Bird Watching

[M.T. Bucket]

I know someone who has hunted both swans and sandhills--but I thought he said he was in Nebraska...

Grebe,

Glad you liked the list. Say, I can make another recommendation if you like...

My favorite field guide for identifying birds is by far "The Sibley Guide to Birds of Eastern North America". You can get it at most bookstores for $20 or on Amazon for maybe $12. The artwork (artwork is better than photos for IDing birds) is accurate--many illustrations of each bird, the birds are in the same positions for comparison. There are very accurate range maps on each page. The book is small enough to put in your back pocket. The descriptions of behavior, habitat, and other identifying characterists are very good...I don't know what else you could want in a guide. And for about $40, Sibley has some great comprehensive books on birds that are great for referencing. Take care!

[Redlantern]

I like Birds of Minnesota by Stan Tekiela. It helps novices like myself by not including birds not found in Minnesota. The down side is I have seen some birds that aren't listed in the book.

[The Grebe]

Have you noticed how creative Squirrels can get when they want to chow at the bird feeders?

They make the Flying Wolindas look like a grade school act! This year, they are fatter, bolder and slyer, then I have ever seen them!

The way they scratch, I think thats where our critters get their fleas from? No getting rid of them though, so I may as well enjoy them! The Squirrels, not the fleas!

[Dotch]

Squirrels are the most entertaining of rodents! Tons of them in town at work sticking walnuts in everything, including my Dotch pickup's steering column. Speaking of columns (bad segue), here's an excerpt from this week's episode:

"The Full Beaver Moon is on Friday. Why is this so named you ask? Well, maybe you don’t but bear with me here. In the pioneer days and prior to that, this was the time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to ensure a supply of warm winter furs. Another possible explanation is that the name Full Beaver Moon comes from the fact that the beavers are now actively preparing for winter, which they are. It is sometimes also referred to as the Frosty Moon.

Actual bird watching was a little slow this weekend but there were some notables during my time outdoors Saturday & Sunday. As usual, there were the usual goldfinches, house finches, juncos and blue jays. There was a female downy woodpecker devouring the suet cakes when the starlings weren’t there. Also heard a red-bellied woodpecker but in Sunday’s pre-dawn light, it was careful not to be seen. As Sunday afternoon wore on, I decided it was time to pick up my decoys from the pond so climbed aboard the skid steer and made my way down across the pasture. While duck and goose hunting had not been fruitful, the time available was extremely limited this fall and after the early part of the season, not much waterfowl was seen.

While I was down in the CRP, I kicked up two hen pheasants and one rooster. All were in perfect form for winter, fat and sassy, obviously not wanting for anything. Was unarmed so just enjoyed seeing them burst from the heavy cover and relocate into some of the native prairie pasture. Actually found all the decoys and while wading around gathering them up, was fascinated by some of the invertebrates inhabiting the chilly water. The pond had been completely frozen over only an hour or two before.

Put my dekes in the bucket of the skid steer and drove it back across the spot where I’d unhooked the electric fence. Since it was still light out, decided to walk around a bit to see how some of the vegetation was faring. There will be tons of wildflowers next spring if the rosettes I noticed are any indication. Saw where several deer had bedded down in the tall grass, strategically located so as best to catch a scent or see trouble coming. There’s a reason big bucks get big.

The day’s light was beginning to wane, so sadly, had to leave the wildlife area and go back up the hill to finish some projects started earlier in the day. Went and fed the sheep at the kindly neighbors and when I returned it was pitch dark out. However, echoing from the pond where I’d been earlier were the distinct calls of several Canada geese, seemingly mocking me as I cleaned out the truck for a 2-day excursion to the Twin Cities. The season would be over by the time these meetings were done but that’s OK, I thought to myself. The pond was built for them so hoped they enjoyed themselves and would come back next year."

While people saw me at a meeting about climatological changes and their impacts on MN agriculture, my mind was somewhere else...

[fishface5]

Duck season is over My saddest time of the year. This year even worse than others. I never bought my Fed. stamp! Never slogged a single bog ! What can I say? On The bright side though. I have aboout 30-40 mallards that will come up to my front yard and eat out of my hand every day! It's tough to not grab a couple for the smoker! Most are direct decendents of a dozen I raised 4 years ago. 5 are orginals with the bands still on their legs, that I put on them when they where still Fuzzys. The other 7, I don't know what happend to them. I put my phone # on their bands, but never recieved any calls. I was realy hoping to get some calls from Arkansas or Louisiana, or somewhere, saying, "I shot this duck, and this # was on the leg band". No such luck! so far. But like I said 5 are still around! Got lots of other birds too right now too, Finches, Sparrows, juncos, many different types of woodpeckers, Bluejays, Cardinals, Chickadees, nuthatches, probably some I'm forgetting. The Mallards will prabably hang around till Christmas or so, then head to the river at Monticelo. They come back as soon as the pond is half thawed in the spring. I don't think they go very far. I get to see an Eagle now and then, and a few other exotic species every once in a while. What for all do you guys have coming to your feeders between now and April? Anybody got any Ruffed Grouse or Turkeys comming in regularly? What about Pheasants or Hawks?

