Northern Flicker

The northern flicker is a large woodpecker found across most of North America. They breed through out the US, Alaska and Canada but those in the northern portion of the range migrate south for the winter. They are often found foraging on the ground. They use their beak to dig up insects, particularly ants, and then slurp them up with their long barbed tongue. Northern flickers in the eastern half of North America show yellow under their wings and on the underside of the tail. They are called yellow shafted. Red-shafted northern flickers, like the one above, show red below the wings and tail and are found in the western half. At one time these were two distinct species but now they are considered one, mainly because they hybridize with each other in the middle of the continent. 

Northern Flicker

The northern flicker is a woodpecker that is found through out most of North America. Their range extends as far north as northern Canada and Alaska and as far south as Central America. Unlike most woodpecker species the northern flicker is primarily a ground feeder. They eat primarily insects, mostly ants, that they dig up from the dirt. They will also use their slightly curved beak to probe into the ground and then use their long forked tongue to slurp up the ants or other insects.

 Since it is difficult to find insects in the dirt when the ground is frozen and covered with snow the flicker is one of the few woodpeckers in North America that will migrate south. Most of the flickers in the US will stay on territory year round but flickers in Canada and Alaska migrate south to the southern US or Mexico. Flickers that do stay on territory in northern climates will eat berries and seeds during the winter.

Their are two subspecies of northern flickers. They are the red-shafted and the yellow-shafted northern flicker. The first photograph is an example of a red-shafted flicker. Red-shafted flickers are found in the western half of North America. Yellow-shafted flicker, second photo, are found in the eastern half of North America. At one time they were considered two separate species but since the frequently hybridize in the central portion of the continent, where their ranges overlap, it was decided by the American Ornithologists Union that they are two subspecies of a single species. You can see in this final picture how the feather shafts are colored, yellow or red, giving the two subspecies their difference in appearance.

Red-shafted Northern Flicker

The northern flicker is a member of the woodpecker family that is found in North and Central America. The northern flicker has two subspecies that were once considered separate species. The red-shafted subspecies, Colaptes auratus cafer, is found in the western portions of North America. As its name suggests the feather shafts of the primary feathers are red. The red under the tail and the red moustache markings also help to distinguish it from the yellow-shafted subspecies, which is found in the eastern portion of North America. I photographed this red-shafted flicker in the Bosque del Apache NWR on our recent trip to New Mexico.

Northern Flicker

The northern flicker, Colaptes auratus, is a member of the Picidae or woodpecker family. Although you could say that they are the odd member of the family. It is rare to see flickers clinging to the side of a tree drilling into the wood in search of bugs like most other woodpeckers. You are much more likely to flush one from the ground. Northern flickers prefer to hunt for insects on the ground, especially beetles and ants. They often use their curved beak to drill down into the ground in search of ant or other insect larva. They will also eat seeds and berries. Because most of their food source is not available in the winter they are also one of the few woodpeckers that migrate from the northern portions of their range. There are two subspecies of northern flicker, the yellow shafted and the red shafted. They used to be considered different species but since they do frequently hybridize with each other where their ranges cross they are now considered the same species. The yellow-shafted northern flicker is found in the eastern half of North America. If you have the ability to look at the feather shafts of the yellow-shafted flicker you would see that they are indeed yellow, see the photo above, as is the underside of the tail feathers.
Northern flickers found in the western portions of North America are usually members of the red-shafted subspecies. As their name would suggest they have red feather shafts and red on the underside of their tail feathers. Red-shafted flickers will also occasionally hybridize with gilded flickers which are found mostly in Arizona, southern California, and Mexico. This red-shafted flicker was photographed at the Bosque del Apache in New Mexico.

