got to the lake side Deb and I ran into Mike and a couple of other birders. The group was thrilled to see this rare Sabine's Gull.
We watched as it snuggled into a footstep in the sand to rest. Later we got a good look at the gull in flight and Mike pointed out the distinctive black, white and gray upper wing pattern. Beautiful.
We stayed on the lake side, scanning and chatting birds with Mike for a while. He's a nice guy and he REALLY knows his birds. Mike has a bird guiding business for northeastern Minnesota. Check out his website. He's been working hard putting together a new winter birding festival in the Sax-Zim bog area for this coming February. Sax-Zim if well-known for winter boreal species. I've been there a few times and it's an amazing place. Thanks to Mike for all of his help on this remarkable day of birding.
The power of the waves and the constant high wind was hypnotic- and exhausting.
Deb and I called it quits and started back, driving into the thickest fog I'd ever seen. When we got back to her car, sweet Deb gave me a bottle of Malibu Rum! When I got home to Hasty Brook, Art and I each had a big glass (tumbler!) of orange juice with a liberal slosh of Malibu to fight off the chill. All in the interest of good health!

My First Pelagic

Saturday dawned cold, rainy and windy- not so perfect weather for a pelagic birding trip on Lake Superior out of Duluth. I met Deb from Sand Creek Almanac near a freeway exit between Hasty Brook and Duluth and we motored up to meet Mike Hendrickson and the group he was leading on this memorable trip.

The captain of the LL Smith told Mike he'd still take us out so Mike gave us our options: go out on the lake (20 mph winds with gusts up to 25-30 mph and 6-7 foot swells) , boat around the protected harbor where the water would be calmer, or cancel all together and Mike would lead the group around Park Point by car and foot. We opted for the harbor. I had a good gore-tex rain jacket and layers under that and felt I was prepared for the wind and drizzle.
Mike is an awesome birder and was terrific in calling out everything he saw. I'm quite sure I was the least experienced birder of the bunch and I really appreciated that Mike and the other better birders would call out birds that were probably "old news" to them.
Everyone in the group was asked to bring popcorn which Mike would toss into the water "chumming" to attract gulls.

Here they come!

Deb and I spent the better part of the trip perched by a picnic table at the back of the boat. I was really glad to have that table to grab on to later on when we neared the channel that separates Minnesota Point from Wisconsin Point- the entrance to Lake Superior. I think the plan was to scan this breakwater on Minnesota Point for gulls but I lost interest in birding and conversation the further out into the channel we went.

Ok, so it's getting choppy. Then we started rolling uppp...then down...

I can handle this. The waves are getting taller...

Wisconsin Point, and beyond that, the open lake and 6-7 foot waves. The LL Smith running directly into the waves is REALLY scary, but we had to turn around! So the captain turns the boat, and now we're parallel to those 6 foot rollers.

I look out and we're up high on top of a wave (hang on to the table!), and then, it feels like the deck falls out from under my feet (hang on to the table!) and a wave broke over the back of the boat and the water is OVER the railing! (HANG ON TO THE TABLE!) The spray was over my head.

You can see I was drenched from about mid-thigh on down. That, combined with strong winds and temps in the low 50's made for a chilly morning. But I'm not complaining. I saw :

White-winged Scoter (lifer!)

Caspian Tern (lifer! and a beautiful look)

American Black Duck (lifer!)

Belted Kingfisher -one of the best looks I've ever had

Herring Gull

Ring-billed Gull

Bonaparte's Gull

Double-crested Cormorant

Common Merganser

That was an exciting trip and I'd love to go again. If you're interested, check out Mike's webpage for his spring and fall Lake Superior boat trips and if you have time, stop over at Mike's blog Colder by the Lake Birding and read his hilarious account of this trip.

But wait! The day's not over yet. After Deb and I got a hot lunch in a warm restaurant where our pants and feet could dry, we headed out to Park Point and we saw...

Odds and Ends From Last Weekend

We did get an extra non-birding treat last Saturday when we saw this steam engine come chugging up the hill. We could hear it and feel the vibrations in the ground before it came into view. It was a nice reminder of a different era of transportation. Does anyone remember Lunch With Casey? It was a local (Minneapolis/St. Paul) children's TV show that ran over the noon hour back when kids left school to go home for lunch. The character Casey Jones and his pal Roundhouse Rodney were very popular and they made many appearances at local businesses. When I was five or six my Dad took me to see Casey Jones at a department store opening. We waited what seemed like hours in line and when we finally got to meet Casey, I started to cry, and told Casey that I loved him and asked him if he would marry me! He got down on his knees and hugged me and said I'd have to grow up a little before I could get married but that he loved me too. I went home a very happy little girl.

After we left Hawk Ridge we headed down to Park Pointe to look about. Someone spotted a plover and Sharon got her scope out to get a better look.
We narrowed it down to either a Black-bellied or American Golden-Plover in winter plumage. Stan saw it take flight and noted the black "armpits" which made it a Black-bellied Plover! A lifer for me!
That wraps up my 50th birthday birding weekend. I'll leave you with one more look at those red-tailed hawk feet.
A rabbit nightmare!

