A Rare Sighting? See comments for proper ID!

This Sunday morning I arrived at the park just after 7:30am. The still rising sun created a nice sky with rays peeking out from behind puffy white clouds in the east. As I walked around the park it was still a bit dark in places but the sun gradually crept in and created a warm glow on everything. It was ideal light to see and photograph birds but the problem is that I was just not really seeing any. At the south parking lot, I did see a mature Bald Eagle perched just above the water out in Palmer Lake but my camera was not able to focus through all the cattails. Other birds I spotted included Juncos, Cardinals, Starlings and large groups of Goldfinches that were making a lot of noise. I had walked nearly all the way around the park and could even see my vehicle again and I'd barely taken any interesting photos. As a last-ditch-effort, I decided to try sitting on the edge of the small pond on the east side where yesterday I spotted a few things such as Sparrows, House Finches and a Grackle. I noisily made my way in, found a good fallen log and sat down facing the water. I'd only been sitting there just a few minutes when a bird flew directly towards me and landed on the very log I was sitting on, only about 3 feet away. Now my philosophy is that ANY bird that's closer than 10 feet away is always worth photographing so I quickly drew up my camera to focus. When it did, I realized this was no ordinary or familiar looking bird to me. The first feature that struck me as odd was that it's long bill was "crossed" at the tips, then secondly it's coloring was unlike anything I'd ever seen before -a beautiful mottled pattern of pale red and yellow. Within seconds I realized there is only one species this could be -a Red Crossbill! I'm not at all familiar with them but without my guide book in my back pocket, I seemed to remember that they are one of those "northern" birds found mainly in the far upper portion of Minnesota. Not quite being sure if that were the case or not, I was thinking this was a fairly rare sighting as I wildly snapped as many pics as I could. Surprisingly the bird was not at all skittish despite being only feet from the end of my camera lens. It hopped about the log to move downwards and closer to the water and I found myself actually backing up my lens further and further to try and keep him in focus. Finally he hopped right down onto a small branch that was just beneath the surface of the water and began to dip in his crossed bill for a drink of water! I couldn't believe I was getting to see this at such at close distance -it was amazing to see such a unique bird to this area so intimately! After taking 3 or 4 quick drinks, it finally flew up and perched somewhere behind me in the thick shrubs surrounding the water. I'm not sure but it looked like there may have been a second one near it but it was hard to tell with the sun now in my eyes. Again I'm not familiar with this species at all but I'm guessing the one I saw was likely a male with non breeding plumage? From what my field guides say, the females don't have any traces of red coloring. Indeed my guide also shows this species wintering only as far south as Duluth, but that they are also known to be "irruptive" meaning that they may move to different and new areas in search of food. Quite a sighting for me though - I love when I get to see a particular species for the first time ever at Palmer Lake Park!

A Sunny Day in Mid-November

Finally the sun was back this Saturday and though it's already mid-November it felt almost like a late Summer day. Today marks my 2nd sighting so far this season of the Northern Shrike, though I only managed a few very long distance photos of him. Beside the Shrike, there was a fair amount of interesting birds to be seen today including; American Goldfinch, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker and Blue Jay.

But maybe the most beautiful bird I saw today was this male Wood Duck in the southwestern most body of water I like to call "The Duck Pond." I was surprised to see a Wood Duck still in the park and thinking that he'd better get a move on back south pretty soon!

A Short Walk, Some Hard Work and a New Species

This Sunday the Friends of Palmer Lake Park were doing a small-scale Buckthorn removal project at the park. The only problem was that the weather was downright terrible. After a string of relatively nice warm weather for November, it took a turn for the worse. I arrived a bit early, just enough to walk from the west parking lot to Shingle Creek and back again. There wasn't a whole lot to see in this short distance; some Juncos, Tree Sparrows, Chickadees, Canada Geese and Mallards in the creek. But I did see one interesting bird along the way that I don't see too often but am becoming more familiar with now. This Fox Sparrow was moving around in the lower parts of the dried up cattails. If you ever see what looks to be a common looking Sparrow but seems too large then it is probably a Fox Sparrow. The other clue is large patches of solid grey coloring around the head and neck with other common sparrows like Tree Sparrows and Song Sparrows wont have. I just read that Fox Sparrows nest in Canada and are only ever migrating through Minnesota -which would probably make this the last still-migrating bird I will have seen this season! After my very short walk I returned to the west side to get working on some Buckthorn removal as planned. The weather turned out to keep everyone else away save for just 3 of us, brave enough (or dumb) enough to want to work for a couple hours in this crummy weather. We made fantastic progress on a small area which you can see here on the FPLP facebook page. One of our "friends" for the day had said that he'd seen what he thought was a Snow Goose on the other side of the park before we started working. Afterwards we decided just for the heck of it to drive over to the other side and sure enough he was still there! This one, lone Snow Goose had tagged along with a small group of 10-15 Canada Geese who were moving slowly across the baseball field. As we watched we could tell that the Geese weren't exactly keen on this new, and different looking member of the group. When he would get too close, different Geese would nip at him and chase him away. It made me wonder why -or how- he got separated from his own group and ended up here. I'm pretty sure I've seen Snow Geese flying over the park before but this marks the first time I've positively identified one actually in the park. So another new species documented today!

Rain Soaked Saturday

I made it around the park today in near record time –just under an hour! I guess the rain prevented me from wanted to poke around any more than I did as everything was just wet. The raindrops clung to everything including these Buckthorn berries and I thought it was kind of an interesting sight. Still seeing the same mix of birds including Dark-eyed Juncos, Red-tailed Hawks, Cardinal, and lots of American Tree Sparrows. I was lucky enough to catch a half way decent photo of this Tree Sparrow somewhere along my route. It is maybe the closest I've been able to get to one so far. And speaking of Buckthorn berries, I spotted this male Cardinal chowing them down near the end of my walk. I guess the birds don't know that these berries give them diarrhea!