Medicine Lake NWR Passerines

Friday, May 15th, the day that we were out at Medicine Lake was kind of an anniversary for me. It was one year, from that date, that I was diagnosed with diabetes. I think that it was one of the reasons that our 2007 Yellowstone trip did not go as well as other Yellowstone trips. Taking insulin and trying to figure out what I could eat and what I couldn't and how much complicated things a bit. This year it was not a big deal at all. Probably because I pretty much have things under control. Since I was diagnosed a year ago I have lost 20 pounds, which is not bad considering that I was only a little over weight to begin with. When I was diagnosed my A1C, a test that measures the average of your blood sugar level over the past several months, was at 13.9. Since you are supposed to be under 7.0 mine was pretty high, which is why they put me on a 24 hour insulin as well as pills. On my last visit my A1C was 5.4. Along with the drugs I have altered my diet and I am getting more exercise by hiking through parks chasing after birds and other wildlife with my camera. That Friday we also saw quite a few birds in the fields that surround Medicine Lake.
I am not really great with my sparrow identification so someone please correct me if I get one of the sparrows wrong. I believe that the one above is a vesper sparrow.
I think that this one is a clay-colored sparrow. Sparrows are the hardest type of birds for me to ID. They are all small and mostly brown with very subtle differences. Maybe after shorebird class later this summer I can find a class to help me better ID sparrows.

We have horned lark here in MN but mostly I see them from a distance on the side of roads during the winter. This horned lark let me get some nice shots.
Brown thrashers are a bit more common in the eastern US. The 3 or 4 that we spotted at Medicine Lake were in the western part of their typical range.
Once in a while we will spot a yellow-headed blackbird mixed in with red-winged black birds in the eastern portion of Minnesota but they are more common in the western half of the state. Out in Montana there were more yellow-heads then there were redwings.
The western kingbird is the cousin of the eastern kingbird that we typically see in Minnesota. However the range of the western kingbird has been moving east and now includes parts of western Minnesota.
We saw, and heard, quite a few western meadowlarks in the park and most of the places which we traveled through in Montana. In eastern Minnesota we can see either the eastern or western meadowlark, but these days, with most of the large open field being devoured for development, I rarely see either type. It is too bad because it was really nice to hear them singing as we were driving down the road.

Medicine Lake NWR Shorebirds

Medicine Lake NWR is on the edge of what is commonly referred to as the Prairie Pothole Region. The Prairie Pothole Region is an area of grasslands that is filled with many small depressions, or potholes, which were left as the glaciers receded across North America 45 million years ago. In the spring these potholes form ponds and wetlands when they fill with run off from the melting winter snow. These shallow wetlands are perfect habitat for millions of dabbling ducks as well as shorebirds.

With the area being dryer this year, then it was last year, there were not only less waterfowl around to photograph, but we also saw less shorebirds then last year. We did find a few killdeer, both in the fields and on the shoreline of some of the lakes.
The killdeer is one of the most widespread and successful shorebirds around. This is probably due to its willingness to share habitat with man and nest close to people. The nest is typically just a scrape in the ground and the killdeer will often defend the nest from predators by faking a wing injury and luring the predator away from the nest.

There were also a good number of Wilson's and red-necked phalarope. It was fun to watch them fly together. The way that they seemed to move in unison, all changing direction together in what appeared as one motion, made the 50 to 100 birds appear almost like a single entity.
The Wilson's phalarope breeds across the west and central portions of North America and winters in South America. During migration between the wintering and breeding grounds they gather at staging areas like the Great Salt Lake and Mono Lake. Declining numbers at these staging areas, over the past 20 years have prompted the Audubon Society to put the species on their watch list.
There are basically 2 different populations of willets in North America. The eastern willet are smaller with stouter bills and are strictly coastal all year long. Western birds are larger. They breed in freshwater in the west central United States and southern Canada. During the winter months they will migrate to their wintering grounds on the east or west coast.
Long-billed dowitchers can often be seen in the western portions of the US during migration. They migrate from their wintering grounds in the southern coastal regions of the US and in Mexico to their breeding grounds in northern Canada and Alaska. At the breeding grounds it is the male, and not the female, who takes care of the chicks after they hatch. Now there is someone who really deserves a Father's Day card.

