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.
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.
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.
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).
I’ve been birding since 1989. I am surprised now that I didn’t start earlier but I didn’t. I owned a copy of Peterson’s Field Guide for a number of years, but I didn’t actively go out looking for birds, I identified birds that came my way when I was hiking or canoeing. Looking back I can say that I didn’t know much for the first few years. The one thing I learned is that the only way to really identify a bird is to watch a lot of birds. Field guides are good but until you see a bird in the field you don’t really know it. Some birds may be almost unmistakable. I cannot imagine anyone misidentifying a Northern Cardinal or an adult Bald Eagle, but field guides only go so far, they cannot show how a bird moves. In the past few years since I have mostly worked at home, I have been able to spend a lot more time birding. Species that were hard to identify have become a lot easier one you see them a few hundred times. Downy vs Hairy Woodpecker, not an issue once you’ve seen them every day.. Empidonax Flycatchers another story.
Just a few days ago my wife and I saw a mature male Northern Harrier. When I was in NJ I saw a lot of them, but almost all of them were immature or female. Here in MN we have been seeing the male more frequently. Very different in color but the movement is the same. So, when we saw it we didn’t take more than a second to ID it. In the field you cannot mistake a Harrier for a Red-tailed Hawk or a Bald Eagle. I posted a photo of it above. Unfortunately the photo is static. It doesn’t give a feeling of how the bird looks when flying.
The advantage of doing a lot of birding is the ability to spot the odd birds when they show up. My wife and I take bird drives a few times a week. We live in rural MN, and only last year we started to realize that some of our best birding opportunities were within a few feet of our home (yes, the good witch Glinda was right, there is no place like home). We have seen some fantastic birds. A few weeks ago we saw an unfamiliar bird, my first reaction was that it might be a Mockingbird (possible in MN but not likely up here). It was the Western Kingbird. Not a rare species but neither of us had ever seen them before.
Western Kingbird 6/10/13
We were seeing bunches of different Flycatchers and for a few days the Olive-sided seemed to be everywhere. It is gone now (they have a very easy song to identify so I know they aren’t nesting here). Here is a photo taken 2 weeks ago.