Lake Hiawatha

With over 10,000 lakes it is not difficult to find one here in Minnesota. Even Minneapolis, which is the largest metropolitan area in Minnesota, has several lakes with in its borders. Last week I headed over to visit one of these, Lake Hiawatha, after work.

The warmer temps that we have had lately finally melted most of the ice that had covered the lake. The newly opened water is providing needed habitat for migrating waterfowl who need to stop over in southern Minnesota because many of the lakes further north are still not open.

I spotted two types of mergansers on the lake. The hooded mergansers, the second picture, often nest in the area. There breeding range extends down through the northern and eastern portions of Minnesota. The red-breasted merganser, above, will continue north to nesting grounds in Canada and Alaska.

The common loon is the state bird of Minnesota. Loons often nest on lakes in the northern portions of Minnesota but we only see them in the southern portion of the state during migration. I estimate that there were at least 10 loons on the lake and it was fun to hear them calling to each other across the lake. Loons have an unique call that is difficult to ever forget.

At one point waters from Lake Hiawatha empty into Minnehaha Creek, which is winding its way to the Mississippi River. At the mouth of the creek is a stand of trees which is home to a small colony of Black-crowned night. Since we are on the northern portion of the black-crowned night-herons range this is one of the few places around that you can see these birds reliably year after year.

The birds were not the only thing taking advantage of the open waters. Muskrats stay active through out the winter by traveling under the ice, but it is much easier for them to find food once the lake open up. They eat mostly aquatic vegetation but since they are omnivores they will also eat things such as fish, crayfish and frogs.

Immature yellow-crowned night heron

Wednesday I returned to Lake Hiawatha to see if I could get some better pictures of the immature yellow-crowned night heron that has been hanging around there. The pictures that I got on Sunday were good but I was hoping that I would find the bird a little closer and in a bit better light. I went out straight from work and got to the lake around 2:30pm. I looked around a bit but did not see it. I did run into another birder, Bob, who was trying to add the bird to his Minnesota list for 2007. Since I had already been searching for the bird earlier in the week I filled Bob in on my experience. We looked around a bit and found several of the immature black-crowned night heron. We kept moving around on the south side of Minnehaha creek changing our angle in hopes that we would spot the yellow-crown. Then Bob spotted a bird through the trees that he thought might be the one which we were looking for. He pointed it out and I was able to get it into view in my binos and verify that it was the YCNH. I could not see the legs but I did get a good view of the beak, which was stockier, did not seem to have a curve and was black with grey at the base. With the distance and the angle a picture was out of the question and it was a moot point anyway as the bird went back into the canopy a minute later and we could no longer see him. Bob had to leave but he was happy because he got to add him to his 2007 Minnesota list.

After Bob left I decided to circle around the creek to see if I could spot the bird from a different angle. I went up to the road but I could not see anything from the bridge so I moved to the north side of the creek. As I neared the end of the tree line I spotted an immature bird perched in the tree. I thought that it might be the YCNH but I was not sure because the sun was pretty much right behind so I could not see it very well. So I continued to the west around a bush that sits in front of the trees and into the tall grass and there I got a great view of the bird. It was indeed the immature yellow-crowned night heron. I took a few picture then went back to my truck to get my teleconverter so that I could get some good close up shots. Here are a few of the pictures that I took.

Here is a picture of an immature black-crowned night heron for comparison.Notice how the shape of the beak is different. The BCNH has a thinner beak that is black on top and yellow on the bottom. The top portion of the black-crown's bill also is longer and overhangs the lower portion. The yellow-crown's bill is the same size on top and bottom and is black at the ends and grey at the base. It is a bit more difficult to see but the spots on the back of the YCNH are small triangles, while the spots on the BCNH are more like elongated triangles.

Yellow-crowned night heron

One of the more popular bird sightings listed on the MOU list server, for the Twin Cities area, has been an immature yellow-crowned night heron spotted by Lake Hiawatha in south Mpls. Although I have photographed both yellow and black crowned night herons in the past, on my frequent trips to Florida, the yellow-crowned are not very common this far north. So last Thursday, September 20th, I went out to see what I could find. All that I found was a green heron but unfortunately the trip was cut short by thunderstorms that rolled into the area.

So I decided to try again on Sunday. The weather report was supposed to be good so I got up early and headed out before the sun came up. I arrived at around 6:30 and made my way to the area by the golf course where the bird had last been reported. Another birder was behind me heading to the same area. I looked around on the golf course a bit and then the other birders cell phone rang. He told me that the person who had called had spotted the yellow-crown over by the creek, so we headed back that way. By the time we arrived the person who had spotted the bird had lost it in the tree cover. We looked around but we could not find the bird.

As the sun came up and began to light the area we did begin to spot the black-crowned night herons.

With their light color the adults where not too hard to spot.The immature where a different story though. Their color and the striped patterns on their wings and breast blended in real well with the bark of the trees. I continued to search the area for a couple of hours. During that time I saw 4 immature black- crowned, 3 adult black-crowned, quite a few sparrows and warblers and about 20 different birders. We were all looking for the yellow-crowned night heron and we did not have any luck. Finally I decided to leave. Beautiful sunny days are precious in the fall, winter, cold and snow come all too quickly, so I decided that I would go do some birding at Wood Lake Nature Center instead.

Later that evening I returned to Lake Hiawatha for another try at the yellow-crowned night heron and this time, with the help of several birders who were already there, I was able to get a couple of shots of the bird.He was in a high cotton wood tree near the road. the light was not really good, the sun was already beginning to set, and I had to shoot from quite a ways away. This meant using the teleconverter which means even darker pictures, so I decided to try and see if I could spot the bird from the other side.I did manage to find a hole through the foliage and was able to get a shot. The sun was behind the bird so the lighting was still pretty poor, but you can definitely see the difference between this bird and the immature earlier in the post. At about 7pm he flew off with an immature black-crowned towards the lake so I decided to call it a night.