Chimney Swift Migration

Migration is really starting to heat up. There are Ring-necked ducks, Bufflehead, Hooded Mergansers, Red-winged Blackbirds, Rusty Blackbirds, Bluebirds, American Robins, Fox Sparrows, Canada Geese and an assortment of gulls around. More species are on the way. I'm eagerly awaiting the return of the Eastern Phoebe.

One sure sign that spring is really here in full force is the return of the Chimney Swifts. I love these little guys. You can monitory their northward movement and contribute sightings of your own at the Driftwood Wildlife Association Chimney Swift Migration website.

Latest report has them still down in Texas but very slowly creeping north.

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Hammer Down

I snapped some quick shots of woodpeckers at lunch. They are not my finest work but they show something important than many people don't think about when it comes to woodpeckers. Those flashy red colors and impressive beaks get all the attention but what about those hard working tails?


Check out the tail on this Red-Bellied Woodpecker above. The tip is bent flat against the suet feeder. He's using his tail for balance while he hammers away. It is even more noticeable on the Pileated Woodpecker below.


Is is incredible how much of the tail is bent but you can really see how the tail is used for balance as well as power. Without the stiff tail, a woodpecker wouldn't be able to hammer away at trees with such force. Check out the video below. It isn't cropped in quite so close but you can clearly see the woodpecker using her tail for balance.

~Kirk

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Birding Arizona Part 3

I've been caught up in Maple Syrup season and migration here at home so I'm a bit behind in the last installment about my trip to Arizona. Just a few pictures here. We spend the morning at the Botanical Garden and I squeezed in some birding. It was interesting to try to ID birds with a toddler bouncing on my back like he was riding a horse. The botanical garden was pretty much all cactus so letting him romp around free was not really an option.

I was able to let him walk around more when we visited the Environmental Learning Center at South Mountain. I gotta say, this is pretty sweet. The next generation of birders is born. He loves to point out birds in the sky.

The only new bird for the year was a Gila Woodpecker. I'd seen them before on previous trips to Arizona but got a really nice view this time. Of course, the very next day one showed up in a tree near the pool where we were staying.


I had to include this photo as well. This is the same cactus that the above Gila woodpecker was making a nest hole in. Sure enough, that's a starling. I have to say though, it was beautiful in the sunlight.

I also saw a blue-gray gnatcatcher that I really wanted to turn into a lifer black-tailed gnatcatcher. I didn't get a good view of the underside of the tail but the top seemed to have too little white showing to be the black-tailed.

On our last day we were poking around the condo when my mother (they were gracious enough to let us stay with them) said that one of the ducks on the golf course looked funny. I took a look out the window and sure enough it was an American Wigeon. It was the sole wigeon hanging out with some mallards.


That pretty much wraps up the Arizona birding. This was my third or fourth time in Arizona and I still didn't see a road runner. I am the coyote.

~Kirk

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Lunchtime Finch Quiz

Quick quiz, what finch has a white collar all the way around the neck? Take a minute to think it over as you stare at this picture I took this morning. Can you name that species? Go ahead, look it up. I can wait.


This would have been a good bird to have show up last month when I wrote a post on partial leucism. This is simply a humble female purple finch though this individual is sporting a unique white collar to catch a guy's eye. Just wait, white collars on finches will be all the rage this spring season. Seriously though, this bird may be lucky to survive to next season. That white on the back of the head is like a bulls eye for the sharp-shinned hawk that hunts the feeding station.

Here's a photo of a normal female purple finch for comparison.


The white in the unique individual in the first photo is the result of a lack of pigmentation in a group of feathers. It sure gave me pause when I saw it the first time. Too bad the purple finches will migrate away soon. It would be fun to keep track of this individual.

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Mountain Lion in Wisconsin

public domain image from USDA National Wildlife Research Center media archives.

