Juvenile Birds

I had the day off of work today but didn't get to the park until the afternoon. I had one particular goal in mind actually and that was to find and photograph a Green Heron. It took me a while but I did end up locating one in the small pond on the east side just north of the parking lot. I had to bushwack a little while being extremely quiet and not scare the bird away, but I finally got into a good position to watch my subject for quite some time. This bird was likely a young one as evident by the whispy, white feathers on it's head that stood straight up. I've heard that Green Herons will actually catch small prey like a Dragonfly and then dip that in the water to attract a larger fish, but that behavior is something i've still yet to witness in real life. This one did seem to pull something out of the water but I couldn't tell exactly what it was. I think I watch this bird for nearly 40 minutes before he wound up on the other side of the pond in some dark shadows. A fun experience though for sure, and one that yielded some acceptable photos :) I thought I was basically done for the day but later I ended up with very close views of another young bird, this time an American Redstart. Redstarts are Warblers and notoriously difficult to photograph because the move so quickly and so frequently. But this one was so busy preening itself that it let me approach closely. At a young age, the male American Redstart looks an awful lot like an adult female Redstart. So they are often confused. But one thing to look for to differentiate them is any indication of dark patches on the face or head. Generally a female will be all grey and not show any trace of dark or black feathering here. So I think I can safely say that this is a juvenile male American Redstart.

41 Species!

As part of my "Big Month" of May, I wanted to set aside one day and basically bird all day at the park. So I arrived shortly after 8am today, took a lunch break at home and then went back for the afternoon. My other goal for the day was to see at least 40 species of birds, which on a nice day like today should be very do-able. One of my first sightings of the day was a Warbling Vireo, a bird that I've come to learn mostly by it's song, but rarely via sightings. Today that changed however and I got long looks at this fairly drab looking bird with the amazingly complicated song. I watched this bird longer than any other bird today and probably spent over an hour trying to catch an unobstructed view. In the end I would up with some photos I was pretty happy with including this one. Another bird I spent a fair amount of time with today was this beautiful and semi-cooperative American Redstart. This Warbler is known for being a tough one to photograph as they are normally hyperactive and blocked by foliage. This one however sat out in the open on a branch and just sung his heart out for a long time. I had ample photo opportunities and I kept telling myself what a rare occasion this was. He was still a challenge to capture well due to the black eye on top of black plumage, but I did my best and I have a few keepers that are better than most of my older attempts. The next bird pictured here is another Warbler, a male Common Yellowthroat that really stood out against the clear blue sky. He bounced around in a young Willow tree for quite some time but he kept moving ever upward, giving me the best looks from underneath. After lunch break I arrived back on the east side of the park to find a Green Heron posing nicely for me at the little pond just south of the parking lot. I knew it would be a short lived view so I took as many photos as I could before he left his perch. It turned out to be one of the nicer Green Heron photos I've taken! I saw a heck of a lot more birds –which I'll spell out at the end, but I spotted one species that until today I had never recorded in the park. It was quite a ways away but with my binoculars I deduced that it was an Olive-sided Flycatcher! And come to think about it, I remember seeing a similar shaped bird in the past in the same area that I couldn't identify –so maybe, just maybe I had seen one before. But at the time I likely didn't know what it was. But now I knew just enough to ID this bird and quite excited by the find! So here is my final list of species seen today, 41 species total! (listed in the order that I could remember them later)

1. Song Sparrow
2. Red-winged Blackbird
3. Common Grackle
4. White-breasted Nuthatch
5. Pileated Woodpecker (Saw 2 together, possibly juveniles)
6. Hairy Woodpecker
7. Tree Swallow
8. Barn Swallow
9. House Wren
10. Northern Cardinal
11. Blue Jay
12. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
13. Scarlet Tanager (2 adult males!)
14. Baltimore Oriole
15. American Goldfinch
16. Sandhill Crane (heard only)
17. Least Flycatcher
18. Great Crested Flycatcher
19. Mourning Dove
20. Indigo Bunting
21. Yellow Warbler
22. American Redstart
23. Common Yellowthroat
24. Tennessee Warbler
25. Northern Waterthrush
26. Magnolia Warbler
27. Swainson's Thrush
28. Canada Goose
29. Mallard
30. Wood Duck
31. Gray Catbird
32. White-crowned Sparrow
33. American Robin
34. Great Blue Heron
35. Green Heron
36. American Crow
37. Brown-headed Cowbird
38. Warbling Vireo
39. Olive-sided Flycatcher
40. Black-capped Chickadee
41. House Sparrow

