Warbler Wave Crashes on Crosby Park

Well the wave of warblers that I have been hoping for this past month finally hit this weekend. Even though it was a bit chilly it was sunny and the warblers were out in force. It was a perfect weekend for photography. Because of our late winter the trees are just starting to leaf out which makes photographing these tiny little birds a lot easier.

The last time that we had a warbler wave was back in 2011. During that wave I photographed many of the different species at the Minnesota Valley Refuge and Crosby Farm Park. So on Friday, after I left work, I headed over to Crosby. The woods were thick with the common warblers, yellow-rump, palm, black and white and yellow, but I also managed to find some of the sexy warblers, like magnolia, black-throated green, Wilsons, blackburnian and more. Crosby is an excellent location to find warblers during spring migration because much of the park is wooded flood plain which is excellent habitat for wood warblers. The park is also along the Mississippi River which is the path that the warblers in this area take to migrate, the Mississippi flyway.

Warblers Everywhere

I have spent most of the past couple days out photographing warblers. In years that we have winter that lasts  longer then normal we often have a week or two of great warbler opportunities. The warblers usually begin to migrate through at the beginning of May. Usually it is the yellow-rumps that come first and they are the species that we see the greatest numbers of. Usually it is the end of the second week that we see the sexy warblers, like the blackburnian above. So far this year there are still a few species that I hope to see but have not spotted yet but tomorrow is supposed to be a nice day weather wise so I still have a chance. Even if I do not see all the species I have had some great opportunities to photograph most of the species which is a lot better than last year. In 2012 winter was over in March. When the warblers came through in May the trees all had leaves and there were plenty of insects to eat up on their nesting territories up north so I only was able to photograph yellow butts.  

Spring Warbler Migration

 The winter this year has been long and daunting, especially compared with the extremely mild winter that we had last year. While things have begun to melt there is still a good amount of snow. In fact it was snowing again yesterday, although the rain today has melted most of the new snow. It will take probably another month before the lakes are free of the ice. This is not such a good thing if you are like me and half of what you photograph are insects. Last year at this time I was already out photographing flowers, butterflies and other bugs. This year it looks like at least a couple more weeks to a month before we start to see any insect life.

One thing that I am looking forward to this year is the warbler migration. Warblers usually migrate through here on the way to their northern breeding grounds beginning in May. Last year the trees were beginning to leaf out around the beginning of April so by the time the warblers came through the trees were full of leaves making it difficult to see the warblers, let alone get a decent pic. They also did not hang out long last year since the trees up north had already bloomed and they were full of bugs to eat. The winter of 2011 was similar to the one that we are having now. It held on and the trees did not begin to leaf out until May. There was a good week where I was able to go out every day and spot 15 to 20 different species of warblers, like the blackburnian and chestnut-sided warblers above. I am hoping that this spring will be similar. That will make the long wait worth it. 

Blackburnian Warbler

 The blackburnian warbler is the only warbler in North America that has an orange throat. They breed in the south eastern half of Canada and parts of the north eastern United States. They typically breed in coniferous forests or coniferous forests mixed with deciduous trees. On breeding territory they form a cup shaped nest on the edge of a tree branch. Blackburnian do nest in south eastern Minnesota.

Like most warblers, blackburnian warblers eat insects which they glean from tree branches. Since there are no insects during the winter on most of their breeding ground they migrate south each fall down to northern South America. During migration they will often mix with flocks of other small birds, such as chickadees, to forage. However when they arrive at their wintering grounds they go their separate way and live a solitary existence 

TuesdayTweets

Welcome to Tuesday Tweets. To join in the fun, just post a photo of a bird on your blog then come here and enter your information in the inlinkz tool down below. Don't forget to put a link back to here on your blog and the pretty little banner photo. Then visit all of the sites that participate to see a lot of cool bird pics.

Tuesday Tweets

The blackburnian warbler is easy to identify since it is the only warbler in North America that has an orange throat. They nest in south east Canada and the north eastern United States. They prefer coniferous forests and are highly territorial. During the winter they migrate down to South America. During migration they will often mix in with flocks of other species.

Welcome to Tuesday Tweets. To join in the fun, just post a photo of a bird on your blog then come here and enter your information in the inlinkz tool down below. Don't forget to put a link back to here on your blog and the pretty little banner photo. Then visit all of the sites that participate to see a lot of cool bird pics.

