Summer Solstice 2014

Today is June 21st and the first day of Summer which is also the longest day of the entire year. I made a trip to St. Cloud in the morning with a very brief visit to Munsinger and Clemens Gardens near the river. But by 3:20 in the afternoon I arrived back in the Twin Cities for a nice and long 2+ hour hike at the park. The flurry of spring migrant birds has been over for some time now, but there are a lot of other interesting things to see this time of year. After parking at the culdesac on 73rd Avenue and heading south, I ran into flooded trails that were just too deep to walk through. In 5+ years of hiking around the park, I think this is maybe only the 2nd time I've ever had to detour down Oliver Avenue and all the way down to 69th Avenue just to be able to make my way around the entire loop. But when I got back on the trail, I noticed this big Dragonfly just waiting for me to take it's picture against a nice green background. I had learned in the past year or so to count the number of spots or patches on the wings. This one has 3 dark patches on each of it's 4 wings, making it a Twelve-spotted Skimmer. But what I didn't know is that you can tell it is a female. A male would also have white patches in between the dark patches. I think that is pretty neat! Shortly afterward I'd spotted a brief glimpse of a Green Heron who was perched quite low near the tiny little pond along 69th Avenue. I was bummed because he flew up from his spot right along the trail as I approached. But I saw where he landed and I decided to see if I could close again. He was hanging in the taller trees now on the other side of the pond and I was then able to kind of sneak up on him a little just because there were so many other trees and leaves in the way. Green Herons are a quite beautiful bird and can look slightly different each time I see them. This photo was taken right before he flew off again, but I really like that I caught his bright yellow eye in the sunlight! Probably the single most interesting sighting of my walk today came next as I spotted what first looked like a small snake in the bushes! It was mostly dark and with green stripes giving me the initial impression of a Garter Snake. But upon closer inspection it was quite a large Caterpillar. It was about 4 inches long with a bright orange head and also a sizeable orange spike on it's rear! I have never seen anything like it before. While it chowed down on a plant, I took quite a few photos hoping to ID it later on. And after someone pointed me in the right direction, I was able to narrow it down to a "White-lined Sphinx Moth" Caterpillar. There have been a lot of baby birds or "fledgelings" around the park lately. Some of these can be really tough to identify which species they are as they don't quite show the color or behavior that you're used to seeing in the adults. I saw quite a few young birds that I think were Common Grackles because they were surrounding an adult Grackle in a tree and begging for food. Then shortly later I spotted this one having a bath in the flooded trails on the west side. Adult Grackles have yellow eyes but this ones were grey. However you can kind of see hints of the iridescent purple/blue plumage already developing on it's head. The last item I want to share here today is actually a video, which I don't post that often. To my surprise, I again saw bird activity at the little tree stump on the south end of the park along one of the wood chip trails. I first noticed Black-capped Chickadees appearing to excavate an already existing hole in the very middle of this stump that was cut off at an angle. That was well over a month ago on May 5th! Today I could clearly hear young birds chirping inside the hole so I waited here for a bit. Sure enough a Chickadee came in with a mouthful of food and hopped down into the hole. So I tried my best here to capture a quick video. For whatever reason, the adult appears to leave again with the food still in it's bill, making me wonder if the young ones rejected it for some reason. Still this is pretty neat and is the first confirmed Chickadee nest I have found in the park.

Early Summer Fledgelings

Well the 4th of July is over now and as usual in Minnesota, our weather has turned hot and humid. At this time of year you don't pay as much attention to the temperature as you do to the dew point. I don't know what the dew point was today but it was likely in the 60's somewhere, making it feel sticky and "jungle-like." Before I was paying more attention to birds I never really thought about when birds reproduce. I mean I guess you would think it's in the spring but actually it would be late spring. I've noticed that this is generally the time when I see more fledgelings and parents feeding young than any other time of year. One such new bird I spotted today was this very young Robin. He really had that look where you could tell he probably hadn't left the nest all that long ago. His beak still had that yellow tinge to it and he appeared just a bit "fuzzy" yet. Young Robins are also heavily spotted on the breast when they are young. Also look at the lack of tail in this photo –it's practically not even there yet! One bird that seems to really enjoy this humid weather it the Common Yellowthroat. I see so many of these at the park that I often forget they are in the Warbler family. Most other Warblers come through our area in May and then continue on further north but both the Yellowthroat and American Redstart are two Warblers that thrive here in Minnesota for the spring and much of the summer. Both species are so much fun to see and photograph and both are a little skittish and secretive, making them even more fun to catch a good photo of. Later on the east end of the park on the outskirts of the baseball diamonds, I heard a constant high pitched chirping noise that could mean only one thing –baby birds. I stopped and looked around and deduced that the noise had to be coming from a small hole in a dead tree on the edge of the marsh. At times it got so loud that I figured I might just see a little head pop out but I never did, making me second guess where the noise was coming from. Finally a male Downy Woodpecker flew in and climbed the tree up to the hole, confirming my suspicion. Then the female came in and landed right next to him. With food in her beak she proceeded to deliver it to the young and I even noticed one anxious young Woodpecker appear briefly inside the hollow. I've cropped way in on this pic for you to see and it was quite a neat sight to have captured.