Marbled godwits breed in Montana, North and South Dakota and southern Canada. They spend their winters in the coastal US and Mexico.

Later this year, in August, I will return to the Prairie Pothole Region, this time South Dakota, to do an intense shorebird identification workshop. As always I will have a camera with me and hopefully I will bring back a lot more shorebird photos to share from that trip.

Medicine Lake NWR Waterfowl

Our adventure began on Thursday May 15th. We left the Twin Cities that morning and spent most of the day driving to Williston, ND. Williston is on the west side of North Dakota near the border with Montana. I chose Willistone because of it's close proximity to Medicine Lake NWR. The plan was to spend Friday and part of Saturday at Medicine Lake. We visited Medicine Lake on our way home from Yellowstone last year and had such good luck that we decided to leave a couple days early so that we could stop and spend some time on our way out. Medicine Lake is a great birding location for waterfowl and shorebirds but the main reason that we visit is to photograph eared grebe in breeding plumage. This year our luck was not nearly so good. Unbeknownst to us, at the time, Montana appears to be going through a bit of a drought. The drought did not effect the Medicine Lake so much, but many of the other lakes and bays that are near to the roads, and thus places where we got many of our pics last year, were dried up. We were still able to find some waterfowl though.
The most common of the waterfowl that we saw where either blue-winged teals

or northern shovelers.
We did find one pair of northern pintails in a small tributary that was still feeding into the lake.
We did find some eared grebe but they were on the big lake and too far to get any shots that compared with those that we got last year. We also did see a pair of western grebes out on the big lake. The western grebes were also pretty far out but since we do not already have close up shots of western grebes I decided to add another 1.4x converter and snap a couple of shots.
Another thing that Medicine Lake NWR is known for is that it is the location of one of the largest white pelican breeding colonies in the world.
We went out to the pelican over look to view one of the peninsulas that the pelican colony uses for nesting. The peninsula is blocked by an electric fence and gate. These protect the females and the young from predators like coyote, fox and raccoon. Unfortunately it also makes it difficult to get any good pics so we decided to just stop and have a picnic there and watch the pelicans fly out over the lake. Later on I did find these 3 white pelicans taking of near Gopher Point so I was able to get a couple of nice shots.

We also saw quite a few shorebirds as well as some passerines but since this post is getting long I will put them in my next post.

The Day Before Vacation

Well I am back from vacation. It has been hard to get back to my normal life after spending 9 days shooting pictures for 10to 14 hours a day. I just began to make a small dent in going through the trip pics yesterday. With 120gb worth of pics it may take a while. I hope that you guys don't get sick of Yellowstone pics too quickly. I spent most of the day yesterday doing stuff around the house, like washing cloths, giving Misty kitten some much needed attention and then Michelle and I took in the new Narnia flick.

I do have one last group of photos that I shot the evening before we left on vacation. It was a Wednesday and it was supposed to be cloudy that day, since my new lens was already packed I brought my old lens with me to work and The Raptor Center and when it turned out to be sunny I could not help but stop off at Fort Snelling State Park on my way home.
I was really disappointed not to have my new lens, I have become spoiled very quickly, with so many warblers around. The AF with my old 100-400mm lens does not pick up small birds very well so I am often forced to use manual focus which does not work very well with small darting birds like warblers. So the pictures did not come out as well as they would have if I had brought the new lens. I followed this black and white warbler from tree to tree but was only able to get a few marginal pictures like the one above. I love how the black and white warblers act a lot like nuthatches, although I have not seen them walking down the tree like nuthatches like to do.
This magnolia warbler did not come out as well as I would have liked either.
The American redstart was a little more cooperative and gave me enough time to get a good focus.
Besides warblers there was also a few Baltimore orioles.
Although I am not sure who was watching who?