Tamarac NWR

At the Detroit Lakes Festival of Birds back in May I visited the Tamarac NWR several times. Since the refuge is only about 18 miles away from Detroit Lakes it was a great place to go and shoot pictures whenever I got a break during the festival. Besides that I also signed up to take a half day field trip to the refuge.

Tamarac was established back in 1938 as a breeding grounds for migrating birds. It consists of almost 43,000 acres of rolling forested hills mixed with lakes, rivers, bogs and swamps. It is named after the tamarac tree, a deciduous conifer that loses its needles each winter just like other deciduous trees loose their leaves.

The main reason that I choose to go to Tamarac for one of my field trips was to try and get a picture of a golden-winged warbler. Even though these birds breed quite extensively in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin I had never seen one before, but Tamarac is known to be one of the best places to see them and on the field trip I got my chance. Despite the gray overcast weather that morning we ventured into a portion of the park that was closed to normal visitors and that is where I got my first sighting, and pics, of a golden-winged warbler.

There were many other types of warblers around also. We spotted chestnut-sided, yellow warblers, American redstart, ovenbird, and Blackburnian warblers. I photographed this Blackburnian on the trails near the visitors center when I returned after the field trip instead of eating lunch.

We did also spot some birds other then warblers. This veery did not seem to care much about a bunch of people walking through the woods. It landed on the path a few feet away and began to walk around searching for food. It stayed on the ground in front of us for several minutes before he food something to eat and flew away with it.

Near the lakes and in some of the more marshy areas we found blue-winged teal, mallards, trumpeter swans, common loons, common yellow-throat and marsh wrens. I was able to snap a couple of shots of this marsh wren as he came to check out what was going on.

One of the things that makes Tamarac so cool is that it is right in the area where three major biomes converge. The coniferous forest stretches down from the north, the northern hardwood forests from the east and the tall grass prairie from the west. Due to the convergence of these different biomes there is a diversity of flora and fauna here that you do not find in many other places.

This includes a variety of different dragonflies. I was able to photograph quite a few new life dragons on this trip. The day that I arrived it was pretty slow on the dragon front with this American emerald the only dragonfly that I spotted that day. However by the time I left, two days later, several species had emerged and I was able to get pics of crimson-ringed whiteface, Hudsonian whiteface, belted whiteface, spiney baskettail and more.

There were also butterflies to photograph like this tiger swallowtail that I found near the visitors center. I was hoping that this was a Canadian tiger swallowtail, since I already have plenty of pictures of eastern tiger swallowtail, but I was never able to get a shot with its wings closed so I will never really know.

Birding in Fort Snelling State Park

Today we begin the trip home. I always get sad to leave here and go back to the real world, but we have a lot of great pictures. This is probably our most productive trip to Yellowstone. We saw almost everything that there was to see. We had 3 wolf sightings this year, which was great because we have never seen wolves in the park before. We got some pics of a prairie falcon, which was a life bird for me. We also got some good badger shots and golden eagle shots. We had seen both in the park on past trips but we were able to get better pics this time. Yesterdays weather actually cleared up quite a bit, despite what the weather people forecasted, and we were fortunate to see an elk calf that had been born only 30 minutes before we photographed it. We also got a lot of great bird pics including mountain bluebird, raven, white-crowned sparrow, common merganser, buffelhead, Barrow's goldeneye, eared grebe, kestrel, grouse and a few more.

We did not get back until late yesterday and we are trying to leave soon so I did not have time to get any more Yellowstone pics ready, but I do have some more passerines that I photographed at Fort Snelling State Park on May 12th.

song sparrow
white-throated sparrow
gray catbird
yellow-rumped warbler Myrtle variety

blackburnian warbler

I will have a lot of pics to share when I get home but I may not be able to post for the next couple of days while we are driving. If I am not able to post I hope that everyone has a happy Memorial Day.

Warblers and Friends from Fort Snelling

Before we left on vacation I was almost sad to be leaving. With the spring migration coming late this year, due to the extended winter weather, the warblers were all over at home. They seemed to be holding up waiting for the weather up north to get better, but I figure by the time that we get back they will have moved on. I can't complain though because we have had a great time shooting out in Yellowstone. Here are some more of the warblers, and orioles, that I was seeing before we left.

Baltimore oriole
Tennessee warbler

yellow warbler
orange-crowned warbler

blackburnian warbler

black-throated green warbler

Maybe I will get lucky and some of the stragglers will still be around when I get back but for now I am going to go out and enjoy nature where I am, even with the couple of inches of snow that fell last night.