On to Hawk Ridge

We left Frank Taylor's banding station in a downpour but by the time we reached Hawk Ridge the rain had moved on. The winds were not favorable for seeing large numbers of migrating raptors. Sharp-shinned hawks were flying low and I got lots of good advice from Stan about differentiating accipiters. I have to say, it's really great to spend a day with two talented birders like Birdchick and Stan Tekiela. I learned so much from them both. Asking questions on the spot, in the field is the best way for me to learn.

Along with the sharpies there were kestrels, a few goshawks and a few red-tailed hawks. Three of the red-tails were flying together and Sharon and I noticed that one was quite a bit bigger than the other two. I'm guessing the large female was trapped and banded while we were there. Just before we were getting ready to leave the Hawk Ridge staff announced that they were bringing a red-tail down to be released.

She was "big and feisty" according to the gal showing her off to the crowd.
Isn't she gorgeous?!
I caught her nictitating membrane in this shot.
Glorious!
Click to enlarge and check out those feet.

Did you know that spellcheck doesn't recognise the words accitiper or nictitating?

Birding 50! Part 2

Saturday I left home at 0630 to drive to Eden Prairie to meet a birding group going to Duluth led by Birdchick and Stan Tekiela. The weather forecast predicted rain, but we had plenty of enthusiasm so we hit the road! Our first stop was a private hawk banding station run by Frank Taylor, a friend of Sharon's. Frank gave us a tour of his blind and a wonderful explanation of their operation banding hawks. Frank is extremely knowledgeable and articulate and his excitement about sharing his passion for raptors was contagious.

When we pulled up there was a knot of people near the cars and we quickly got out to see that they had caught an injured Peregrine Falcon in their nets. Since we were headed back to the Cities later in the day, Sharon and Stan volunteered to take the peregrine back with us to the Raptor Center fro evaluation and treatment. Check out Birdchick's post to read the awesome information about this bird.

Here's the view from inside the blind. It is set up on the edge of a large hay field. I was lucky to be inside when a sharpie flew into the nets. They had caught and banded two sharpies before we arrived. It was a terrific learning experience to be able to see these birds up close and have them described in such detail.

Here Sharon is holding the adult male for closer inspection. She let us all have a sniff of the sharpie. I thought it smelled like warm, brown grass- clean and outdoorsy.

Then Sharon did the sweetest thing- she handed the sharpie to ME! I couldn't have asked for a better gift. Thank you, thank you Sharon!

Now, people who know me know that when I'm really happy my eyes disappear behind little slits. You can barely make out my pupils in this picture that Sharon took.
( does Photoshop have a tool to remove double chins?)

I was thrilled! They have a lottery to choose visitors to release the banded birds. Don't those ladies look excited? Frank is giving them directions to count to five and then gently let them go while Sharon is lying on the cold, wet ground to photograph the release from the best angle.

The day isn't over yet...

Birding 50! Part 1

Art asked me a while back if I'd like a big party for my 50th birthday and after thinking decided against it. What I really wanted was a weekend of birding and dinner out. Well, what a weekend I got! My birthday was Friday but we also had a wedding to attend Friday evening so Art, God bless him, took the day off work and told me he'd be my driver and birding partner! The weather was Minnesota fall perfection. Blue skies, golden sun and cool breezes. I can't adequately describe the smell of the air. Maybe everyone in blogland has autumn air that smells as good- but I doubt it. After the kids left for school I grabbed my camera and two pairs of binoculars and we took off. Our first stop was a little park near home that I'd always wanted to check out. Do you ever wonder where all of the robins go after their babies fledge? Well on Friday most of them were in the ball fields at this park. Not much else to see so we headed off for some corn fields where in previous years I'd seen thousands of geese resting. I was hoping to spot a Cackling Goose among the Canada Geese. Only one of the fields was cut so there were fewer geese than I expected, and no Cackling Goose. But I did spot another Canada/domestic hybrid! I don't believe I've ever notice one of these hybrids before and now twice in one week I've found one. We watched it for a bit and like the one last week, this one stayed right in the middle of a knot of geese, maybe making it harder to become prey. Our next stop was Eastman Nature Center. Near the entrance Art spotted six turkeys in a grassy area. Turkeys used to be common only in the southern part of the state but I've seen them further north over the last couple of years.
The park is full of soft maples, beautiful yellow in the fall.

I think ninjas were here!

Sugar maples turn orange and red.
I spent fifteen minutes trying to photograph this sparrow. I'm working very hard on my sparrow identification skills and have found that it's helpful for me to get a photograph to refer to when trying to make an id. Lincoln's Sparrow- I think.
Prickly beauty, a thistle.

I wonder if Julie Zickefoose knows what this fresh scat is? Art couldn't believe I got on my knees to get a picture of it!

Birding 50! --- Part 1 --- Then End

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I heard my first "Oh, sweet Canada" this morning and sure enough there are scads of White-throated Sparrows scratching under my feeders right now. I do love sparrows!