I'd like to give mammals some blog time here in this season of migration. I'll call this a story about Dispersal rather than Migration but interesting none the less. A cougar (a.k.a.mountain lion), was treed in Spooner Wisconsin this month. This is big news because just like in Minnesota, the common wisdom of the DNR used to be that there are no cougars here. What they usually say now is that there are no breeding populations. What we do get are "stray" animals, usually juvenile males that get kicked out of breeding territory in the Dakotas and start heading East. These are BIG animals and they can cover a lot of ground.

A cougar was spotted at the border of the nature center where Paul and I work a few years back. I usually dismiss all such reports but the neighbor who spotted it is a former naturalist at the center so her credibility at identifying wild animals is higher. Still, even given that, I only put the chance that it was actually a cougar at 75%. This isn't to discount her observation. Even if I had seen it with my own eyes I would only go as high as 80% probability. Our eyes deceive us.

Scott Weidensaul explores the idea of big cats in the woods in his book, The Ghost with Trembling Wings. He feels that having a top predator in the woods makes you experience the environment differently. I completely agree. In those days after the possible cougar was spotted in the woods I went on a few hikes and the woods did feel different. I experienced them with a heightened awareness and a keener attention to my surroundings. I also brought my walking stick, just incase. The odds of encountering a cougar in the woods is extremely low. The odds of one wanting to make a snack of you is even lower. More people are killed by dogs than mountain lions. From 1991 to 2003 an average of 0.8 people per year in the US and Canada were killed by Cougars. (5.6 per year on average were attacked). Still, as a naturalist I am aware that to survive a cougar attack you have to fight back. This is assuming they don't instantly sever your spine at the neck. You have to show them that you are too much trouble to mess with. This is the same tactic to take with a black bear once it attacks. Going into the woods knowing you may end up wrestling a cougar or a black bear (however unlikely) makes the woods a different place. It makes it wilder and more intact.

If there really were a cougar at the nature center it was probably long gone by the time we heard about it. Black bears are different. They are there, probably every day I step outside. I don't really think about them though. A black bear will attack if it feels extremely threatened or if it feels you threaten the cubs but we're not on the bear menu. Bears don't hunt people. Cougars, at least in theory, have hunted people out west. Maybe we need a cougar around once in a while to remind us of our place in the woods.

~Kirk

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Lookin' Foxy

The Fox Sparrows are kicking though the twin cities right now. We saw one last week but a different one has now found the bounty of seeds under the feeders. More will probably join in over the next weeks.

Check out the distinctive feeding behavior of the fox sparrow in this short video clip from lunchtime today. They kick and jump backwards to reveal hidden seeds.



~Kirk

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Abs of Steel

We have a Yankee Whipper "squirrel proof" feeder from Droll Yankees out here at work. Squirrel Proof? Back to the drawing board. The squirrels have figured it out. They slide down the outside and then catch the bottom with their back feet. They then do crunches to bring themselves up to the other side to feed.

This has to be one of the most ab intensive ways to get lunch. What a workout!

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Massive Migration

Roger Everhart, a.k.a. Minnesota Birdnerd has been posting some fantastic static shots of bird migration picked up with doppler radar. I've read some about this phenomenon in the past and it has always fascinated me. Basically, the millions of migrating birds show up as clutter on the radar and you can see bloom of birds taking off in the evening as they begin migrating at night. They migrate at night as it is cooler out and they can avoid predators. Also, many birds use stars and the moon as navigational aids.

I checked out the live national radar loop tonight and there was an incredible bloom of migrating birds taking off just after sunset. I knew a static image just wouldn't capture it so I spent some time making an animation of the radar images. Unfortunately, I had to do this by hand as there is no way to download the radar loops.

The time on this is from UTC 0048 to 0158. Every frame is 10 minutes and this covers 70 minutes of elapsed time. Local time in the twin cities this was from 7:45 to 8:45 p.m. Sunset was at 7:21 and twilight was at 7:50. It looks like the birds start taking off at twilight. Ignore the green storm on the east coast and the stuff moving in a band though Montana and North Dakota. The blue in the middle blooming and heading north is millions of birds migrating.

