What type of bird o you think of at the Holidays

What bird do you think of at the holidays? Is it a partridge in a pear tree? Or maybe it is a turkey, plump and roasted. How about a little black capped chickadee that might appear on the front of your holiday card. For me a part of the holiday's is the Christmas bird counts. This year the two that I normally participate in are both next weekend. I will no doubt see a lot of chickadees but maybe I will get to see something interesting this year. You never know.   .......   Happy Holidays!

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Five Stars for Jim's Birdacious Bark Butter

Last month I had the opportunity to do a review of Jim's Birdacious Bark Butter. My friends over at Wild Bird Unlimited were nice enough to send me a jar of the Bark Butter as well as a Bark Butter Feeder to try out. I hung the feeder at my house and it has attracted quite a few chickadees and a couple of woodpeckers, at least that I have seen.

A couple of weeks back, when I had the opportunity to head up to the Sax Zim Bog to do some birding, I decided to bring the Bark Butter with. I wanted to test out a couple of things. I wanted to see how well the Bark Butter worked when it was applied directly to the tree and I wanted to see how well it would attract some of the northern specialties that are not very common in the U.S.

When I arrived at the bog I headed over to Admiral Ave to check out the feeding station located there. At the feeding station there was mainly common redpoll and black-capped chickadee. So I went up and spread some Bark Butter on several of the tree branches. Since redpoll are seed eaters they did not pay much attention to the Bark Butter but the black-capped chickadees began to go to the Bark Butter almost immediately after I left the feeding area.

I was not surprised that the black-capped chickadee were eating the Bark Butter, since they had been eating at home too, but I was hoping that one of the northern specialties would show up so I could see how well it would work on some less common birds. Soon a red-breasted nuthatch showed up and began to eat at the Bark Butter. I had white breasted nuthatch that had been on the feeder back home but we don't see red-breasted nuthatch too often in the southern portions of the state.

After watching and photographing the black-capped chickadees, red-breasted nuthatch, redpolls and the single pine grosbeak I got really excited because a pair of boreal chickadees showed up. Boreal chickadees are usually found up in the boreal forests of Canada but a few migrate south during the winter and the Admiral feeder in Sax Zim Bog is the best place in Minnesota to have a chance to see them. I was hoping that there were still a few boreals around because I wanted to see how good that the Bark Butter would be for attracting them. Just like their cousin the black-capped, the boreal chickadees went right for the Bark Butter.

The boreal chickadees only stayed for a short time, as usual, eating their fill of Bark Butter and then disappeared back into the bog. As I was waiting for them to return, the seem to return to the feeders every hour or so, gray jays began to appear and a feeding frenzy began. The jays would eat a large chunk of Bark Butter and then grab another large chunk and fly away. Gray jays, sometimes reffered to as camp robbers, are known for caching food. This helps them to survive times when food is scarce.

Despite the fact that there was several different types of suet at the feeding station, and someone had even spread some peanut butter on one of the branches the jays, chickadees and nuthatch all kept going right after the Bark Butter. When I moved to the feeding station on Arkola there was only one gray jay in the area, it was in the trees across the street from the feeders. I decided to give that lonely guy some Bark Butter and with in a minute suddenly 15 gray jays appeared. This experience has certainly sold me on Jim's Birdacious Bark Butter. I will give it a 5 stars out of 5 and definitely recommend it if you are looking to attract birds that normally eat suet or other types of protein. I know that were some happy birds up in the bog that day and a happy Ecobirder who got a lot of great pics.

Wordless Wednesday: Black-capped Chickadee

Christmas Eve at Carpenter Nature Center

Since I was in the neighborhood I decided to stop in at Carpenter Nature Center after I left Douglas Point on Monday. Even though they were in the process of snow blowing all of the side walks up by the buildings there was still a lot of activity. I saw most of the typical Minnesota winter birds like:

black-capped chickadee

dark-eyed junco

blue jay

and red-bellied woodpecker

There were quite a few finches around. I was hoping that one of them might be a purple finch but I had no such luck. The house finchs did look nice though with all the snow and red branches.

Birding Two Harbors

I have gotten quite a bit behind on my blogging lately. First issue is that the company that I work for has switched ownership, this is about the 9th time in the 9 years that I have worked there. Unfortunately this has added to my work load and so I have had to work extra hours, which has left me less time to spend getting posts ready. The longer work days also leave me more exhausted which does not help either.

