Tuesday Tweets

The Townsend's solitaire is native to the the western half of North America. They breed up in western Canada, Alaska and the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. Those that live up in Alaska and Canada migrate south into the western United States and northern Mexico for the winter. During the summer they eat mostly insects but during the winter they survive primarily on juniper berries. Every once in a while one of these birds gets a little mixed up during migration and ends up here in Minnesota. This bird spent the winter of 2010-2011 near Lake Vadnais where it found a good supply of juniper berries as well as a lot of crazy birders that hiked through the snow to see it.

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Lake Vadnais

This morning I decided to head over to Lake Vadnais in search of the Townsend's solitaire that has been hanging out in the area. Lakes, rivers and other water ways are usually good areas for finding nature but Lake Vadnais seems to find more then its share of interesting visitors.

During the winter the road which runs between the lakes is cosed and not maintained except for trails for cross country skiing. The dusting of snow that we had over night, maybe another inch or two, covered the trees making them look like they were flocked. It also covered the trails making them a bit more difficult to travel, but since it was sunny and relatively warm, about 15 degrees, I did not mind much.

I did not find the solitaire on this trip but I did manage to photograph him back in November. The Townsend's Solitaire is a bird that is not very common here but once in a while one will hang around over the winter as long as it can find enough food.

In November at around the same time that the solitaire showed up Lake Vadnais was also playing host to a male long-tailed duck. This duck was hanging out with a group of common goldeneye until the lake froze up. Since long-tailed ducks and goldeneye are both diving ducks I spent several afternoons in November watching them dive for fish.

Vadnais must have had a really good year for fish because not only did we have a host of diving ducks in the fall back in July we had around 100 white pelicans that spent time on the lake. White pelicans are common in the western portions of Minnesota but usually we only see them during migration here in the Twin Cities that is why it was quite a surprise to see such a large number here in the middle of summer. It must have been the luck of Lake Vadnais.