Busy, Busy, Busy

I've been a little bit missing in blogland lately. I've had alot on my mind and have felt like I was spinning my wheels. I need to take a deep breath tonight and relax.

Isn't this a relaxing view? I sure was hoping to sew a few Sandhill Cranes in this field.

This aster is from a month ago. There weren't many left last Tuesday when Art and I were there.

Anybody know what these berries are?

The turkey poults have grown up. Aren't they beautiful?

Almost as pretty as a Turkey Vulture.

I'm nearly done packing for Cape May. I'll finally get to meet Kathi, Laura, Susan and Delia. I can't wait to meet them and do a little birding too. I hear there's good birding out there. I'd better count my quarters for the tolls. We don't have tolls here in Minnesota ya know.

Fall Came to Hasty Brook

Two weeks ago the maples turned to flames.

These are the maples up by our campsite. The maples down by the creek were still green.

Art and I were at Hasty Brook yesterday and all of the maples were bare.

We set the alarm for 4 AM yesterday and were on the road headed to Virginia, Minnesota for our 9 AM meeting with the county variance board.

They granted the variance!!

We can build at Hasty Brook. I made it from the board room to the elevator before the tears started. I was giddy with relief. We splurged on Subway sandwiches and drove down to Hasty for lunch. Thankfully we both brought heavier jackets because it was only 44 degrees outside when we got there. Art did some work to winterize the camper while I took off hiking through the woods. It's like a different world when the leaves drop and the grasses and ferns die back. The contours of the land appear. Hills and gullies, moss covered deep in the shadows of the thick woods. Places I can't see in other seasons. The creek was running fast, deep and wide after the last heavy rainfalls. The water running over the old beaver dam was loud enough to hear from a distance. A Hermit Thrush, soon to head south was still busy scratching and turning over leaves. Some of the many Chickadees that were politely mobbing the feeders followed me on my walk, flitting through the branches just over my head. A flash of red, black and white ahead- the maniacal laugh of the Pileated Woodpecker made me laugh too. A little further along I flushed two Ruffed Grouse.

My favorite time of the year at my favorite place in the world.

We'll spend the winter months working on our cabin plans, remembering how fortunate we are to have that place. We'll care for it.

South Dakota Sparrow Weekend, part deux

I have just a few more pictures I want to share from my sparrow workshop weekend in South Dakota. The weekend was structured so that we would spend time out in the field looking at sparrows for a few hours, then go back for classroom time, hearing about habitat, field marks, songs and migration. This was repeated through-out the whole weekend and I found it to be a very effective way for me to learn. Fortunately the group dynamics were very positive and supportive as we were all coming from different levels of experience. The beautiful LeConte's Sparrow was my first lifer sparrow. The second was a Vesper Sparrow (sorry, no pictures). Another lifer for the weekend were these Western Meadowlarks. There were Western Meadowlarks on nearly every hay bale we saw.
The views of the prairie were stunning. I found myself on more than one occasion needing to hurry along to keep up with the group.
Trying to memorize the colors, the feel of the wind on my face and the sounds of the whispering grasses...
This ranch has the largest remaining tract of native tallgrass prairie left in North America. The views were spectacular and made me feel quite small.

We're off again- this time driving across the fields.
A fence full of Savannah Sparrows, all facing into the wind.


A closer view of a Savannah Sparrow. Yellow lores and streaking over a white breast.
Another stop brought us to the Blue Cloud Abbey. Blue Cloud Abbey is a Benedictine male monastery located on a hill overlooking the vast prairie a few miles from Milbank. We were there to spend some time checking out the Chipping Sparrows that hang out in the tall pines along the entrance road. Being early October it was a good opportunity to see and compare immature Chipping Sparrows and winter adult Chipping Sparrows. After breeding season, Chippies lose their characteristic rusty cap for a streaky cap. Immature Chippies have a very streaky breast. I didn't give the Chipping Sparrows my full attention. I was thinking of another Minnesota birder/blogger, Ivars from Ivars' Birds. Ivars has been such a tremendous help to me along my path of trying to improve my photography skills. Blue Cloud Abbey is an important place to Ivars and I wanted to take in some of what he sees. I hope to go back and visit Blue Cloud Abbey again.
This sparrow workshop was a terrific learning experience for me. I've always love the little brown birds and now I feel a new confidence in identifying them in the field. I enjoyed the company of the group. Don't we look like a happy bunch of sparrow stalkers? The class leaders are in front: Bob Janssen and Doug Buri, and I'm behind the camera.

It was a big weekend for lifers:

Northern Shoveler

Gray Partridge

Sharp-tailed Grouse

Greater Yellowlegs

Lesser Yellowlegs

Pectoral Sandpiper

Orange-crowned Warbler

Vesper Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

LeConte's Sparrow

Western Meadowlark

We counted a total of sixty-two species of birds over the weekend.

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

My materials for Cape May Autumn Weekend came over the weekend. I leave in ELEVEN days!

Kathi- did you see there's a sparrow class there?

Tomorrow I'll finally finish re-writing my sparrow notes, then it's time to get out the raptor books. I don't want to look like a total raptor knuckle-head.

It's time for some serious packing...