The second issue that has eaten into my blogging time has been my annual calendars. Each year I make calendars, using pictures that Michelle or I shot during the year, as gifts for both of our families. I have doing this for about 7 years. The first couple years I had them done at a drug store, but I was not very happy with the product so I started printing them myself. This year I have decided to have them printed through an online printer because of lack of time. It should be a lot less work not printing them all up but I still had to take time to pick out photos, crop them to the appropriate size, and then lay them out in the vendors software. Perhaps some time when it is slow this winter I will lower the rez on them and put them on the blog, even though I am sure that most of them where posted earlier in the year when I took the photo.

Here are some more photos that I took while I was up in Two Harbors to photograph the Inca dove. All of these photos where taken at Lighthouse Point.

Dark-eyed junco blending into the branches.Black-capped chickadeeBlack-capped chickadee mooning me.An American crow getting a leg up on the competition.A downy woodpecker instead of the black-backed or three-toed woodpecker that I was hoping for.White-breasted nuthatch. With the holidays coming up I will try and work on getting caught up.

Another trip to Anderson Lake and then off to Wood Lake

Wednesday I helped out at the Raptor Center after work so I did not get a chance to go out and do any shooting. Thursday I decided to head back to Anderson Lake Park to try and get some more pictures of the black-bellied whistling-duck. When I first arrived at the park I went and checked out the pond where the duck had been hanging out. The duck was not around only a couple of birders. Unfortunately the MOU list server was down that day, so I could not get any updates on whether people had still been seeing the duck, so I asked the other birders if any of them had seen it and was told that they had not had any luck. So I decided to go check out the lake. There were some flocks of waterfowl on the lake but they were on the far side and consisted mostly of mallards and Canadian geese from what I could see, definitely no whistling duck. I followed the path around and it took me back to the pond so I checked out the path that lead to the shore. I did not see the duck but I did spot a meadowhawk landing. It was very strange to be shooting pictures of a dragonfly on November 1st in Minnesota. I also spotted an American tree sparrow in one of the small trees lining that part of the pond.
But still no duck. So I decided to go back to the other side of the pond where I could stand on the hill and see the whole pond a bit better. I ran into another birder at the overlook and we began to converse about birding and photography. It is always cool to talk with someone like this who has been an active birder for a long time. We stood there and talked, while we looked for the duck, for about an hour and a half. I did not get another view of the duck but I had fun and learned a few new things. We did get a nice fly by from a red-tailed hawk.A little after 4:00 pm we decided that the duck had prolly moved on so we both decided to leave. It was still light so I decided to stop at Wood Lake Nature Center on my way home. As usual I checked out the trees on the shore by the visitors center first. This is always a good place to find passerines. On this day I found an American tree sparrow and a black-capped chickadee.
Further off in the woods I spotted a couple of American robins.
On the trail I found another meadowhawk. This was my last Minnesota dragonfly on 2007.On the lake where the usual mallards and Canadian geese with a few American wigeons mixed in.There was also a flock of about 20 or so American coots.I was getting hungry so I decided to take off but on my way home I found another red-tailed hawk scouting the roadside from a light poll.

Pine grosbeaks and other birds at Two Harbors

Sunday's weather turned out to be great also. With all of the fun that Michelle and I had photographing red-headed woodpeckers at Necedah NWR on Saturday I decided to make another trek up north on Sunday to see if I could find one of the black-backed or three-toed that had been sighted over the past few weeks. I started my search up at Stoney Point Dr, one of the locations where a lot of the woodpeckers have been seen. I saw a couple woodpeckers but they flew before I could get a good look at them. The black-capped chickadee where another story. They were all around and they where not to camera shy.I did hear some boreal chickadee but I never got a good look at any of them.
Next I moved on to Two Harbors. On my trip here earlier in the week, I did not have as much time as I wanted to spend checking out the woods near the light house. So I did some exploring. The first thing of interest that I found was a flock of European starlings.
At first they where on the ground sifting through the grass but when I approached they took to the safety of the trees. I also saw quite a few black-capped chickadees here too.
The deer living around the lighthouse, and actually most of the ones that I saw in the area, where not very afraid of people. They have become habituated, which is not good. Many of these deer get hit by cars at dusk or dawn because they are not afraid to walk across roads, like they should be.Finally I heard what I was listening for. Tap tap tap tap. I followed the noise and found the woodpecker that was making it, unfortunately it was a hairy and not a black-backed or three-toed.

