Camera Critters: Goslings

One of the sure signs of spring, here in Minnesota, is when you go out birding and find Canada geese surrounded by small yellow fluff balls.
Early May is typically the time that Canada geese eggs hatch. Canada geese are very common year round in this area, so much so that they sometimes are thought of as a nuisance, and as such they are not often the subject of too many photographers, but when they are accompanied by young goslings then things are much different.

Canada geese are ground nesters. They make a bowl shaped nest out of vegetation, typically in an elevated location near to water. The female, who does most of the nest construction will line the nest with her own down feathers. When the nest is complete she will begin to lay her clutch of eggs.

It can take several days to over a week for the female to lay all of her eggs. Each egg takes about a day to lay and clutch sizes can run from 2 to 12 eggs, with 3 to 6 being the most common. The female will then incubate her eggs for around 25 to 30 days while the male keeps guard over the nest and the female. When they are ready to hatch the young goslings use their egg tooth to crack through their shell, it typically takes a day or 2 for them to break the shell and emerge. They are born with their eyes open and able to stand. They will stay around the nest for a day or two and then they are able to go out with the adults and swim, dive and find their own food.

Watery Wednesday: Chicks

This weeks Watery Wednesday pics were taken at Fort Snelling State Park back in May.

Canadian geese are a pretty common sight in Minnesota year round. During the late fall and early winter, like right now, they gather in large flocks and scavenge the farm fields for any left over grains.

Since they are so common geese I typically do not spend much time photographing them. However when they are surrounded by four tiny little yellow balls of down they are really hard to ignore.

The Day Before Vacation

Well I am back from vacation. It has been hard to get back to my normal life after spending 9 days shooting pictures for 10to 14 hours a day. I just began to make a small dent in going through the trip pics yesterday. With 120gb worth of pics it may take a while. I hope that you guys don't get sick of Yellowstone pics too quickly. I spent most of the day yesterday doing stuff around the house, like washing cloths, giving Misty kitten some much needed attention and then Michelle and I took in the new Narnia flick.

I do have one last group of photos that I shot the evening before we left on vacation. It was a Wednesday and it was supposed to be cloudy that day, since my new lens was already packed I brought my old lens with me to work and The Raptor Center and when it turned out to be sunny I could not help but stop off at Fort Snelling State Park on my way home.
I was really disappointed not to have my new lens, I have become spoiled very quickly, with so many warblers around. The AF with my old 100-400mm lens does not pick up small birds very well so I am often forced to use manual focus which does not work very well with small darting birds like warblers. So the pictures did not come out as well as they would have if I had brought the new lens. I followed this black and white warbler from tree to tree but was only able to get a few marginal pictures like the one above. I love how the black and white warblers act a lot like nuthatches, although I have not seen them walking down the tree like nuthatches like to do.
This magnolia warbler did not come out as well as I would have liked either.
The American redstart was a little more cooperative and gave me enough time to get a good focus.
Besides warblers there was also a few Baltimore orioles.
Although I am not sure who was watching who?

The fun part of shooting that night was the newly hatched goslings
I spotted 3 different pairs of Canadian geese with goslings. each had a clutch of 2 to 4.
When photographing something as cute as young goslings I guess it does not matter what type of lens that you use.
Too bad they have to grow up. The goslings are cute but adult geese can become a nuisance.
One of the adults decided that it did not want me taking any more photos of the babies and it started to hiss at me. It is all bluff and bluster, since there is not much that a goose can do to hurt a person, but I did not want to stress them so I headed home to pack. I guess that the goose did not want its little goslings to be stars but it was already too late. Anything that cute will always draw attention.

Birding Wood Lake Nature Center

On March 26th I also made a foray to Wood Lake Nature Center to see how much of it was still under the grasp of winter.
Most of what I saw were pretty common birds like Canadian geese. It is about nesting time so when another goose approached this pair he was quickly shown the door.
The American goldfinch have begun to molt into the breeding plumage that most people recognize.
And northern cardinals are all over singing.
I was hoping to find an owls nest. I photographed a great horned nest for about 2 weeks at Wood Lake last year, which was the first thing that I began my blog with. But I had no luck.
I even approached this wood duck house hoping that maybe a small cavity nesting owl, like perhaps a screech owl, might be using the box but all that I found was a couple of annoyed squirrels.