My Camera Equipment

Well after a full 5 years of blogging about nature, I suppose it is time to admit it. I am a photo-hound. A shutter-bug, a photography junkie or whatever you'd like to call it. I just plain love taking photos of nature. But for me the subject HAS to be nature, otherwise I lose interest pretty quick. The two passions are very intertwined for me and I suppose you could say the only thing I love more than nature is photographing it. The thing that I always loved about photographing nature is that you can "shoot first and ask questions later!" In doing so, I was able to learn to identify things by studying them later, comparing to other images and asking others for assistance. Which is not something you can really do in the field. And when it comes to birds, well, birds don't just sit still and wait for you to get a good look at them! So photography for me was the best tool I could think of to help me understand what I was looking at. Though I can now identify most Minnesota birds without much difficulty, I still study my own photos when it comes to particular birds that are harder to identify. I am slowly learning my plant species in the exact same fashion, photographing them first and looking them up later. Back in 2009 when I officially launched this blog, I was using a Canon SX110is "point-and-shoot" camera which I bought for somewhere around $200 at the time.

It was 9.0 Megapixels and had a fixed lens with 10x optical zoom and 40x digital (fake) zoom. I found that if I held perfectly still and didn't breath that I could sometimes get a photograph of a bird or deer a long ways away. I remember maxing out the 40x digital zoom quite often. Looking back now, it almost makes me laugh having used it for as long as I did. But it worked! After looking at other's amazingly detailed nature photos, I decided to make the leap to a DSLR camera in March of 2012. I ordered a Nikon D5100 with an optional 55-300mm lens as a package for around $1,000. I was in heaven! Finally I was capturing images that not only helped me identify things, but also looked beautiful and did justice to my subject. Truly not knowing anything about photography, I shot the majority of my photos in "auto" mode, which is another thing that now makes me laugh later. I used this setup exclusively for the next few years until making yet another leap, this time to a longer zoom lens. Though a 300mm can work dandy when you're able to approach birds closely, it just wasn't cutting it for other situations. I started looking around and different options, namely a Sigma 150-500mm which was a standard, affordable lens for wildlife photography. But upon hearing of a brand new lens being introduced by Tamron, I decided to hold out just a while longer and purchase a whopper of a zoom –the Tamron model A011 150-600mm lens! The lens alone cost roughly the same as my existing camera body and 300mm lens combined. But that being said, it was still a more affordable option than others out there. At the time I placed my order in January of 2014, this new Tamron lens was on backorder and hadn't been produced in quantity yet for a Nikon camera. I figured "no problem, it will be here before spring and Warbler season." Ha! Little did I know that this lens wouldn't be in my hands until July of 2014. And when I finally did receive it, I was a bit overwhelmed by it. For starters it dwarfed by previous lens and was very heavy! And no longer did "auto" mode on my camera capture the same sharpness of images I was expecting. I was then and therein after thrown abruptly into the world of "aperture, shutter speed, ISO and other photography technology. I struggled enough at first with my new lens to force myself to figure out at least some manual settings that would give me better images. In a way I'm quite thankful for that experience and it has been enjoyable to experiment to the point where I'm more confident in my abilities. Looking back and comparing my photos now really tells a better story of how far I've come. Here are two images side-by-side of a Green Heron, both taken at Palmer Lake Park. The one on the left is from 2009 with my old Canon point-and-shoot, and the one on the right is from 2014 with my Nikon D5100 and Tamron 600mm lens.

