Butterflies Crex Meadows

Last year around this time I was having a bit of a problem with the blog. I had posted all of the stuff from my Yellowstone trip, it was not as productive a trip as it was this year, and the spring migration was long over. I was going out shooting 4 to 5 times a week but there was not much variety and even I was getting sick of posting more and more goldfinch pics. That was when I decided to branch out a bit and I began to photograph butterflies and dragonflies to go along with the birds and other wildlife. This year the butterfly and dragonfly season started off a bit slow, mostly because of the late winter, but I have finally been able to start getting some descent bug pics. On June 1st we did find a few butterflies at Crex Meadows while we were out birding.
The clouded, or common, sulfur is a pretty common butterfly through out North America
The monarch butterfly is probably one of the most recognizable butterflies in North America.
This olympia marbled was a type that I had not seen or photographed before. When I first saw it I thought that it was a cabbage butterfly. When it's wings are open it is mostly plain white with a small black dot, very much what a cabbage butterfly looks like, but when I went to photograph it I noticed the gold almost glittery lines that ran across the outside wings. This was a pretty cool butterfly and a butterfly lifer for me.

A trip to Necedah NWR instead of Cape May

I had thought about going to the Cape May Autumn Convention this weekend but I decided against it. First off this would prolly be the last nice weekend at home and I was not sure I wanted to give that up and spend half my time flying and driving and in lectures at a convention. Second is the whole feral cat issue, Laura Erickson had a great post about the issue, which made it some what of a moral dilemma. So I decided that I would take some field trips around home instead. As it turns out it was a good call because, from what I have read, the weather at Cape May for most of the weekend was pretty bad, meanwhile here at home we had a gorgeous fall weekend.

Since the weather forecast for the weekend was looking so good I talked Michelle into going on a road trip to Necedah NWR in Wisconsin on Saturday. Necedah is popular for birders and naturalists particularly for the whooping crane project and the endangered karner blue butterfly. I had wanted to visit Necedah earlier in the year, when the karner blues were around, however with everything else I did this year I did not get a chance. I figured that the karners would be gone at this time of the year but I was still hoping to see a whooper. We saw whoopers down in Aransas NWR in Texas a couple of years ago but they were very far away and it was impossible to get even a mediocre photo. The Necedah website lists weekly numbers of waterfowl and cranes and the previous week they had listed 31 whoopers in the park so even though it would be a long shot I knew that it might be possible.

I let Michelle sleep in, the least that I could do since I was dragging her around the country side again, so we arrived at Necedah at around 11:00 am. This was our first visit to Necedah so we were not sure where the best place would be to spot wildlife so we just picked a road and began to drive. The road took us through a wooded area with a lot of dead and downed trees. It was not long before we spotted an immature red-headed woodpecker.
Juvenile red-heads have gray heads and black bars on white secondaries. As they progress from juvenile to immature status you can begin to see some red on the head.
Red-headed woodpeckers live in the eastern half of the US and south eastern Canada. They migrate from the northern parts of their range and spend the winter typically in Texas. When we visited we saw that there were still quite a few red-heads, both immature and adults, that had not left yet.

There were also quite a few adult red-headed woodpeckers. Red-heads are the most omnivorous of the woodpeckers. They will burrow into trees to get bugs or catch them in the air or on the ground. They will also eat seeds, berries, nuts, fruit, bird eggs, hatchlings or mice.Red heads are one of the few woodpeckers that are known to store food and the only type that will sometimes cover it up with bark. They hide seeds and nuts in cracks in wood, as shown above, and will even store live grasshoppers by wedging them into a tight crevice where they can't escape.Recent data shows that the numbers of red-heads is declining. This is most likely due to habitat loss and people clearing out dead trees. Red-heads need these dead trees for nesting so it is important that we leave some areas in their natural states. Necedah NWR had plenty of dead trees so it was perfect habitat for red-heads. After a while the ecosystem transitioned from old and dying deciduous woodlands to prairie. There was a short hiking trail so I decided to stop and get a bit of exercise. The trail was supposed to go through some wetlands and there was even a short boardwalk but things were pretty dry so there was very little water in sight and not many birds either. I did spot a white-throated sparrow in the brush.I got back to the car and we continued north. We kept looking for the pools and lakes that, according to the last weeks numbers on the website, held thousands of ducks, but all we found were hunters getting ready for the season. Finally we came to two large pools. We did see some ducks, geese, and swans but most where on the opposite side of the pools, which was to far away to get any pics. There was, however, a lesser yellowlegs on the shore on one side of the road that was not too far away.On the other side of the road a lone great blue heron caught himself some lunch. After the pools we continued to the trail where you can see the karner blue butterflies during the summer. They are found in this habitat because of the wild lupine that grows there is the only known food for their caterpillar state. Even though I did not think that there would be any karners left I decided to walk the trail anyway, after all I did see a monarch and a sulfur flying around.