Bird Banding at Carpenter Nature Center

Every Friday the folks over at Carpenter Nature Center catch and band birds. On the last Friday of the month they open up the banding to the public so that ordinary people can get a close up look at the birds and learn how and why people band birds. Birding has been a bit slow lately, on most trips I just keep seeing the same birds, and we just got a bunch of snow dumped on us so I figured that watching the banding would be a different change of pace. So today after I got of off work I stopped over to check things out. The snow seemed to bring the birds out, as quite a few birds were caught while I was there, even though the variety was not that unusual. Most of what was banded were juncos with a vicious female cardinal and a redpoll being the exceptions. Even though I did not really take any pictures I did have fun talking with people who have spent a lot of time looking at birds close up and in great detail.

This was not my first visit to see the banding, I try to go 5 or 6 times a year, so I do have some pics that I took back on September 26th. Each fall we are lucky to see both white-crowned and white-throated sparrows as the migrate from Canada down to the southern United States.
The field sparrow is a common resident in Minnesota, except during the winter, which is why they are frequently caught and banded.
White breasted nuthatch are year round residents but they are not caught as often during the winter. This is mainly because during the winter birds are trapped using ground cages which are less likely to catch birds like nuthatches. During the warmer months mist nets are used to catch the birds, and they are much more likely to snare a nuthatch as it flies between trees or to a feeder.
Late September is a fun time to check out the banding because there are many different types of birds that are migrating through the area at that time. When Nashville warblers migrate south most of the younger birds follow the east coast while many of the mature birds will take a more westerly route.
An unusual catch this day was a brown creeper. While creepers can sometimes be seen on the trees around the park they banders typically only catch a few each year.
While the banding is always very interesting I never like to spend too much time inside when I am at an amazing place like Carpenter Nature Center. So I took a short hike around the grounds during a lull in the banding. I did find a couple of interesting birds to photograph that were very unlikely to be captured for banding, like this northern flicker.

I also spotted a passing turkey vulture. Since Carpenter is situated on the bluffs of the St Croix River just north of where it joins the Mississippi it is common to see raptors flying over. They usually take advantage of the air currents caused by the river bluffs to fly using less energy.

My World: Bosque del Apache

In the middle of New Mexico, surrounded by Mountains and dessert, lies an oasis that is one of the top birding locations in the United States, the Bosque del Apache.

The Bosque is a 57,000 acre National Wildlife Refuge that straddles the Rio Grande River in Central New Mexico. It is comprised of 3,800 acres of active flood plane from the Rio Grande as well as 9,100 acres of wetlands, farm land and riparian forest which was created through a system of water management. These wetlands are surrounded by arid foothills, mesas and dessert.

Because it is the only extensive wetlands in an arid region the Bosque attracts many different types of birds, over 340 species, through out the year. However many people choose to bird the Bosque during the winter months when large flocks of water fowl descend on the wetlands making it their winter home.
My last visit to the Bosque was in January of 2007, which is when I took all of the pictures in this post. It was great to be there during the peak waterfowl season.

There were a lot of ducks out on the lakes and pools when I was there. A lot of them are pretty common back home in Minnesota during the warmer months, like coots and mallards, but there were other ducks that I rarely get to see back home. In Minnesota we do not see northern pintails all that often, at least not in the eastern portions of the state, so it was a treat to get many very close views of them down at the Bosque.
There were also a few northern shovelers swimming around. Shovelers are another duck that tends to spend their time more in the western portions of the continent.

I also got a chance to see a small group of greater white-fronted geese. This was a life bird for me. These birds breed up near the arctic circle and then spend their winters down in the southern US and Mexico.

The greater white-fronted geese were on the outskirts of a large flock of snow geese. Although snow geese where not a lifer for me on this trip, we sometimes see snow geese as they migrate south plus I had seen them on a previous trip to the Bosque, they are still a bird that I have only seen a couple of times. The Bosque is usually home to over 30,000 snow and Ross geese each winter.

The snow geese are not the only things that winter at the Bosque in large numbers. Approximately 14,000 sandhill cranes spend the winter on the refuge.

Sandhill cranes nest in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin so these are birds that I have seen and photographed often but we do not usually see them in as great of numbers as is possible down at the Bosque.