The fun part of shooting that night was the newly hatched goslings
I spotted 3 different pairs of Canadian geese with goslings. each had a clutch of 2 to 4.
When photographing something as cute as young goslings I guess it does not matter what type of lens that you use.
Too bad they have to grow up. The goslings are cute but adult geese can become a nuisance.
One of the adults decided that it did not want me taking any more photos of the babies and it started to hiss at me. It is all bluff and bluster, since there is not much that a goose can do to hurt a person, but I did not want to stress them so I headed home to pack. I guess that the goose did not want its little goslings to be stars but it was already too late. Anything that cute will always draw attention.

Birding in Fort Snelling State Park

Today we begin the trip home. I always get sad to leave here and go back to the real world, but we have a lot of great pictures. This is probably our most productive trip to Yellowstone. We saw almost everything that there was to see. We had 3 wolf sightings this year, which was great because we have never seen wolves in the park before. We got some pics of a prairie falcon, which was a life bird for me. We also got some good badger shots and golden eagle shots. We had seen both in the park on past trips but we were able to get better pics this time. Yesterdays weather actually cleared up quite a bit, despite what the weather people forecasted, and we were fortunate to see an elk calf that had been born only 30 minutes before we photographed it. We also got a lot of great bird pics including mountain bluebird, raven, white-crowned sparrow, common merganser, buffelhead, Barrow's goldeneye, eared grebe, kestrel, grouse and a few more.

We did not get back until late yesterday and we are trying to leave soon so I did not have time to get any more Yellowstone pics ready, but I do have some more passerines that I photographed at Fort Snelling State Park on May 12th.

song sparrow
white-throated sparrow
gray catbird
yellow-rumped warbler Myrtle variety

blackburnian warbler

I will have a lot of pics to share when I get home but I may not be able to post for the next couple of days while we are driving. If I am not able to post I hope that everyone has a happy Memorial Day.

Yellowstone

Well today is our last full day in Yellowstone. Tomorrow we pack up and then make one last swing through the north end of the park on our way home. When we arrived Sunday the weather was beautiful, with plenty of sunshine and temps in the 70s.
This has been a great trip, much better then last year, and possibly our best outing in Yellowstone. We have seen all of the major mammals, that inhabit the park, except moose.
Michelle took the pic of the pronghorn antelope above and the black bear below. On Tuesday the weather began to turn. It started out sunny on Tuesday then began to cloud up as the day went on. By the time we were on the way back to our hotel it was raining. Wednesday the rain turned to snow and Thursday when we entered the park we were informed that a large portion of the park was closed due to the snow. It was so bad that even the geese went looking for high ground.
Despite the weather we still had a great day on Thursday. Today the weather still looks pretty poor but it seems that the bad weather brings out some of the more elusive animals so hopefully we will have another great day. I will have a lot to post when I get home so stay tuned.

Warblers and Friends from Fort Snelling

Before we left on vacation I was almost sad to be leaving. With the spring migration coming late this year, due to the extended winter weather, the warblers were all over at home. They seemed to be holding up waiting for the weather up north to get better, but I figure by the time that we get back they will have moved on. I can't complain though because we have had a great time shooting out in Yellowstone. Here are some more of the warblers, and orioles, that I was seeing before we left.

Baltimore oriole
Tennessee warbler

yellow warbler
orange-crowned warbler

blackburnian warbler

black-throated green warbler

Maybe I will get lucky and some of the stragglers will still be around when I get back but for now I am going to go out and enjoy nature where I am, even with the couple of inches of snow that fell last night.

Birding from Montana

Well it has been a couple of really great but busy days. Yesterday we were out from 7am until about 10:30 pm, we got back and we were beat. I could not even stay up long enough to download the memory cards so that we could use them today. So this morning I had to do the download and back up before we could leave, which was a bummer because even though the day was supposed to be cloudy the morning was sunny and beautiful. The sun lasted until about noon then it got hazy and by the time that we were heading back at around 7pm it started raining. I can't complain too much because we have had some great opportunities to take some great pics. I think that I will be posting Yellowstone trip pics for quite a while, here are a couple of pics from Bowdoin NWR that I took on Saturday.

Wilson's phalarope
black-necked stilt

There will be a lot more pictures to come.

