Why go to Texas when Texas birds seem to be coming here.

Each year during the long Minnesota winter, Michelle and I go away for a week to some place that's a bit more warm and sunny for a vacation. I like to go places where I can see some birds that I don't get to see at home and Michelle likes to go any where that is warm, except places with a desert climate like Arizona or New Mexico. This year I went to the Bosque del Apache, in New Mexico, in January, by myself, and Michelle and I went to Monterey, Ca in February. I plan to post some pictures from these trips during the slower winter months so stay tuned.

We have begun to look at where we would like to go next year and one of the locations that we have been contemplating is south east Texas. We visited Texas back in the winter of 2004 and had a great time. There are many birds in south Texas that you just can't usually see anywhere else in the US. This is not as true this year as in years past. With in the past month 2 birds which are typically Texas natives have shown up here in Minnesota.

First one was the black-bellied whistling duck that showed up at the beginning of November here in the Twin Cities. This was not the first black-bellied whistling duck to visit Minnesota but they certainly are very rare here. I was able to get out and see it before it decided to head off to a better climate. Here is the post that I did with the pictures http://ecobirder.blogspot.com/2007/11/black-bellied-whistling-duck-at.html.

Later that same week reports came out that an Inca dove had been spotted up in Two Harbors. This was the first one recorded in Minnesota so I had to go up and see it. Here is the post that I did on the Inca dove http://ecobirder.blogspot.com/2007/11/first-ever-inca-dove-reported-in.html.

This past week the Minnesota press finally caught on about the importance of the Inca dove sitting. Minnesota Public Radio did an interview with Jim Lind who was the birder who first spotted the dove. The Minneapolis Star Tribune also did a story on the dove. However not all the press has been good, a local Twin Cities radio station 107.1 FM had their morning show, Ian and Magery, interview Sharon Stiteler, AKA birdchick. I did not hear the interview but several people that I know, who heard the interview, have made comments to me about how the hosts came off as condescending, even though Sharon did a great job at defending us birders. I guess I don't have to worry about listening to that station, I prefer to listen to the Stephanie Miller Show in the morning anyways.

Both the whistling-duck and Inca dove are fairly common in Texas and if we do decide to go there we will prolly see many of them but will not be the same. I am sure that it would sound geeky to Ian and Magery and they would prolly laugh at me, but going to see a bird, that made a miraculous trip to be the first one of it's kind to visit a new area, is kind of like getting to see a famous explorer or someone who went to the moon.

A trip to Texas this winter still would be worth it, after all we still have not seen a golden-fronted woodpecker here in Minnesota yet.

We will need to decide soon so that I can start making the reservations.

Black-bellied whistling duck at Anderson Lake Park

Last Monday evening I was checking out the MOU list server and I saw a few posts about a rare black-bellied whistling-duck that had been sighted at one of the local lakes in the Twin Cities. Now if you happen to be from south Texas or Arizona you might not think that a black-belled whistling-duck is such a rare bird, however for those of us in Minnesota there have been less then 10 recorded sightings of them in the past 50 years. Typically I do not go out and bird on Tuesdays, because I work a second job in the evening and usually I go home and eat and sleep in the time that I have between jobs, but I was worried that such a rare bird might not hang around. So I gave up my nap and drove to Eden Prairie to try and get a look and hopefully some pics of this bird.

The bird had been hanging out in a small pond that was adjacent to Anderson Lake in Anderson Lake Park. When I arrived there was another birder there looking for the bird, after a couple of minutes we spotted it preening on a dead log in the pond.

After preening for a short time the duck flew further to the other side of the pond and began to swim around the shoreline.It swam south along the western shoreline and then it went into the weeds along the shore and we could no longer see it from the hill where we were standing.

Since I could no longer see it I decided to walk down the trail that lead to the other side of the pond. Unfortunately I still could not locate it from my new location. I was closer to where I had last seen the duck but I no longer had the advantage of being up on the hill. After unsuccessfully looking for a while I heard a rustle in the weeds further down the shore. There the duck took off from the weeds, giving a whistle as it took to the air. It headed in the direction of the lake so I headed over to the lake to see if it might have landed there. There were a lot of geese, gadwall, wigeons, mallards and coots on the lake but I did not see the whistling duck. I decided that it was prolly best for me to leave otherwise I would not make it to the second job on time.