While not the same bird in the same pose, the difference in quality is pretty obvious. As of just a few weeks ago in early Feb of 2015, I've made my latest (and likely not my last) leap into a newer camera body –this time a Nikon D7100. I'm still going through a learning curve with it but so far I think I've replicated most of the settings I like from my previous camera. So far it seems this model will be one I can grow even further with and I look forward to capturing some great shots this spring! And in case you're wondering, I have yet to use a tripod or monopod for any of my nature photographs. I "hand-hold" my camera and lens for every shot as I enjoy covering a fair amount of ground when I go out for a nature hike. I've learned to tuck the heavy lens under one of my arms and carry it until I need it. So as of now my current setup is a Nikon D7100 with the Tamron 150-600mm lens. Who knows what I'll be using 5 or 10 years from now. I never expected to go quite this deep into photography in the first place!

Have Lens Will Travel

Well, after having my new Tamron 600mm lens since July, I think I've finally found some settings I can rely on for decent images. It's been quite a learning curve since it arrived. With my old 300mm lens I typically shot everything in auto-mode. I know, I know, but I've honestly never had a single photography class and don't understand that much about photography. The reason I got into it at all was simply to record which birds I'd seen and to learn new ones. But with my new lens I was inadvertently thrust into the world of photography more than I'd ever planned. Dunno why and I have no explanation for it but auto-mode was just not giving me the quality of images I was used to getting. And so I had to start experimenting quickly with other settings. Today it felt like everything was finally going right for me and was able to capture some images that years ago would have blew my mind to imagine that I had taken myself! My first good photo opportunity I really had to make myself. I'd spotted both a Green Heron AND a Great Blue Heron in very close proximity to each other in the little pond near Oliver Avenue on the east side. I couldn't get an unobstructed view without having to crash my way through some young willow trees. And almost instantly the GB Heron took off. But luckily the Green Heron stayed and tolerated me getting even closer where I had some great views of him. I ended up crouching down to avoid some branches which gave this photo a nice and low vantage point. Later on the south wood chip trail, I heard and then spotted a Northern Cardinal. It was a beautiful female with her crest up which is something I don't see closely very often. Though she was in a darker area and in some tangled branches I got a couple of nice shots without changing my camera settings. I really like how the dark green background contrasts against her. Near the parking lot on the south side I stopped at a spot where I've been seeing Hummingbirds once or twice. Sure enough one buzzed over the tiny, orange Touch-me-not flowers and then disappeared. I waited for a while and then just as I was about to give up, it came back but perched this time in the dead tree standing in the middle of the area. I really had to bend down and contort my body while holding my heavy lens in order to get an unobstructed view. I took numerous shots, anticipating it was only seconds from flying away again. But the bird continued sitting still for me for just long enough for me to find the right angle. I'm really happy with how this one turned out. This is a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird –the only species of Hummingbird that are common in Minnesota. As usual in the bird world it's the male who has the more colorful "ruby" throat for which they are named. Along my way I saw a handful of other good birds including Gray Catbirds, American Golfinch and a couple of American Redstarts too. I did spot something of interest today that was not a bird. Right on the edge of the paved trail near the west side baseball fields was a tiny little rodent. At first it wasn't moving and I thought maybe I was looking at some part of a plant that broke off or something. But as I got closer I realized it was indeed a Meadow Vole. I generally see more of these in the winter time when they scurry across the white snow. However I've also seen more of them during very wet periods too. I wonder if too much moisture drives them out of their burrows and hiding places. He was casually dining on what looked to be a willow leaf and did not appear to realize I was only feet from him. In fact I got so close that I darn near touched him. I considered feeling his fur but didn't want to completely freak him out. This one was small in comparison to others that I've seen, so maybe it was young as well. On the north side near the bridge over Shingle Creek I decided to turn left and follow the creek for a while. I am glad that I did because here in the big grassy field I spotted a pair of Wild Turkeys. The were actually headed my way and continued walking closer to me. I got distracted by something and turned my attention away from them for a bit. When I turned back around they were poking along the edge of the field very close to me. Turkey can be tough subjects because their heads are always moving differently from their bodies. But when they stand still it's a bit easier. I tried hard to catch a few shots with both of them together and this one was my favorite.