Warblers from Old Cedar Ave Bridge

Yesterday we left our hotel after breakfast, around 7am, and got into the park around 8:30am. We did not get back to our new hotel until after 8pm. It was a very full and productive day with great weather, black bear cubs, bison cubs, elk, grizzly, big horned sheep, American kestrel and a lot more. The weather is supposed to turn rainy later in the week so I am spending as much time as possible outside shooting as I can while the weather is nice. So hopefully I can put together a few more Yellowstone pics for you a bit later in the week but for now how about some swallows and warblers that I shot at the Old Cedar Avenue Bridge on May 11th.

barn swallow
Nashville warbler
black and white warbler

black-throated green warbler

I promise that I will have plenty of pics and posts from Yellowstone later in the week and when I get back home.

A Little Appetizer from our Trip

So far we have only been gone 3 days but we have a lot of good pics, about 30gb worth. I did not have a lot of time, I would prefer to spend more time in the park shooting, but I did get up early to put together a couple of pics that we took on Friday, just to start giving you a preview of the posts that I will be making when I return.

western meadowlark
yellow-headed blackbird

I will try to post some more pics as we continue on the trip as well as a few more posts of warblers and other passerines that I took before we left.

Warblers from Wood Lake to Hold You Over

I have spent the past couple of days exploring some of the best birding spots in Montana. Friday I was at Medecine Lake NWR and today I made my first trip to Bowdion NWR. This part of Montana appears to going through some what of a drought and both parks appeared to be much dryer then normal, so birding was harder then it was last year. I have not had time to upload any pics, since we just got to the hotel after a full day of birding and driving, but I do have some nice shots that I took at Wood Lake Nature Center on May 9th.

grackle
yellow-rumped warbler
palm warbler
black and white warbler

orange-crowned warbler

Tomorrow we head into Yellowstone. Depending on how late that we shoot I will try and get a couple of sample pics of the trip uploaded.

Butterflies from Fort Snelling State Park

I will be out birding today and hopefully getting a lot of good pics to share. I have to keep John entertained after all, LOL. Hopefully I will start getting some pics up in a couple of days but right now I am stuck using a hotel PC today and tomorrow so no uploading. But I usually am prepared and I have a few posts of pics waiting. While birding around Fort Snelling I stopped to take a few butterfly pics.

mourning cloak
Cabbage white.

This was the first time that I have seen cabbage white butterflies so I am hopeful that soon there will be more butterflies and dragonflies to photograph. Unfortunately a lot of the best places that I found last year are currently under water, we had more snow last winter and a rainy spring so there is a lot of extra water around.

Some Dodge for you while I drive

I apologize for my lack of witty reporte on this post and the last. I am leaving shortly for a short trip and have been trying to get things taken care of so that I can leave. I will try and blog a bit while I am traveling. This will depend on the Internet connections at hotels and how much time that I have when I am not out shooting. Here are some more pics from Dodge Nature Center for you to enjoy while I drive.

eastern phoebe
cedar waxwing

house wren
sora
painted turtle

Birding Dodge Nature Center

Here are some more pictures from Dodge Nature Center that I took on May 5th

female redwinged blackbird
palm warbler


Tennessee warbler

yellow warbler

yellowthroat
broadwinged hawk

Birding Close to Home.

I have been making a concerted effort to try and do more birding closer to home lately. This is partly to help the environment and partly to help my wallet. So far this has not been a problem since the warblers are migrating through the area and giving all of us birders plenty to look at and photograph. One place that I have been spending some more time at this year has been Dodge Nature Center. I visited Dodge on the first Saturday in May and had a pretty good day.
One thing that I have been seeing more of this year are female red-winged blackbirds. They have always been around in years past but the females typically are harder to spot. That is because they usually spend most of their time down in the reeds where their coloration helps to camouflage them. This year though it seems like I am seeing more of them out in the open. I am not sure why this is. Maybe the female red-winged blackbirds are sick of sitting in the shadows and want their turn in the light, they see a woman running for president this year and have decided that this is their year.