I did not find any karners, all of the lupine was already dead, but I did find a ruby meadowhawk.On the way out of the park we spotted a red-tailed hawk.He decided that he did not like the look of our car, not sure what problem he had with Honda, so he took off and began to circle higher on the thermals. We never did get to see a whooper but I am definitely planning to go back next summer, prolly in early June. Hopefully on that trip I will get some shots of the Karner butterflies and maybe some pictures of juvenile red-headed woodpeckers.

Bass Ponds

I returned to the bass ponds in the Long Meadow Lake Unit of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. I have made several trips to this location over the past couple weeks in search of a descent picture of a belted kingfisher which I spotted there. This kingfisher is very wary and seems to move every time I am just about set up. This time however he flew to the top of a midsized tree and I was able to get some OK shots.

While I was there I got some shots of a great blue heron in flight,

A common sulfur butterfly,

and a group of turtles catching a tan on a log.

Birding and politics on a Saturday afternoon.

On July 11th I received an e-mail from the Minnesota Ornithologists Union about an upcoming rally at the Old Cedar Avenue Bridge on July 14th. The purpose of the rally was to show the state politicians, who were visiting the site, that they should help to fund a plan to replace the bridge. The bridge, which stretches across the Minnesota River, was replaced with a new bridge in 1979. It was closed to vehicular traffic in 1993 and to pedestrians and bicycles in 2002. As you can see by the picture below the bridge is in extremely poor shape.

So you may be wondering what an old bridge has to do with birding and the Minnesota Ornithologists Union, well this bridge extends through the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. This bridge was used by many birders to get a great view of the Minnesota river flood plains and mud flats before it became unsafe to use.
Now politicians in the cities of Bloomington, who currently owns the bridge, and Eagan, which is on the opposite side of the river, as well as several state politicians have put forth a plan to tare down the existing bridge and build a boardwalk platform on the existing cement supports. The problem is that the estimated cost is $4.5 million. A large part of that cost is for the removal of the existing bridge which contains lead so that it can not be knocked down conventionally. So far the supporters of the plan have secured $1.3 million in funding but still have a long way to go. That is why 200 or more people of all types (birders, bicyclists, hikers, and families) showed up on the 14th to show our support for this great cause. At the program, which began at noon, they had speakers ranging from local and state politicians, leaders of bicycle groups, neighbors, and leaders from MOU, Minnesota River Valley Audubon, and Minnesota Audubon.

I arrived at the park at 8:30am and spent my time waiting for the speakers program on the trails birding. The Old Cedar Avenue Bridge is a part of the Long Meadow unit of the Minnesota Valley NWR. There are a total of 8 units in MV NWR which follow the Minnesota River and stretch from Bloomington in the north to Jordan in the south. I walked all the trails north of the bridge. As I started from the bridge parking lot I saw an american redstart who had just caught itself some breakfast.

As I continued on I spotted several goldfinch near the bass ponds, which was once used to raise fish for stocking Minnesota lakes. This one was pulling the seeds out of the pods of the wildflowers when a bee ran smack into his head. Boy did he give that bee a dirty look.

Near the same pond I also saw this ruby-throated hummingbird.

I also saw several sparrow, some green heron, and some great blue heron. Then I went to the south of the bridge to check out the small boardwalk which goes out to the lake. There I saw a couple of great egret as well as tree and barn swallows.

I also took a couple of butterfly pics like this one of a common sulfur
and this eastern comma which looks like it had seen better days.
When I was walking back off the boardwalk I was startled by a white tail doe. She just sat and watched me as I walked past about 4 feet away.
This was the only deer that I saw which surprised me because on my trips to Fort Snelling State Park, which borders the park in the north, I have seen plenty of deer. It turned out to be a great morning and afternoon. I got out, did some birding and helped lend my support for a good cause.