Sparrows, woodpeckers and bluebirds at Wood Lake Nature Center

It was still light out when I left Minnesota River Valley NWR on Saturday the 6th so I decided to run over to Wood Lake Nature Center to see what was going on over there. I started out by checking by the visitors center where I spotted a few song sparrows.
Then I went out on the paths and walked my typical figure eight. On the south side of the park I got a nice view of a woodpecker. I identified it as a hairy woodpecker because I did not see any white spots on the tail like a downy would have.On the west side of the park I found another banded woolly bear caterpillar looking for a place to hibernate. Maybe all of the woolly bear caterpillars that I have been seeing lately are a sign that winter will be here soon. There are people who use woolly bear caterpillars to forecast the weather. Can you imagine your TV weather man bringing up images of woolly bears instead of Doppler Radar?

I also got some nice shots of an eastern bluebird. Unfortunately I was trying to get a bit closer and two walkers passed me by and flush the bird. A while later the mosquitoes started to get fierce and the light got low so I packed it up and headed for home.

Fort Snelling State Park

On June 29th I read on the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union list server that a prothonotary warbler had been spotted at Fort Snelling State Park. Since it is only a short 20 minute drive I decided to run over and see if I could get a picture. That day I did not see the prothonotary but I did get a good look at a peregrine falcon that appears to be living under the Mendota Bridge which passes directly over a large part of the park. Since the 29th I have made several trips back to Fort Snelling. I did get a glimpse of the prothonotary once as it crossed the path that I was on but was never able to get a picture. I did find some good subjects while I was in the park though. Like the eastern phoebe pictured below. I found him at the edge of a small field that opened up out of the woods.

There were also some downy woodpeckers checking out the small trees that lined the field.

On most my trips to the park I got some shots of indigo bunting.

They liked to sing in a dead tree on the side of the trail.
The indigo bunting were more blue then this juvenile eastern bluebird that I found.The Minnesota River travels from the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge through the park and then connects to the Mississippi. The flood plain of the Minnesota River provides plenty of shallow water for long legged waders, like great egret and great blue heron, to hunt.
The egrets and heron are not the only hunters in the park. Several times I have spotted the peregrine again on my visits.

Unfortunately I have not been as close as the first time that I spotted it, usually I see it perched on the high support beams of the bridge.

But one morning I was lucky and it decided to take off from a beam that was fairly close and so I got some decent flight shots.

There are other things to photograph in the park other then birds. There are a lot of white tailed dear in Minnesota, even in the Twin City metro area, so photographing them is kind of like taking pictures of cowbirds or robins.

However the fawns are still cute and fun to watch and they are plentiful at this time.

I found a pair of muskrat working on building there home.

They kept going to a small island, in the pond that their home was located, digging up weeds and then dragging them through the water back to their home on the opposite bank.

I also took a lot of pictures of butterfly and dragonfly but I will save them for my next post.

Yellowstone Birding 3: Back to the birds

We did see a few birds during the snow storm on Tuesday. Besides for lesser scaup we also did see a couple of yellow-rumped warblers. I believe that this is a male of the Audubon's variety. There were a few of them scavenging the beach of Yellowstone Lake.

On Wednesday after we finished photographing the male black bear near tower I noticed a guy taking pictures of a blue grouse. The bird seemed to stand still and very close to the photographer as though it enjoyed having his picture taken. I stopped to get a couple of shots myself. As the other photographer moved the grouse seemed to follow him. This happened for a couple of minutes with the bird following behind the photographer.
It was pretty apparent that this bird was very habituated to human contact. I am guessing that he had been fed in the past and was looking for a hand out. He finally stopped following the poor guy and decided to try some more natural food.

While photographing the coyote den on Wednesday I spotted a female mountain bluebird flying around. I managed to snap a shot when she stopped to pose on a branch. We saw several male mountain bluebird during the trip but were not able to get close enough to get a descent shot this time around.
Floating island lake is named because of the small island which appears to be floating in the middle of the lake. Every spring that we have been there we have seen sandhill crane nesting on this small island. This year was no exception.

Since the nest is a little ways from the road I decided to break out the scope and digiscoped a couple of pictures instead of using my Canon.

We also spotted the male foraging the fields to the east of the lake.

Talk about foraging. Birds like crows, ravens, and american magpie, as shown below, were always around the gift shops, visitors centers, and picnic grounds waiting for food to drop. The little beggars reminded me of my cat, always begging for food.