Some birds, like northern cardinals, are pretty common around here all year long, but that does not mean that if a cardinal gives me a great pose that I will not stop to take its pic.
White-breasted nuthatch are another year round resident.
Yellow-rumped warbles are now extremely common.
Palm warblers are fairly numerous right now also. They are usually the ones hoping around on the ground.
You can also tell the palm warblers by their typical little tail bopping.

The common yellowthroat is one of nine species of yellowthroats. They range through out the US and Canada, except the far north, during the summer and migrate to Mexico during the winter.
This photo is not great but it is not usually that easy to get a picture of a sora so I was happy just to get a recognizable photo. The sora is a member of the rail family. It lives in the cattails in fresh water mashes and is more usually heard then it is seen.
On the other hand wild turkeys have become quite plentiful around here. Each evening they can be seen in fields through out most of the state.
A pleasant surprise on this evening was spotting a coopers hawk out on the prowl. I was able to get a couple of shots as it flew over head.
Coopers hawks are part of the accipiter family of hawks. Accipiters have rounded wings just like other hawks, buteos, do but the wings are shorter and their tails are longer. This gives them more maneuverability when they fly which they need since much of their diet consists of small birds. The other accipiters that are native to North America would be the sharp-shinned hawk and the goshawk.

The birds were not the only thing out on that evening. Reptiles, like these painted turtles, are cold blooded and can not regulate their body temperature on there own. That is why you can often see them out sunning themselves on nice days.
As dusk approached the white-tailed deer began to come out. Minnesota has an over abundance of white-tailed deer. This is due to loss of natural predators like timber wolves and bear. Hunting helps to curve some of the over population. Even though I have never hunted and I am not a very big fan of hunting, it is more merciful to put some deer down quick through hunting then to allow them to starve to death in the winter because there is not enough food to support the large population. However many of the deer have gotten smart and live inside the city limits where hunting is not allowed.

St Croix National Scenic Riverway Marshland Visitors Center

On our way home from Crex Meadows we stopped at the St Croix National Scenic Riverway Marshland Center. The St Croix National Scenic Riverway is a national park consisting of 252 miles of habitat encircling the St Croix and Namekagon Rivers on the Minnesota and Wisconsin border. The Marshland Visitors Center is only open by appointment but the small grounds surrounding the center as well as the trails following the river are good places to look for passerines. Since Michelle was already tired from our trek around Crex she decided to stay in the car while I took a quick look around.
I did not find anything all that exciting but a few birds did peek out and took their turn in the spot light. This eastern phoebe are sometimes difficult to photograph because of their dark heads. One of the things that I look for when photographing wildlife is to try and get a glint of light in the eye. This helps to make the bird or animal look more life like. When a bird has a dark head the eye often gets lost in the pic. Fortunately it was bright out, which usually helps, and my new lens is much better at picking up light.
Angle of the subject in comparison to the sun is usually important when you are trying to get a shinning eye. The sun light is hitting the breast of the chipping sparrow above and it is not hitting the eye. This makes the eye look flat and two dimensional which does not help the picture to look life like.
When the angle is changed on the chipping sparrow the eye looks more three dimensional and life like.
Unfortunately in wildlife photography you can not control the weather or your subject. You can try and get a perfect angle but sometimes rivers, trees or other things make it difficult or impossible. Try as I might I could not get this field sparrow to pose correctly. This does not mean that the pic is not worth taking, especially since it is the first field sparrow that I have seen this year, some times you just have to be happy with what you get.
There is no use crying over spilled egg. I actually found this egg on one of the hiking trails. I do not know my eggs very well so maybe some one out there can tell us what kind of egg that it is. The small hole in the egg is interesting. I wonder if another bird used its beak to put a hole in the egg to retrieve the contents and then perhaps discarded it when it was finished with the rich yellow protein filled yoke?