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Signs of Spring

Spring is really springing up all around town. Friday we heard the first Sandhill Cranes out at the Lee & Rose Warner Nature Center and Red-shouldered Hawks have arrived as well. The sap is running in the maple trees and snow is melting at an incredible rate. The woods have turned to mud.

There's another sign of spring however. I'm holding it in my hand.


This is an Advanced Telemetry Systems R2020 transmitter. It weighs 12 grams and is designed to be glued to the carapace of a Blanding's Turtle. We have a special permit from the Minnesota DNR to capture and radio track the threatened Blanding's turtle's that live at the nature center. The new transmitter just arrived today and that is a sure sign of spring as well. The turtles won't start basking for another month but when they do we'll be ready. I've gotten better at catching them over the years. I'm excited for the challenge.

~Kirk

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This is a Test of the Podcast System

This is a test of the Twin Cities Naturalist Podcast. We're testing out our system to make sure everything works. You should be able to click on the player below to hear a test of the show and those people who have subscribed in iTunes should automatically get the mp3 file. Please leave a comment if it does or does not work for you.

~Kirk

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Birding Arizona Part 2

On Thursday of our trip my wife and I took a day trip to the superstition mountains. We didn't really know exactly where we were going but we were looking for the petroglyph trail somewhere in the town of gold canyon. Rather than stop and get directions, we simply turned down a random street and followed it toward the mountain. We soon saw small signs with a hiker on them that indicated a trail head was down the road. Perfect. When we arrived at the trail head we saw it was for the Lost Goldmine Trail and not the Petroglyph Trail. Oh well. As I examined the map at the trail head however, I noticed that the Petroglyph trail was a spur off this trail. We had arrived at the correct location in spite of ourselves. Of all the roads to choose, we happened to choose the right one. I'm not sure why the sign said Hieroglyphics trail. Someone must not have known the difference. I think the canyon is called Heiroglyphics Canyon as well. So much for our educational system.

A review we had read described the walk as a "short hike." Short is, of course, a relative term. It took us about an hour and a half to walk up a hard scrabble trail to the petroglyph site. At first it seemed like there were very few birds but I eventually began to locate them in the desert landscape. Pretty soon I was picking out cactus wrens and black-throated sparrows. As we got close to the site I stepped off to the side of the trail on a little ten foot spur to get a better look at the desert. I immediately noticed a bump on the top of a scrubby tree. I got out my binoculars and a few thoughts went through my head. The conversation with myself went something like this, "Shrike, that's a shrike. No wait, maybe it is a mockingbird, we don't have those at home and I'm not as familiar with their field markings. But that mask. I didn't think mockingbirds had masks. Look at the beak, hmm, not that big, a shrike has a bigger beak. No wait, the mask makes it a shrike, there is more than one species of shrike. Consult a higher power." I pulled David Sibley from my shoulder bag and he reassured me that yes, this is a shrike, it is the Loggerhead Shrike.


Woo hoo, another lifer! What with the 9 new lifer species on Tuesday I was pretty satisfied to have 10 new lifer species for the trip.

We made it up to the petroglyphs and they were very impressive.
The site is where water runs down the mountain and you can see why it was chosen. It is a very special place. Most of the petroglyphs were on the wall on the right hand side of the photo above. You can see a direct shot of just part of the wall in the photo below. It is completley covered in rock art.

While photographing the petroglyphs, a little bird landed and posed for me on a large rock. I snapped somephotos in case he flew off and then brought my binoculars up.
Bingo, Canyon Wren, another lifer species, number 11 for the trip. These little guys are gorgeous. Click on the photo for the larger version to see some of the details. I wish I could have gotten closer for a better shot.

On the way down we were trying to make better time as we were hungry but again a bit of movement caught my eye. I brough up my binos and there was a towhee, it looked like maybe an Abert's Towhee but something was amiss.

There was a vague central breast spot and the throat had this vague yellowish wash. I had just studied the towhee page in Sibley the night before. A quick flip to the page verified my suspicion. Canyon Towhee! Another lifer! I never thought I would add three new lifers on this hike.

On the way down we saw more Curve-billed Thrashers and I picked up a very distant Golden Eagle for my year list.