My First Birding Trip to Rochester, MN

Here are some more pics from a time when the sun once shined on Minnesota, March 16th. Although by the time that I took these pics the clouds that we have seen most of the past week plus had already begun to role in.
These pictures were taken at Silver Lake Park in Rochester, MN. A lot of people feed the geese at Silver Lake so there were quite a few Canadian geese around.
There were also quite a few mallards. Mallards and Canadian geese are both pretty common year round in Minnesota.
One bird that I have not seen in Minnesota for a while is the American coot.
This was the first time that I had birded Rochester so I was not sure where else to go but since it is only about an hour drive from home I may have to do some research and make another visit.

Birding Woodlake Nature Center

I spent some time earlier this week at Woodlake Nature Center. This was the first opportunity that I have had to get out to Woodlake while the weather was descent. The birds have begun to migrate back through so things are getting a bit more exciting, even though I still took more pictures of insects on this visit then I did birds. One of the birds that I viewed on this visit that I have not seen there before was a gray catbird.

It was pretty hard to get a picture of him, since he was pretty well hidden in the brush. I was hoping to hear his cat call but unfortunately he was silent.

There were several cardinals around in the woods by the visitors center. Both of the males and the one female that I saw looked pretty scruffy as they seem to be molting.

There are still plenty of american goldfinch around.

And a few downy woodpeckers were out in the wooded areas.Things are still pretty wet from all of the rain we received a couple of weeks ago, which is good for the canadian geese who have remained throughout the summer.It is also nice for the wood ducks who have stopped back in the area on their way back through the fall migration.

Last spring bird walk at Wood Lake

Thursday May 10th was the last bird walk of the spring at Wood Lake Nature Center. A hooded merganser has made the unusual choice of nesting in a wood duck nesting box on the dock near the visitor center. Every time people walk on the dock the nesting box shakes and the merganser heads for the water. This evening was no exception. Here she is waiting for all of the birders to leave. I think that she is going to have a very long nesting season.
We spotted this Baltimore oriole near the visitor center. On past visits the orioles stayed in the high branches of the trees but I think that this bird was looking to audition for American idol. He followed us around for a while and sang to get our attention. I wonder what Simon wold say?
The yellow-headed blackbird that I had photographed a couple of weeks before was out showing off.
I even got a couple pictures of the new arrivals as the goslings drank at a small pool.
It was another great time at Wood Lake. The birding trips are over for the spring but they intend to continue them again in the fall. Keep an eye on the websites for more information on the fall trips I would certainly recommend them.

Fun at Crex Meadows

Sunday we went up to Crex Meadows in Wisconsin. The weather was very nice with mostly sunny skies. Crex is about an hour to an hour and a half northeast of the Twin Cities, just across the Minnesota and Wisconsin border. This is the earliest that we have made the trip up and it was not quite as green as it was here in the Twin Cities. The water levels were good and the waterfowl had started to return. We saw a lot of canadian geese nesting.
There were also quite a few american coots, especially near the shoreline of Phantom Lake.

We also saw some blue-winged teal and a few ring-necked ducks.

The highlight of the trip were the trumpeter swans. As you can see in the pictures they have already begun to nest. We will need to come back again in June to hopefully photograph the cygnets. We saw about a dozen swans throughout Crex.

We did not see as many raptors as we have on past trips. This osprey had left it's platform and was scouring the lakes and ponds for fish. The only other raptor that we saw was a northern harrier but it was flying too fast to get a picture. In the past we have also seen kestrels, red-tails, and peregrine at Crex.

Some of the sandhill cranes have returned. In the fall, Crex is usually home to large flocks of sandhills which feed on the refuge fields. On this trip we only saw about a half dozen cranes, all of them foraging in several areas that had been control burned. All were painted up for mating season looking a lot more orange then the ones that I photographed in the Bosque del Apache earlier this year in February.
As usual the red-winged black birds were "singing in the marsh, just singing in the marsh".
On the way out we passed several bird houses on the grounds of the local airport. On the pole for each house stood a tree swallow, their metallic teal wings glinting in the bright sun.
We had a great time being outside and enjoying the weather. We plan to return in early June when we hope to see more waterfowl and trumpeter cygnets.