First 2008 Trip to Crex Meadows

The nice weather continued on Sunday so Michelle and I made our first trek of the year up to Crex Meadows. Unfortunately most of the ducks had already moved on to the north but there was still plenty of things for us to photograph.
Yellow-rumped warblers are all over the place right now. I see them at every park that I visit and Crex was no exception.
Although not as common as the yellow-butts I have spotted quite a few eastern phoebes.
Michelle spotted this northern flicker and was quite proud of her self for identifying it.
There were a few shorebirds around, mostly greater yellowlegs. In August I am registered for a shorebird workshop out in South Dakota. I should have a good opportunity to get some nice shorebird pics then.
We did see a few ducks that were still around. Most of them were blue-winged teal but we did also spot a single northern shoveler.

The trumpeter swans have begun to build there nests. When we visit again in late June they will probably have some cygnets for us to photograph.
Most of the osprey platforms were occupied with nests. One of the nests had been taken over by eagles but the others were acting as home for osprey pairs. Unfortunately most of the platforms are pretty far out and don't have a very good view. One of the platforms on the north east side of Crex had a little better view from the road. As we stopped to check out the osprey this bird took off from the platform and came over to check us out. That allowed me to get a couple of closer pics as he flew over head.

Raptor Release

Last Saturday was The Raptor Center's annual Spring Raptor Release. I volunteered to help out answering questions in the hawk and falcon area and also said that I would take some pictures of the event for the Education Marketing and Events Manager. I was a little worried the day before when I read that the weather report was calling for rain and possibly snow until about 1pm the day of the event. I don't mind the weather but I don't like to have my equipment out when it is to wet and since the event was being held at Hyland Park in Bloomington I knew that I would have to carry my camera for the whole time. So I decided against bringing my new lens and went with my old stand by. As it turns out it did not matter because that morning the sun came out and we had a nice, albeit a bit windy, day.
When I arrived almost everything was already set up, except for the birds themselves. They stayed crated until almost 11am. Above Adam and Emma are taking out Jack, a male American kestrel, so that he can be set up on his perch.
Some of the other birds in our hawk and falcon circle were Jamaica, a female red-tail hawk,
and Casper, a Krider's red-tail hawk. We also had the new broad-wing hawk out, who just got named Kettle, but they put him away mid way through the event before I could get his pic.
The other half of our area was where we had falcons. Besides Jack from the first pic we also had Cinnamon our female American kestrel.
Taiga, a female merlin falcon, was there. Taiga is one of my favorite birds at The Raptor Center. She is very cute and sometimes lets out a small cry when she gets fed. She is also the slowest eater of all of the education birds.

Juneau rounded off the hawk falcon area. Juneau is a female peregrine falcon and my adopted bird for last year.
There was also an eagle area which consisted of two bald eagles, Maxime and Othello, and our resident turkey vulture Nero.
Maxime is our only female bald eagle and at a whopping 10 pounds she is huge compared to Othello or the rest of the boys, Othello weighs in around 7 pounds.
They did take Nero up to the stage to help in some of the educational programs that they were running through out the day. It is a good thing that Nero is used to Laura, turkey vultures vomit as a defense mechanism and from what I hear it is extremely smelly.
There was also an owl area. Squeek, the eastern screech owl pictured above, and Borius, our boreal owl, both came out for the program. We had to set up a couple of hutch type perches for them.

Whisper the barn owl was probably eaves dropping on all the little rodents conversations in the area. Barn owls have better hearing and night vision then most of the other owls.
Samantha is our largest great horned owl and during mating season she was a bit temperamental.
We released 3 birds back into the wild that afternoon. The first was a coopers hawk. The gentleman releasing the bird was picked by a random drawing at the event.
The next bird to be released was a red-tailed hawk, who was being released by a contributor.
Unfortunately the hawk baited on her before the release.

With a little help from the clinic manager the bird was righted
and released
and off it flew.
The last bird was another red-tailed hawk and it was released by retired Minnesota Viking Matt Blair.
Matt works with The Raptor Center on one of their big fundraisers, The Raptor Bowl. In appreciation for all his help Matt got to release the final bird.

The event was a huge success. The weather was great and we had a huge crowd. The next release will be in the fall I believe at Carpenter Nature Center. I am sure that I will volunteer for that one also because I have a lot of fun talking to people about the raptors.