The big spectacle, during the winter, are the "fly in" at dusk and the "fly out" at dawn. Each day large flocks of birds spend their day out in the fields and farmland looking for food, but at night they come back to roost on the shallow pools of the Bosque. The times when the birds are coming in "fly in" or leaving "fly out" attract large crowds of spectators.

The Bosque has many different types of habitat, besides the wetlands, to explore. The arid hilly regions were habitat that was different then anything that I have near home.
Some of the birds preferred the habitat of these dry open hills. Many raptors could be found circling these areas looking for prey. The raptors that I saw at the Bosque were eagles, red-tailed hawks, coopers hawks, American kestrel and mostly northern harrier, like pictured above.
There were also quite a few passerines and other small birds that were birds that I do not often see like roadrunners, spotted towhee and red shafted northern flickers, the northern flickers that we see in Minnesota or typically yellow-shafted.

Yellowstone Birding

We did see a few other birds in Yellowstone that we do not see back in Minnesota.
We do have northern flickers in Minnesota however the ones that we usually see are the yellow-shafted variety compared to this one which is of the red-shafted variety. The differences between the two types are the yellow-shafted has a yellow tint on the underside of the wings and a red crescent on the nape of the neck. Yellow-shafted are prevalent in the eastern portions of North America. The red-shafted version, which is prevalent in the west, has a reddish tinge to the underside of the wings and a red malar, as you can see above.
The sage thrasher is related to the brown thrashers that we see in Minnesota in the summer time, except they are found most commonly in sagebrush, as their name would suggest. There have been a few sage thrashers spotted in Minnesota over the years but these have been very rare, probably because there is not very much sage in Minnesota.
We found this female blue grouse as we were driving back from the Lamar Valley on Tuesday evening. She was very territorial. When we drove up she was in the road chasing away cars. I was worried that someone might hit her so I got out to try and coax her off of the road. Then she began to follow me around. She followed me for a while which attracted several other people to stop. Finally she quit following me and we got her off of the road. We did not see her again for the rest of the trip. Hopefully she learned that it is not wise to chase cars.

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.

Redhead, Scaup, Grebes, Flickers and Mergansers

I did also find some birds at Fort Snelling State Park on April 20th.
I have seen quite a few northern flickers around lately. Since they are pretty migratory it is possible that many of the birds that I have been seeing are on their way up to summer nesting grounds up in Canada. All of the flickers that I have seen are yellow-shafted northern flickers. The red-shafted northern flicker has a more westerly range. Perhaps I will get some pictures of a red-shafted when we travel to Yellowstone later this year.
Male redhead ducks are aptly named and easily identified, especially in breeding plumage. After the mating season is complete the males fly to large lakes, typically further north, where they group together. At that point they go through a molt which leaves them flightless for about a month. After the molt they appear pretty much brown all over but still maintain a red tinge on their heads.
Unlike its cousin, the greater scaup, the lesser scaup can only be found in North America. It is difficult to tell the two apart unless you have them right next to each other for comparison. However since the lesser scaup prefers fresh water, while the greater prefers saltwater, most of the scaups that we see here are lessers. From what I have read the best trait to use to identify whether you are looking at a greater or lesser scaup is the shape of the head. Lesser scaups have a thinner more rounded head then the greater do. My guess is that this was a lesser.
The horned grebes have been out in full force lately. Maybe it is just me, but it seems as though there are more horned grebes around this spring then normal.A group of grebes, like the one pictured above, is not called a flock or a kettle it would be called " a water dance of grebes"

Another grebe that I spotted for the first time this year is the pied-billed grebe. Typically I have seen more pied grebes, around home, then any of the other types, but this year I have seen a lot more horned then I have pied.
Another bird that seems to be more numerous this year, at least where I live, are the red-breasted mergansers.
These birds are coming from winter grounds on the east or west coast of North America, as far south as Mexico, and are heading to their breeding grounds in the Arctic and Subarctic regions of Alaska and Canada.