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.

Summer Continues Past Labor Day

I had an additional day off of work this Tuesday but I didn't get to the park until about 4:30 in the afternoon. It is the day after Labor Day now and I'm surprised that our warm weather is still hanging on this late. There is a small little pond near the parking lot on the south side that I often spend a fair amount of time near as I see a lot of birds here. This evening I was fortunate to get close to this Green Heron and get two pics before he flew off. In the dimming light he appeared a beautiful blueish-purple color. I really like how this came out except for the branch in front of his head. Not too much further on the south side wood chip trails I noticed a smaller bird in some shrubs right over me. Hoping I might have a Warbler, I followed him back and forth until I could get some good shots. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was not a Warbler but a Red-eyed Vireo –and I was much closer than I'd ever been to one before. I could even see his red eyes through my viewfinder as I snapped a bunch of half-decent shots. This is probably my favorite one as it really shows off all of his colors. Previously I never thought of them as too colorful a bird but now I can see how much yellowish green color they have. And now that I think about it, this might be the first photo I've gotten of one at PLP! Finally near the end of my walk I spotted two young Bucks hop out of the thick woods onto the paved trail ahead of me. I've not seen a lot of Bucks this year. These two didn't seem to have any trace of velvet left anymore, and even more interesting was the one had a very awkward spike on one side not in proportion to the other. He will be easy to recognize I would think, if I see him again.

Wet and Humid Middle of July

This Sunday afternoon at the park was another warm and humid day. I saw a fair amount of birds today including a Cedar Waxwing, Song Sparrows, Common Yellowthroat, Downy Woodpecker and the first American Redstart I've seen in a while. The strangest thing I saw was a little Chickadee feeding a young Cowbird that was twice it's size. I tried to get a photo of this but missed the moment. Interestingly, Brown-headed Cowbirds don't even build their own nests. Instead they lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species and let that bird raise the young ones! In the past I've also seen a Cardinal feeding a young Cowbird. One bird that is hard to miss this time of year are the brightly colored male Goldfinches. It would seem they are at the height of their plumage this time of year. I caught a small group of males and females on the ground of the baseball diamonds on the east side. You can see a blurry Chipping Sparrow in the background here. Due to the persistent rains we've been having, the outfields of this ball field and the paved trail that goes behind it are still flooded. This area goes underwater to some degree almost every year and it's funny to see the different types of birds that can be swimming right in the outfield. Today I noticed a Great Egret walking through the water. I would assume he was looking for fish but I doubt any would have spilled over from the lake. On the south side I spotted yet another "shorebird" a Green Heron. You usually see these on the ground near or even in the water but this one had just landed up in a tree just off the wood chip trail. After he landed and stood very still I realized how easily they can blend into the scene of the treetops which struck me as kind of interesting since I typically don't see them in that setting. I generally hear these birds more than I see them and they have a unique kind of one-note squawks that can be pretty loud.

Another Sunny Day in September

I arrived at the park around 8:30am this morning and spotted a single Doe right away but she was behind some brush and I could not get a good photo. After all the interesting birds I spotted yesterday I was hoping for another good day of birding but instead it was all quite common species instead. I saw Song Sparrows, Cardinals, Goldfinches and lots of Mallards and Wood Ducks. I only got a couple interesting (and clear) photos for the day. The first one was a female Common Yellowthroat in the cattails somewhere on the south side. When the cattails are thick and green like they are now, the Yellowthroats tend to "hide out" in them and once they enter it's tough to find them again. In the small pond on the east side I spotted this Green Heron perched over the water, soaking up some of the warm sun which showed off some of his colors. All Herons in my opinion are very "skittish" and will easily scare off when you get to close so I stayed back and tried to focus on him through some other branches.