Dragons in Love

Ecobirder started as a way to share my nature photography with others. In the past Michelle, my wife, and I have taken trips all over the US to take pictures of moose, bears, coyote, elk, whales, raptors, and other wildlife. Unfortunately jobs and expenses do not let us travel enough for me to produce a quality blog just with pictures from our travels. So I started doing more bird photography because it was a way that I could get out in my spare time with out having to travel around the country. Last summer I found a couple of other subjects that I became interested in that became an important part of the blog, butterflies and dragonflies. Unfortunately nether of these are around in Minnesota during the winter so it has been a while since I have had a good opportunity to photograph them with any variety or regularity. While I have already seen, and photographed, several types of butterflies this year I have been anxiously waiting for the dragonfly season to begin. I have seen a fair number of the larger green darner dragonflies, these are the big ones that fly south for the winter like the birds do, I even was able to photograph one hovering at the Dodge Nature Center a couple weeks ago, but most of the smaller types, that die out in the winter, are currently in their larval state.

The darners are difficult to photograph because they do not land very often.
That is why I was excited when I spotted 2 green darner dragonflies mating at the Bass Ponds last week.
In this picture the male is on the top with a blue abdomen while the female is below with a red abdomen. The reproductive organs of both sexes are located near the end of the abdomen, however the males actually have 2 sets. Sperm is produced by the reproductive organ at the back of the abdomen and then is transferred to a reproductive organ located just in front of the abdomen. The female then places her reproductive organ on the males front organ and that is where the sperm is transferred. The male then places his abdomen on top of her head which she grasps with her feet. This gives the couple stability while the mating procedure is taking place and even allows them to fly as a single unit.
I am hoping to add a lot more butterfly and dragonfly pictures soon, if the weather decides to cooperate but if you really need a dragonfly fix check out this blog that I found on Dragons and Damsels in Malaysia. It is a very good blog with a lot of great pics so I would definitely recommend checking it out.

Birding Bass Ponds

It was not all just warblers that I photographed on my trip to the Bass Ponds.
There are probably more blue-winged teal in the area right now then any other type of duck. It seems as though there are even more teal then there are mallards, which is very unusual since we have a healthy mallard population all year long.
There are still some hoodies around but they will probably all move north soon.
Herons are a bird that we see often during the spring, summer, and fall. Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes but we also have about twice as many ponds and each one typically has one or two great blue heron or great egret fishing in it.
I have been having some fun lately shooting female redwing black birds. Even though they are much more drab looking then the males I enjoy shooting them more. That is probably because it is more of a challenge. The females are more secretive and do not usually hang out in the open like the males do.
Another type of bird that I see a lot of but have a difficult time photographing are swallows. Usually they are darting through the air chasing bugs around. They are so fast and maneuver so quickly that the autofocus can not home in on them. Of course the AF on my 100 - 400 never really works for small birds or insects so most of the photos that I take I use manual focus. Fortunately for me this tree swallow decided to perch and let me take his pic.

Migrating Warblers

We are currently in one of the most exciting times of the year for birders here in Minnesota, the warbler migration. Unfortunately between work, volunteering at The Raptor Center, other commitments and the weather I have not been able to get out as much as I would like to.
Last Tuesday I took the couple hours that I have between jobs and instead of catching a nap as usual I headed over to the Bass Ponds to do some quick birding.
I saw most of the common birds that we get this time of the year, like Canadian geese, mallards, red-winged blackbirds and robins but the bird that I saw the most of that afternoon was the yellow-rumped warbler.
The yellow-butts were all over. They were in the reeds, trees, bushes, on the ground even in the shallow water.
I did also find a single palm warbler. This was my first palm of the year. I must have been late in spotting them because when I posted it on the list server I received an angry e-mail stating that I should not have posted it since many people had already reported palm warblers in the area. This opened up a big can of worms, on the list server, which has finally just quieted down. So I hope that you enjoy this pic.