[The Grebe]

Good Morning FishFace5...Happy Thanksgiving...I have to confess, there is one bird that will soon be going into the oven and I will be intently doing some "Bird Watching" until it is golden brown and ready to come out!

On a lighter note, as far as the birds are concerned, I see all kinds of raptors down here...we only live a short ways off the Mississippi and I'm sure that contributes to the varied avian life we see.

We had a Snow Owl in our yard years ago, we see Redtails and other big hawks which I can't identify, soaring over the open spots.

Horned Owls are seen once in awhile, the Crows usually let you know when an Owl is around.

A lot of Eagles use the river as an air travel lane, we see alot of them. I seen one swoop in on a bunch of Crows that were eating some kind of carcass out on the river ice, afew years back. He landed a little ways away and marched up and took over the Crows vittles, just like a hungry bully in a business suit!

We have Night Hawks/ Whip-Poor-Wills, or whatever they are? Maybe both, I think they might kind of look the same?

We have Sparrow Hawks and there is another name for these types of birds, but it escapes me right now?....Kestrels, or something like that? Thats what they are!

Have even seen Turkey Vultures soaring on the air currents, up and down the river.

As far as Grouse and Turkeys, we live in the first ring suburbs of Mpls., the woods and habitat that would support Grouse has long since vanished from this area, yet in a small patch of woods, across from an apartment complex we lived in years ago, I walked out there one day, just to get in touch with some kind of nature, and a Ruffed Grouse exploded out of the cover right in front of me?

My heart pumped about 14 gallons of blood in about 1/2 second!

I also seen a Woodcock in there one time, but being a migratory bird, that is'nt that unusual.

Turkeys turn up just about anywhere, why one turned up in our kitchen this morning! Seen one pod of about 6 birds right where #81 and #94 cross, just a little south of Osseo and another over on #169 south.

That about does it for me today on the birds! Gotta hit some other spots on this forum...don't eat to much!

[fishface5]

Happy Thanksgiving Grebe and every one! Ha! Yes, turkey hunting will be successful today! I want to see a snowy owl. I'm pretty sure I saw one on the side of the Hi-way once. Unfortunetly it was crow food. I do have a grebe or two across the street in the warmer months. Man the sparrows have invaded in the past couple of days. Happy Thanksgiving everybody. Jim

[hus]

While driving back from MSP to Warroad on Friday after Thanksgiving, we spotted a Rough Legged Hawk and a Northern Hawk Owl. This was SE of Grand Rapids on Hwy. 2 near the Aitken County line. We also ran across a pair of Red Poles today (Saturday)in the woods. It seems a bit early for the Red Poles to be down. Maybe cold weather is on the way.

[knoppers]

hus, what is a red pole? have not heard of that. I also have been seeing gray jays (camp robbers) lately farther south than they should be. maybe there are right, a tough winter ahead.

[fishface5]

Whent outside tonight about 1/2 hr after sunset and thought I heard My kid practicing his sax. I looked up and saw 15 or 20 Truppeter swans heading onto the lake. Last year I would guess there where 200 or more out there till it locked up solid. Then they head to the river at the power plant. Pretty Awsome birds.

[M.T. Bucket]

hus,

I often see Rough-legged Hawks in that area, usually 2 or 3 every time I drive through. It's very good habitat for them--though it would be better if there were some Sharp-tailed Grouse out there. About 2 weeks ago I saw a Northern Hawk Owl in the exact same spot you describe--maybe it found good hunting grounds.

knoppers,

hus is referring to Common Redpolls. They're a pale, streaked finch with a red spot on the head that breeds in Canada and usually some migrate to Minnesota in the winter. Last year we had a huge influx of them--many people had hundreds of them under their thistle seed feeders. I know of a guy who banded nearly a thousand of them. It seems like it was mid January when the bulk of them were down last year, but we did get a few pioneers in December.

BTW, the name Redpoll comes from taking a head count or a "poll"--REDpoll for the red spot on the head.

[knoppers]

fishface5,

I see your in big lake like me, I have been pheasant hunting up near princeton this week, and have been seeing trumpiters flieing through towards the river. also seen many high flocks of geese today going south, I think they were the EPP.

M.T.bucket, thanks for the info, I will have to look for them now. I have a cabin in the palisade area, good winter birding there.