I was getting kind of discouraged. I decided that I would head back to Stoney Point Dr. and try there again. On my way back to the car I came across a pair of snow bunting in the grass.
While I was driving back to Stoney Point I passed a yard that had a tree that was full of berries and birds eating the berries. I was going a bit to fast to get a good enough look to ID the birds so I decided to turn around and go back so that I could take a better look.What I saw was a small flock of pine grosbeak.The tree, as I have since been informed, was prolly a mountain ash. Pine grosbeak are particularly fond of mountain ash berries.I shot the grosbeak for a while then continued on through Stoney Point. I never did find either of the woodpeckers that I had hoped to find but I did have a lot of fun and got some pretty good images to share with all of my friends on the web.

Birding the Black Dog Unit of Minnesota Valley NWR

Sunday morning (Oct 7) it was still sunny out so I headed out to the Black Dog Unit of the Minnesota Valley NWR. I parked at the River Hills Drive entrance, which is on the west side of the park, and headed north on the trail. Right before the trail took me into deep woods I spotted a red-tail circling in the sky over the lake. Once I was in the woods I spotted quite a few sparrows, warblers, robins and chickadees. Unfortunately it was too dark, in the woods to get many pictures.
At one point the trail led out to the railroad track. A ways down the tracks I spotted a couple of wild turkeys crossing. In the tall grass next to the tracks I spotted a green darner landing so I snuck in and got a couple of shots.

I could tell that this one was a female by it's red abdomen. Since I was in the open I noticed that the sky had begun to cloud up. Since I did not have any rain gear for the camera I decided to turn back and drive to the other side of the lake. By the time I got down to Black Dog Road the skies where threatening rain so I decided to drive around the lake and see if there was anything that I could get pictures of from the car. While I was going past the power plant I noticed a double-crested cormorant perched high in the trees on the side of the river.Further down Black Dog Road I found a spot that I could park where there was a field next to a channel that allows water from the river to flow into the lake. It was not raining yet so I decided to explore. There were a few sparrows around and about a half a dozen cormorants in the lake. I was chasing a clouded sulfur around trying to get a picture when I caught sight off a pearl crescent butterfly. The crescent was a lot more cooperative then the sulfur who was fluttering around like a toddler on a sugar high.Shortly after I got back to the car it began to lightly rain so I decided that I would prolly not get any more pictures so I headed home.

Hawk Ridge

After we got back from our Lake Superior boat trip we took a quick tour around Park Point. We did not see much except for a mourning cloak butterfly.

He looked kind of ragged and had a hard time standing so he may have taken a rough flight over part of Lake Superior. I did see butterflies and other insects out of over the lake while we were on the boat.

Since we did not see much we decided to go get some lunch and then head up to Hawk Ridge. It was about 3pm when we arrived and it was still very crowded since it was the Hawk Weekend celebration. We were a bit past the prime raptor viewing time but we did see a nice selection of raptors.

This included a few sharp-shinned hawks, there was a total of 961 spotted that day.Bald eagle and broad winged hawks, 46 total eagles and 4095 broad-winged hawks were counted that day.A lot of american kestrel, 205 were counted for the day.

And a merlin, 5 were seen throughout the day.

To see what other raptors were seen that day, and all the days through the fall migration, check out the Hawk Ridge Hawk Count page.

There were also other activities going on because of Hawk Weekend. These included educational programs, Michelle went to one of these and raptor banding. Those people who sponsored a raptor where able to tour the banding station and were even able to release there adopted bird. This kestrel was not too thrilled about being caught and banded. It even took a bite from the finger of the count interpreter who was passing it to the young boy who had adopted it.

Both survived and the boy was able to release the bird with out incident.

Here is a close up of the kestrel who gives me a look that says, "what the "bleep" am I doing here."

The unique part of the adopt a raptor program at Hawk Ridge is that you bird that you adopt is unique to you. They tell you the band ID number and notify you and give you information when your bird is recovered. I would have adopted one but it was already too late to get to release the bird that day so I will need to adopt one on my next trip up.

While we were waiting for raptors to fly by there was plenty of wildlife to photograph. There were quite a few black-capped chickadees around.

They were joined by a group of white-throated sparrow, there may have been some white-capped mixed in.They were competing with the rodents for seeds that the volunteers had spread on the ground.This chubby ground squirrel had no problem coming out to get more then his share of seeds.The chipmunks were not as daring. They would make quit raids, grab what they could and then retreat back to the brush.

We stayed for about an hour and a half but then decided to get going. We still had a couple hour drive ahead of us and we wanted to get home at a descent time so that we could eat dinner.