Sparrows in South Dakota

Last Thursday I joined three strangers for a four hour drive to Milbank, South Dakota for a terrific three day sparrow workshop led by Doug Buri and Bob Janssen. By the time we pulled into Milbank I felt we were no longer strangers, but new friends and from there the weekend just got better and better. The workshop started Friday morning right in the field and one of our first birds of the day was also my first lifer- a Le Conte's Sparrow. I lost count of how many Le Conte's sparrows we saw that morning. According to Doug the conditions were perfect for finding Le Conte's: it was the beginning of October, the habitat was a grassy meadow with sunflowers and curly dock for perching, it was cool enough for dew on the grass and the air was calm- no wind. Le Conte's are particularly pishable, very curious and likely to stay around a bit when they hear pishing.
These are very beautiful birds. This one appeared content to pose, staying in view for several minutes.
The focus on this photo isn't very sharp but it shows the warm butterscotch color on the face, melting down into the upper breast.
Another lifer for me was the Savannah Sparrow. This is another beautiful sparrow with streaking over a whitish breast, a rather short slightly notched tail, and yellow lores. We saw quite a few Savannah Sparrows and the lores ranged from a deep yellow to a cream color. In class when Doug and Bob were talking about sparrow songs and calls one member of the class suggested the Savannah Sparrow song sounds like "I'ma Savaaaa-nnah".

I have a few more pictures to share but I spent most of my time without my camera- just trying to learn what Doug and Bob were teaching, getting good long looks at the birds there and taking in the vast beauty of the prairie.

Good-bye

I'm leaving in an hour for Milbank, South Dakota for a sparrow workshop. It sounds like a pretty intense birding weekend. My room should have WIFI so I'll try and post. Wish me luck!

Wordless Wednesday- Tastes Like Chicken

Burp!!

A Peregrine for Susan

There was a peregrine falcon education bird at Carpenter Nature Center from the Raptor Center on Saturday. This was Art's first look at a peregrine. Of all the raptors we saw Saturday, this bird impressed Art the most. He really loved the steel blue-gray on its back and the dark eyes and facial mask.
He said he didn't expect the peregrine to have so much strong color. He like the striped pant-legs too.
We were both fascinated by the bone cracking and crunching as what looked like a chunk of starling was munched.

Is it a male or female Susan?

A Very Good Weekend

Today is my birthday. I missed Dad and Mom and Phyllis terribly this morning, thinking of all the phone calls from them over the years. Mom and Dad always sang Happy Birthday together on the phone, them Mom would remind me of what time I was born. Dad would call me "Lynne-deree". Phyllis would call too and seriously sing her version which would always throw me into fits of laughter because Phyllis had a pretty awful voice.

She'd tell me

"Happy Birthday Lynne-binn".

My family is big on nick-names.

A few tears, but mostly smiles remembering.

I didn't work this weekend so we had planned to spend my birthday weekend up north at Hasty Brook but John got a last minute invite to spend Friday night with friends that he hadn't seen in a while and packing bedding and food for just one night seemed like too much effort to me so we stayed home. Saturday morning I got up early and read some blogs over my coffee and I saw that Ecobirder was going to be at Carpenter Nature Center on Saturday as a volunteer for the Raptor Center. They were going to have a raptor release and have various education birds on display. My sweet Art gassed up the car and drove me down there. One of my favorite education birds was this broad-winged hawk. I've seen them in flight before but never this kind of view.

This bird had just finished bathing.
They are quite a bit smaller than I had thought. It's hard to get an idea of size when they're in flight.
Is this not an exquisite face?

I saw so many birds and took zillions of pictures- enough for several posts. It was a wonderful gift from Art that he went along with me. He followed me patiently while my eyes sparkled taking in the sights of these fabulous birds.

He even carried my bag.

Thanks Art.

Wordless Wednesday- Changing Reflections

Gulls, Gulls, Gulls!

Art joined me on a birding trip! We headed up to Hasty Brook Fiday night to camp for the night so we could be in Duluth by 0730 Saturday morning for a pelagic trip on Lake Superior.
Mike Hendrickson put the trip together. Maybe you remember that Deb from Sand Creek Almanac and I went on the same trip last fall. The weather Saturday was much nicer, although still pretty windy.
A little while into the trip Mike set Art up to do the chumming- tossing popcorn and day-old bread into the water to attract the gulls. Not being a birder, Art stuck out by being the only one without binoculars hanging around his neck. He was glad to have a job.
It didn't take long at all for the gulls to show up.
Mmmm... popcorn.

I was soon able to pick out the immature Herring Gulls from the more common Ring-billed Gulls. This one snatched up a piece of tasty bread.
Herring Gulls are bigger, and bulkier than Ring-billed Gulls.
Bombs away....
The Herring Gulls seemed to use their size advantage when going after the food.

At times it reminded me of a choreographed dance.
Living here in the city most the the gulls I see are circling the fast food parking lots looking for garbage. Watching the birds on this trip gave us a wonderful view of their amazing gracefulness and acrobatic abilities in flight.
Here's a good view of a mature Herring Gull on the left and an immature Herring Gull on the right. I did get a great look at a few Bonaparte's Gulls. They look so much daintier than the rest. A Franklin's Gull flew in among the rest at one point. I missed it. I would have been a lifer.
Art got it.
Not fair.
A juvenile American White Pelican preened and rested on the rocks along a pier. Near the end of the four hour trip the winds picked up, the sky clouded and the temperature dropped a bit. By the time we got back to the dock Art and I were cold and wind-burned but we had a great time.

I got to talk to a few familiar faces and met some new folks. Art said he really enjoyed his first bird trip- not for the birds, but because he liked the boat. That's OK.

Thanks Mike, for putting this trip together and for your help in confirming my id's. I'm looking forward to this winter's Sax Zim Bog Festival of Birds.