We packed up the car and headed out. We got maybe a quarter mile before I slammed on the brakes and pulled off the road. I had spotted a large raptor flying in our direction. I rolled down the window and it landed in a saguaro cactus maybe fifty feet from our car.


We could see it had landed on a nest. A second hawk soon flew in. I began snapping photos and trying to take in details. Both birds flew off one after another. There was an obvious white band at the base of the tail like a Harrier and Chelsey noticed a white band at the tip of the tail that I had missed as I was busy snapping photos. You can see both white tail bands in the above photo. The bird was dark with rusty red wash at the shoulders. Click to enlarge the above photo to really see the red. It was a pair of Harris Hawks. What a treat. That's another lifer and a perfect way to end our hike. That ended up being the last lifer bird I saw on the trip but what a way to end. Since this was not my first time to Arizona I was pretty happy to be able to add 13 new species to my life list.

~Kirk

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Birding Arizona Part 1

I've finally started to delve into the 377 photos I took while in Arizona last week. We were staying in Scottsdale and I immediately started to add birds to my yearly count just by walking from the car to the place we were staying. I spent some time unwinding in the warm air and took in some local avifauna. We were staying on a golf course and there is a little irrigation waterway that ran just behind our back door which draws in wildlife. Here's what I saw off the bat. There was the ubiquitous Rock Pigeon and Mallards, Mourning Doves and House Sparrows which I have already seen this year at home but also Great Tailed Grackles, Kildeer, Verdin, Green Herons and a Ring-necked Duck. This is a Verdin sticking his head into a fairy duster.

The next morning I awoke early to take care of my son and also sneak in a little outdoor time to look for birds. I saw Gambel's Quail, Yellow-rumped (Audubon's) Warbler, Northern Rough-winged Swallows, Anna's Hummingbirds and a Starling all from the porch. The hummingbirds were tough to photograph and they refused to use the feeder someone had put out by the pool so all of my shots ended up being in the wild. They look better that way anyhow.

This is an Anna's Hummingbird. Check out the gorgous color on the gorget! It was an almost perfect match to the flowers. Anyone know what kind of tree that is?

That's eight new species for the year in two days without going away from our condo so not to shabby.

On Tuesday we went to the Gilbert Riparian Preserve at the Water Ranch a.k.a. the Sewage Treatment Plant. It was actually a lot prettier than it sounds. What would a vacation be without a trip to the sewage treatment plant? This was a family vacation and incredibly everyone came with me this time. I think they are getting a little more interested in birds.

We met up with Jane Wicklund who is a great birder and in warmer months, a volunteer at the Lee & Rose Warner Nature Center where I work.

We saw forty-one species of birds in something like 2 hours. That's one birds species every three minutes! I've included some of the ones I got photos of that are worth showing. First off right as we started, two peach-faced love birds flew off and while I didn't get a great look it was clear what they were. Lifer number 1. We then came around the corner and saw a Northern Mockingbird. Bingo, Lifer number 2. Anna's hummingbirds were fairly numerous that day. They always seemed to know to perch between me and the sun so that the gorget is not lit up. There is actually a chance that is on purpose I suppose. I seem like a pretty big predator to a hummingbird and flashing that bright color at a predator is probably not a good idea. Here's a male Anna's Hummingbird when the sunlight is not hitting the gorget.

Here's the same bird at leat partially lit up in the next two photos. When we came to the first pond I was delighted to see Long-billed Dowitchers. Lifer number 3 for the day.

In the same pond as the dowitchers were my favorite bird of the trip and lifer number 4. The Black-necked Stilt. I could watch and photograph these guys all day. I'm showing incredible restraint and only showing four photos of them in this post.

Further out in the pond there was hiding lifer number 5 for the day, the American Avocet. They stuck to deeper water so it was harder to get good photos of them.
As we wandered onward we also saw lifer number 6 for me, the Neotropic Cormorant. You can tell it is a neotropic cormorant in the photo as there is a light patch just behind the yellow on the face.