[M.T. Bucket]

Common Redpoll:

(from eNature)

[knoppers]

is it just me, that bird looks very cold. I have not seen this bird before, I will be looking. thanx for the picture M.T.

[The Grebe]

MT Bucket...Awsome dude! I've seen that bird before, I really have and I wondered what kind of a bird it was, I thought it was some kind of Finch, or Sparrow? A Red Poll, cool, I learned to identify another today!

[M.T. Bucket]

Grebe,

If you REALLY want to get into it and you have a flock of Common Redpolls beneath your feeder, examine each individual and you might find a Hoary Redpoll--a fairly rare sight in Minnesota. They breed further north than the Common Redpoll, on the tundras of Alaska and Canada and usually winter well north of the US. However, individual Hoary Redpolls occasionally assimilate with migrating flocks of Common Redpolls--sometimes leading to a flock composed of 300-400 Commons and 1 or 2 Hoarys.

Things that will distinguish the Hoary Redpoll from the Common are:

- overall paler plumage

- smaller bill

- most importantly, an unstreaked rump--visible in the photo below by Anne Marie Johnson

Good luck!

[M.T. Bucket]

Well, I tried about 4 different images, and while all of them worked in preview mode, none worked in the thread, so you'll have to Google Image Search "Hoary Redpoll" to see the difference. It's easy to see when you have them side by side.

[M.T. Bucket]

knoppers,

Palisade is a great birding area year-round!

[Redlantern]

Seen eight trumpeters fly over my house this morning. Never seen them around my house before.

M.T. Bucket, got any pictures of Rosey Breasted Pushovers?

[M.T. Bucket]

I could discuss some related species, but this is a family site.

[fishface5]

Check the bar, or the ex Clinton intern list Happy bird'n

[Dotch]

Great pic of the redpoll MT & thanks for jogging my memory. Haven't seen redpolls here for many moons. Think the last time was the winter of '96 - '97 when the snow covered up some of the buildings and took out many of the pheasants.

[M.T. Bucket]

I saw the same Northern Hawk Owl again today, right at the intersection of 2 & 200. Looks like it might stick around for a while.

[Dotch]

The saga continues...

"Decided upon seeing all the rabbit tracks in the snow it would be wise to protect my investment in time and energy. Got some of those spiral tree sleeves to put around the little nannyberries and hackberries that had done so well this past season. Just in the nick of time the way it appeared, too. There was evidence the rodents had already begun pruning on them. The bunnies should be thanking their lucky stars. Am less apt to blast them if they aren’t causing damage of some kind and I rarely miss, especially with the scattergun. Figure if I hold off on the Christmas lights this year, they may get a free pass.

The snow cover caused a sudden increase in bird activity around the feeders this past weekend. There were pairs of both hairy & downy woodpeckers and the reappearance of nuthatches with their gravity defying acrobatics. The siskins were around before the snow but took the weekend off while the finches were out in force all week. Translation: the thistle seed is going fast. Thanksgiving Day there was a robin under the tree. You don’t suppose the 3 snows on the robin’s tail rule still applies, do you? Checked the garden area out and sure enough, there were tracks indicating that a couple partridge had been feeding on summer’s leftover sweet corn. Sunday brought the return of some mourning doves that had been absent for almost 6 weeks. The warmer winters certainly appear to be keeping some of the migrating birds around longer. Hmmm…wonder if I should put the hummingbird feeders back out?

Some of the pumpkins made it over the fence to the ewes on Thanksgiving Day but saved some of them back for the return of the group from the kindly neighbors. The cycle repeated itself once again on Saturday as Lucy, Gus and I took the trailer to the pasture to load ‘em up and bring ‘em back home. Since the weather was ornery, so was the temperament of the sheep not unlike some people I know! Having split off into 2 groups, they were a royal pain to get into the shed. Lucy got 4 of the 9 in but had a tough time getting the remaining 5 to cooperate. They tried to get by her but she cut the renegade group off a couple times letting them know she meant business. Finally I was able to get behind the five nonconformists and drive them while Lucy followed my commands, serving as a moving panel to my right to keep them from running back off into the rhubarb.

Always a bittersweet moment to finally pull up stakes for another year. It means a little more time must be spent on chores at home and no more listening or watching the birds and chipmunks while tending the fence. It also means the mosquito repellent that’s been riding around in the truck can go back in the cupboard!"

PS - Lucy is not my wife, Gus is not my kid. Gus & Lucy = border collies

[fishface5]

My Mallards still have a hole open in the pond. They'll probably be able to keep it open 'till we get a few days in a row of single digits. otherwise not to much in the way of exotic or exciting feathered critters. Lots of typicals for this time of year. Anybody out there seeing anything unusual or interesting?