I haven’t posted for a long time. I was never pleased with the bird photos I took with a super-zoom camera.

Last fall I purchased a new Nikon dslr which came with 2 lenses, one of which was a 70-300 mm zoom, but it didn’t come with image stabilization. Most what I took for the first few months were pictures of the sunsets here, and the sunsets are spectacular.

My dirty secret – for someone living in Minnesota – is that I hate winter.

I’ve been lax in keeping up this blog. The biggest issue is a camera. My old camera died and my replacement is just barely adequate. So, this has been the first post for quite a while.

Every year is different and yet it is the same. Whenever I do the number, we see about the same each year. Still the migrations seasons have been mediocre. Our lake still hasn’t recovered since someone cut all the small trees down in 2012. The Fall of 2016 has been disappointing. Not very many Warblers, no Thrushes at all, so far no Duck, Geese or Swans. I wonder where the little birds have gone.

We also had several appearances of the Scarlet Tanager.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had some wonderful birds.

The Black and White Warbler came by a few times and I was lucky enough to get a photo. The July 4th party at hour neighbors upset the Great Crested Flycatcher enough that it hung around our yard and I got the best photos I ever had of them.

In the last few days we’ve seen both the Harris’s Sparrow and the Fox Sparrow, and got decent photos of them. They are the highlight of our Fall.

Fox Sparrow 10/17/16

Harris’s Sparrow 10/17/16

Today is New Year’s Eve. I haven’t put out a post in quite some time, so this is a good excuse to put one out.

2014 may not be over, but our birding year seems finished.

We had a poorer than normal migration season this April and May. The late very cold winter meant that we had very few early migrators. The Our first Bluebird was seen on April 5th, our first ducks showed up on April 7th. Our most common warbler, the Yellow-rumped, arrived on 4/19 and stay for just over a month. The last winter Junco was seen on May 5th. lack of snow meant that local farm fields weren’t a suitable substitute for a real lake, so our local temporary ponds only had ducks for a few days. Combined with my slowly healing ankle that limited my walking, we just didn’t see as much as hoped for.

Still we had some surprises. We saw a Northern Waterthrush for a few days in May. I hadn’t seen them before in MN, though they are common in NJ. We had the Harris’s Sparrow for parts of 2 weeks, a very long visit for them.

Northern Waterthrush 05/17/14	Harris’s Sparrow 5/10/14
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 5/10/14	Bufflehead 4/23/14
Hooded Mergansers 4/11/14	Eastern Bluebird 4/26/14
Yellow-rumped Warbler 4/24/14	Ruffed Grouse 4/11/14
Redhead and Ring-necked Duck 4/22/14	Wood Ducks 4/22/14

If you know me or my wife, you know we are active birdwatchers. One of our favorite group of birds are what are called ‘Wood Warblers’ or ‘North American Warblers’ . This is a group of often brightly colored birds, usually with a lot of yellow or green. They are very active birds which you can see flitting from branch to branch, eating insects or insect larvae. Most only pass through Minnesota in Spring and Fall, but they don’t pass through silently. Particularly in Spring before the leaves come out, they are easy to see, even if not always easy to identify.

Princeton University Press has been publishing bird books for years, but mostly these were not well publicized and they seemed directed towards reference libraries. In the last few years they have started publishing books directed towards the average birder, perhaps not the beginner but someone who is not a trained biologist. The first entry was Richard Crossley’s Id Guide of Eastern Birds, and now there is a whole

It is still early in November but it is starting to feel like winter. We are getting fewer and fewer birds each week. I am still healing from the broken ankle so I haven’t been able to look for birds while doing my daily tasks (which used to include walking the dog). We haven’t seem many of the Fall Sparrows that usually appear under our feeders each October and November. We are still taking drives to see the birds, but most of the time we come up empty. The local lakes and ponds are still open but they should soon freeze up.

We aren’t getting that many dramatic birds, particularly when compared to last year.

My last post was in mid-July and it covered the Summer birding doldrums. I had no idea that only a few days later I would break my ankle and have an even more significant birding slowdown. On Sunday July 28th, I was walking Molly, I took a short-cut to the lake and suddenly found myself on the ground with my foot at an improbable angle. I realized it was broken. I yelled for help and Shawnne pulled the car over so I could crawl in. I won’t bore you with additional details. Needless to say, I am not going to spend my mornings walking around and looking for migrating birds.

It took a while but I am able to sit outside courtesy of a wheelchair. Except for the days I have gone to the doctor I haven’t been able to take pictures away from the house. So, I have had no opportunity to take duck or swan photos, nor can I take out the telescope and scan our lake for birds.

It isn’t a total loss. Migration has started for real. We had an inch and a half of rain on Saturday. That brought the worms to the surface and we had bunch of Northern Flickers on Saturday and Sunday. It was a bit too dark to get a great photo but I posted what I had.

I am posting a few photos from August. Again not great but good considering the lighting and distance.

Northern Flicker 9/15/13	Rose-breasted Grosbeak 9/4/13
Kingfisher 8/28/13	Osprey 8/29/13

Now that it is mid-July it is more than obvious not only is the migration season ended but bird activity is slowing down. Usually I have been able to take a short walk during the day and pick up a few birds to add to our daily list. In the last few weeks I am turning up less and less each day. The Ovenbirds and Yellow Warblers that we hear every day have just about stopped singing. Last year was unusual. Looking at statewide observations, Dickcissels were widely reported in the Central part of the state, this year reports are few. We haven’t seen any. Some birds that we expect to see every day, such as Kestrels, that like to sit on wires, have been almost invisible.

We have started to take an evening bird run instead of doing it during the heat of the afternoon. For a few weeks we were having luck seeing Kingbirds and Bobolinks, but in the last few days we are getting very little. Bobolinks can be hard to spot in the grass, but we aren’t even hearing them.

Of course there are positives this month. We have been seeing both Clay-colored and Savannah Sparrows a few times a week. We have seen Indigo Buntings along a local read near our house. We have seen some Empidonax flycatchers and on a few occasions they have been vocal enough to identify (but not close enough to photograph).

Bobolinks 7/13/13	Indigo Bunting 7/17/13
Yellow Warbler 7/08/13	Savannah Sparrow 7/16/13