In one of the ponds I counted something like 13 Great Herons. I'm not sure if they were all males but many were and they had beautiful breeding plumage. They were fairly aggressive toward each other. Here's a shot of one chasing a rival.


I got this great close up look at a Great Egret and I have to admit I never realized how beautiful their faces are. Check out that green around the eyes. Lifer number 7 for the day came in the form of a Green-winged Teal. We have these at home in Minnesota as well but for some reason I've just never come across them.


Lifer 8 for the day was a Snowy Egret. Look at those awesome yellow feet! This guy was hanging out with a bunch of cormorants.



Speaking of cormorants, at one point I could see a big bird in the distance but something didn't seem right. It looked too big. Must be two cormorants perched next to each other I thought. Toward the end of our hike I looked up in the tree and saw this.


That's what I was seeing from afar. That is a very dead cormorant. If you look closely up at the top of the wing you can clearly see a white and red fishing bobber. The bird was suspended from the tree by fishing line. It had gotten all tangled up. It must have been an awful way to go. There is one pond where the public can fish here and I'm guessing that's where the line came from.

My last lifer for the day was a Black-crowned Night Heron. I always seem to miss them at home so it was nice to finally see one. I have a photo but is isn't worth showing.

There were so many other birds we saw that day. We also saw, Pied-billed grebe, Double-crested Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Green Heron, Canada Goose, Mallard, Northern Pintail, Cinnamon Teal, Northern Shoveler, Gadwall, Redhead, Greater Scaup, Ruddy Duck, American Coot, Killdeer, Least Sandpiper, Mourning Dove, Black Phoebe, Verdin, Curve-billed Thrasher, European starling, Yellow-rumped (Audubon) warbler, Abert's Towhee, Song Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Great-tailed Grackle, House Finch and House Sparrows.

I'll end this first post about my trip to Arizona with a photo of a Northern Pintail from the trip to the Gilbert Riparian Preserve. They are simply gorgeous.

~Kirk

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A Hoary Kind of Day

I'm back from Arizona and I have almost 400 photos to sort through before I can make a blog post about the trip. I had a great time and added a number of lifer bird species. As exciting as this was, just my second day back in Minnesota and I pick up another lifer bird!

We've had a flock of Common Redpolls hanging out at the nature center for months now but we've kept an eye out for Hoary Redpolls mixed in. Sure enough, look who showed up this morning!


So how do we know this is a Hoary Redpoll and not a Common Redpoll? There are a number of characteristics. First off, let's look at the poll. That's the red spot on the head. It is smaller than the red spot on a Common Redpoll. We can see some other features in the shot above as well. The flanks of the bird are only very lightly streaked. On a Common Redpoll the stripes would be darker and solid. The third characteristic to notice is that there is only a faint pinkish wash on the breast. The red on the breast of a male Common Redpoll is much much brighter. Compare all of these feature with this handsome male Common Redpoll. This is actually a light Common Redpoll, the red can be much brighter on the breast.

Let's look at the next shot.

In this one you can see the small beak. (compare with the chunkier bill in the previous shot) It is even smaller than the beak of a Common Redpoll. There is also less black on the face and the head is lighter overall. The scapulars on the back of the bird are also "frosty" or "hoary" and not as dark as on a Common Redpoll. the last photo of the Hoary Redpoll is blurry but I'm including it as it shows a diagnostic characteristic of the bird.

Look at the rump of the bird as it comes in to land at the feeder. It is all white. The rump of a Common Redpoll would be streaked consistent with the pattern on the back.

It was fun to have a visitor from the arctic here on such a snowy day. I though I'd also throw in this photo of a Pine Sisken who showed up. You can tell it is cold out as he is really fluffed up!



Now then, the kicker to the story. I wanted to find a photo of a Common Redpoll to show and I remembered that I had taken a photo and posted to my old blog back in January when the redpolls first showed up. I went back to pull that photo and to my great embarrassment . . . it is a Hoary Redpoll! So, I guess I had seen one back in January and didn't look close enough. Oh well. Here's the photo



~Kirk

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