Birding Around the Twin Cities

It was a bit cloudy and hazy on April 27th but I decided to go to some of the local birding locations to see if anything new might turn up.
One new sighting that I found, in the marshland that is a part of Fort Snelling State Park and is right across the road from Black Dog Lake, was a green heron. This was my first green heron for the year.
Another bird which I have not seen many of so far this year is the pied-billed grebe. I found this one at Wood Lake Nature Center. Last year it seemed that I saw a lot of pied-billed grebes earlier in the spring then this year. Maybe our poor weather so far this spring has something to do with it.
There was still at least one pair of wood ducks at Wood Lake. They will probably clear out soon , heading further north for the summer.
Usually all that we have left in the mid summer months are the geese, mallards, robins, crows and redwing blackbirds.

Nature Abounds at Dodge Nature Center

I did find some other wildlife, beside the green darner dragonfly which I posted yesterday, at Dodge Nature Center on April 21st.
The painted turtles were out sunning themselves on the rocks and logs in the ponds, at least until the sky clouded up.
Song sparrows were out singing, as they have been for several weeks now.
One species that has recently returned and that I have been seeing a lot of are white-throated sparrows.
The young muskrats were out with the adults that afternoon. I did not get a very good look at them. They were good at keeping hidden in the reeds. When they did have to travel across an open space they darted very quickly, they were so fast that it was impossible to catch more then a quick glance let alone get a pick. The best look that I got was what you see above. I may not have been able to see them but it was easy to tell where they were because they were very vocal, squeaking and rustling through the dried reeds.

Leuc takes a bath

After taking some pics I pulled out my video recoreder and recorded this video of Leuc.

Leuc Takes a Bath

A couple of weeks ago while I was working my shift at The Raptor Center Leuc, one of the retired bald eagles, decided to take a bath. So I grabbed my camera and took a few shots.
Leuc was hatched in 1979 and came to the Raptor Center with a badly dislocated right shoulder.
Due to the dislocation he was unable to extend his wing which made him unable to fly.
I can certainly relate to his injuries. when I was younger I had an accident on my bicycle and separated my shoulder from my collar bone. Years later I fell on some stairs and when I went to catch myself I dislocated my shoulder. The pain was extremely intense. Since that time I have dislocated it often. The last time that I dislocated it was a few weeks ago while I was sleeping. It does not hurt like it used to but it is still not a very pleasant way to wake up.
The thing that I really found cool while watching him bathe was the detail and texture of his feathers.
Tomorrow is The Raptor Center's Spring Raptor Release. It will be held at Hyland Park in Bloomington from 11am to 2pm. The weather is not supposed to be real great in the morning but it is supposed to get better as the day goes on. Even if the weather is not that great I am sure that the event will be spectacular. There will be music from Michael Monroe, kids events, our education birds will be there and the highlight will be the release of several rehabilitated raptors back to the wild. If you are going to be in the Twin Cities area tomorrow I would encourage you to stop in.

I will be one of the education volunteers at the hawk and falcon circle, so if you do stop by make sure you come over and say hi. I have also been asked to take some pictures so I will be trying to do some double duty. Hopefully the weather will not be too bad and I will be able to get some good pics.

Green darner in Flight.

On April 21st I stopped at Dodge Nature Center on my way home from work to do some birding and take some pics. I did get some bird pics, which I will share on my next post, but I was more excited to get my first dragonfly pics of the year.
I have been seeing quite a few common green darner dragonflies on my adventures as the temps have increased. Green darners are large dragonflies that are strong fliers. I typically see them flying over ponds or fields on the hunt for mosquitoes or other small flying insects. The difficulty with photographing green darners is that they often fly for a long time, and they can fly for quite a distance, so finding one that has landed can be difficult. Even though this darner did not land for me I got lucky and it decided to do some hovering. It took me a while to get it in view and get the lens focused before it moved, especially since most of the work that I do is using manual focus, but eventually I was able to get some pics of the darner in flight.

Green darners are very similar to birds in many ways. These dragons migrate south much the same way that many birds do. In fact researchers at Princeton found that they exhibit some of the same traits that birds do when they migrate, such as migrating during a cold front with favourable north west winds or skirting large bodies of water during migration. Now they have returned to their summer breeding grounds and they are hunting for food and soon they will begin mating, much the same way that migrating birds are.