Three Years of Birding and Blogging

Well this Spring has certainly been going by quickly. Earlier in the season I realized I'd be coming up on my 3rd year of (regular) walks at the park and blogging about what I'd seen. I'm amazed at everything I've learned in such a short time -and mostly on my own with the help of my camera and a lot of patience. I always tell people that I had to learn all the Minnesota birds in high school science class and that I'd long forgotten them. I can truthfully say know that I've re-learned them all and then some. There's even birds that I would now call common to the park area that are not included in my "Minnesota" specific field guide - a telling story that you need more than one good field guide to most subjects. Something I was happy to get a photo of early into my walk today was this Green Heron on the south side. Seems like they were more plentiful in the park in past seasons and this might be only my first or second photo of one this year. You rarely get to see their weird ugly feet as they are usually standing in water. Only a short while later I had the great opportunity to observe photograph an American Redstart at a closer distance than ever before. I've you every tried to photograph this flitty little Warbler before, you'll know why it is so hard. They are quite common at the park and becoming all the more familiar to me the more I see -and hear- them. I've come to recognize their very high pitches whistle now and get my camera ready before I even see them. I've quite proud of this photo here but realize that it took me exactly 3 years to get it! I won't quit after this though and I don't think I'll ever tire of the challenge in photographing these quick moving Warblers. Only a bit further on the south side I remembered the area where I'd watched the Least Flycatcher building a nest. I tracked down the particular branch and found a completed nest -and with the female sitting in it! What a find I thought as I snapped a few pics before moving on so as not to disturb her. I remember the male being overly cautious and not even approaching the nest area while I was watching so I didn't want to make it seem like I knew where it was and would be back often. The nest itself was unique in that it seemed to be made entirely of cottonwood seed and other soft material rather than sticks.

One More In September

After a successful day of cleaning up the park, I was eager for another visit this weekend. I did a quick check on the collected trash bags and thankfully nobody had messed with them overnight. Like yesterday the evening temps were only in the 30's but by noon time it was warming up into the 60's or higher. I don't know how certain things survive such cold evening temps and then seem to wake up and be as active as any mid-summer day. Blue Jays have been extremely active this month it seems like there's more around than last year. By the time I got to the bridge on the north side, I'd seen Painted Turtles, a Great Blue Heron, Dragonflies, a female Red-breasted Grosbeak and an unlikely Brown Thrasher. It was such a nice sunny day that I decided to walk along the creek starting from the bridge. I found a nice log to just sit and watch the creek, hoping to see some Wood Ducks or something. I was a ways from the water but I could see large Carp and an occasional Turtle float by. A short time later I saw this Green Heron and realized how few of them I'd seen at the park this year. At the rate I've been seeing them, this could be the last one I see for a while. The last thing I stopped to take a photo of today was actually the sky. It was like a post card with perfectly placed billowy white clouds against a rich blue sky. I thought about how many more days like this we might have this season and to really appreciate them.

Much needed rain

On Friday afternoon we received 9/10ths of an inch of rain. Then another 9/10ths more on Friday night and Saturday morning. When I started my walk Saturday morning, it was still raining. I started noticing little slugs crossing the path as I've often seen in the spring. They look exactly like the snails I see but without the shell. Upon crossing Shingle Creek on the North side, you could tell that the water was a good foot higher than just a few days ago. Back on the South side I watched this Green Heron fishing in the now much higher water. Having been about 8 inches below normal rainfall, all the rain was much needed. Wildlife in the park almost seemed to be celebrating. Carp were jumping out of the water so frequently that I was able to capture one with my camera.

Nature in small packages

Humid morning today. Seems like the carp in Shingle Creek are getting bigger every day. On the east side of the park I noticed a green heron in a little slough. He was stalking something so I stopped to watch. Right after I took this picture he darted his head into the water and came up with something in his beak. Could have been a frog but I was too far away to tell. Coming back to the south side I started to notice the small snails again that I'd seen after first setting out. Seems like they're always trying to cross the foot path for some reason. Or maybe that's the only place you'd notice such a small, slow moving creature.





Lastly, per suggestion, I wanted to post a photo of something I see everyday...garbage. I sure wish people would be more careful with their plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Eventually, all this stuff ends up in the lowest places in the park -the very same areas that collect water essential to the wildlife here. I try to pick up items here and there before they end up in the water, but geez is there a lot of it. Considering a Palmer Lake clean-up day sometime soon...