Rain Soaked Saturday with Great Birds!

I'd been looking forward to this Saturday as a new kayaking adventure but of course no sooner than I'd thrown them in my truck did it start to rain. I went ahead anyway and got on the freeway but hit such bad traffic that I ended up turning around and going home. So I actually hadn't planned to go to the park today but found myself there anyway. By the time I arrived the rain had actually quit altogether allowing me to use my newer camera so that was a plus. I saw a good variety of birds today and the very first bird I spotted right after getting out of my truck was an Eastern Bluebird. A number of other birds seemed to be just sitting quietly in the treetops -maybe waiting out the rain. As I spotted a Goldfinch and started taking photos I noticed a much larger bird sitting even lower and closer to me that I overlooked. It was a Brown Thrasher and although he was more or less above me, I had a great view of him. On the northwest side of the park I spotted a bird in the trees up ahead that was facing away from me. What made me notice the bird were the striking white edges of his back feathers. He was quite a ways away but looking at him through my camera lens I seemed to notice an almost blueish-grey colored head. My first thought was possibly and Eastern Phoebe but it was too large and slender looking. Then when it changed positions I was startled to see two bright colors -a rich, rusty red brown on it's wings and also a fairly bright yellow underbelly! This was unlike any bird I've seen before I really could not place it. It flew off and I was so intrigued that I tried to follow it. I did spot it one more time but the lighting was so terrible that I wasn't even sure if it was the same bird. After doing some searching online and comparing lots of photos, I'm pretty confident in saying that what I saw was a Great Crested Flycatcher! This is a brand new bird for me and quite a fun sighting to see something new. On the north side I took my sweet-old-time looking for Hummingbirds among all the patches of Jewelweed. I finally did spot hovering out of the corner of my eye and when I went for a photo it was gone. Periodically I would see one here and there but they just weren't sticking around long enough before finding some thick tree to perch in for a break. Then finally I saw where one had landed in a Buckthorn tree above the Jewelweed and I was able to get a photo. They are so neat to see and I never get tired of watching them. Later just before the bridge over Shingle Creek, I'd spotted a brown furry creature moving around on the ground underneath the wet green foliage. At first I thought it was a Vole which I've not seen in a while so I started to follow it for a better look. When it popped out into an opening in the brush I was surprised to see that it was not a Vole or Mouse but a tiny brown bird! It scurried along the ground weaving in an out of the green plants nearly like a mouse might do. It's coloring was almost like a leaf with a tightly speckled pattern that made it blend in to the ground quite well. This bird was so tiny that it could have fit in the palm of my hand. I wasn't sure but my first instinct -especially because it was on the ground was that it was a fledgeling of some kind. I followed it for quite a ways and when I would be perfectly still, it would come right out into the open. That is when I noticed just how small or underdeveloped it's wings and tail were. The tail feathers especially were so short that it was hardly visible. Strictly going by it's mottled patterning I was thinking maybe it was a Wren. I know it's not a Sparrow because of it's long slender bill. I honestly still can't say for sure what it is but my next best guess it that it might be a Brown Creeper -maybe a fledgling.

Muggy, Buggy and Birdy

Well, you might see from now on that I may be keeping my journal entries a little shorter on the text side. After three years of blogging I'm finding that I'm struggling to keep up with entries on a regular basis. This is because I'm a slow writer and I take way too much time thinking about what I write, then correct it repeatedly and so on. What was intended to be something very fun can quickly lose it's appeal when I over think it. So going forward my posts may be simply more about what I saw, when and where and I'll leave it at that. The first photo here is of a fledgeling Robin somewhere on the south side of the park. He looked pretty skinny to me. On the north end of the park along the long, straight part of the trail, I encountered two Rose-breasted Grosbeaks perched right next to each other in a lower area of some small trees. First I thought the one sitting behind the male was a female but later my photos showed that it was a young fledgeling. I'm assuming the male was helping feed the young one as later I spotted it with nice big green insect in it's beak. During most of my walk it was so hazy and humid that it really brought out the bugs and mosquitoes. I was getting bit all over the place and was trying to hurry it up until back on the west side when I heard an unusual bird song. It was coming from very high up in a tree and when I looked I saw a tiny blue bird and realized it was an Indigo Bunting. I immediately got out my iphone which contains the "Birds of Minnesota" Audio CD's from Stan Tekiela, and began playing the Indigo Bunting sounds. To my surprise he moved in closer within just minutes and after a bit I found that he was nearly right above me! Even my camera lens was fogging up from the humidity but I was able to catch this one photo. Only a few moments later it started to sprinkle lightly and then finally rain.