Black Dog Lake

Winter in Minnesota can be both frustrating and rewarding if you are into wildlife photography. It is frustrating because over all there is a lack of wildlife activity. Plant and insect life is nonexistent outside, a lot of animals hibernate or survive under the snow, and many birds fly south for the winter. However the wildlife that remains seems to concentrate in specific areas so if you can find some good spots chances are good that you will find something to photograph.

Black Dog Lake is one of these spots. Black Dog Lake is a small lake that is adjacent to the Minnesota River and part of the Minnesota Valley NWR. An Excel Energy plant located here pumps warm water out keeping part of the river and lake open during the winter.

Open water is usually a big key to finding suitable winter wildlife habitat. Most waterfowl have layers of down feathers that help insulate their bodies while they swim in the icy waters, like this common merganser in the photo above.

Many different types of ducks are found in the open water, such as mallards, common goldeneye, plus common and hooded mergansers. Larger birds like Canada geese and trumpeter swans can also be found dabbling in the frigid water looking for plants and roots to eat.
In the large trees lining the river you will often see bald eagles perched using their acute vision to see fish in the icy waters. During the winter the mortality rate of fish goes up. This helps the eagles survive at this difficult time of the year since it is much easier to catch a dead fish floating in the river.

Watery Wednesday: Park Point 10-08

Each year I try and spend some time up around Lake Superior during the fall and early winter. There is usually a lot to look at around this time of the year, fall colors, migrating raptors and warblers and usually some interesting birds out on the lake. Some of these waterfowl are just stopping to rest and feed on their way south while others will be spending their winter here.

As the edges of the lake begin to freeze many birders up around Duluth spend a good deal of time scanning the large groups of gulls that winter there, looking for some of the more rare visitors. Herring and ring-billed gulls, like the one above, make up the bulk of the wintering gulls but if you are lucking you might find a Bonaparte's, Franklin's, Thayer's or something even more rare mixed in.

You might spot a double-crested cormorant on one of those warm fall days in late September but it is most likely just stopping by on its way south, or it has spent the summer there and has not yet left. Cormorants spend the winter in coastal waters, mainly in the south.

Common mergansers are pretty common on much of the open water in Minnesota during the winter. They might stay up on Lake Superior near where the ice forms around the shore or they might move south to the parts of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers that do not freeze up during the winter.

Yellowstone Waterfowl

This year we saw a lot more waterfowl in Yellowstone then we usually do. I am guessing that the reason had something to do with the weather. Up in Yellowstone spring was way behind. There was a lot more snow on the ground then we usually see, Yellowstone Lake was pretty much still completely frozen, this is the first time that we have seen it this way in the past 8 years, and we were told that Dunraven Pass, which is scheduled to open up Memorial Day weekend each year, still had something like 24 feet of snow. Where there wasn't snow there was snow melt. Streems became rivers and many fields became lakes. It may also have had something to do with the fact that to the north of the park Montana had very low water levels. This of course is all just speculation.
The fact was that there were more water around and we took advantage by getting some good pics. I found these ring-necked ducks on Saturday as we were driving through the park on our way to go back home. Even though it was pretty cloudy and drab they still threw a nice reflection in North Twin Lake.

On Friday we went a little way up the east enterence to check for bears, a grizzly with a cub had been spotted there on Wednesday. We did not find any bear but there was a little water down in Mary's Bay on Yellowstone Lake and we found a pair of common mergansers.
We usually get common mergansers in Minnesota, in the winter, but they are not usually as cooperative. This pair was fairly close to shore and was swimming slowly giving us some nice pics.

Black Dog Merganser

I had hoped to blog from the Sax Zim Birding Festival that I attended this weekend but unfortunately I did not have Internet access at the hotel, which I stayed at. I did take a lot of shots of some great winter birds that I will be posting about shortly. I need to get them all down loaded first so while you wait here is a picture that I took at Black Dog Lake back on the 9th.
It was very cold and pretty quiet that Saturday I did find a common merganser female in the icy water.
Last year when we were in California we found a red-breasted merganser in the much warmer waters of the Elkhorn Slough. Red-breasted mergansers typically migrate to costal water, like those in California, during the winter.
We also found a female bufflehead in the harbor at Moss Landing. I have photographed bufflehead in Ca, Two Harbors, MN and the Bosque Del Apache in New Mexico.
When we on our whale watch looking for gray whales, I have already photographed humpbacks and orcas, we came across this common murre.
The common murre is a bird that we do not see in Minnesota. It spends most of its life in the sea and usually leaves the water only to breed on islands or rocky shorelines.

In search of Ross's gull, snowy owl, and harlequin duck

While I was up in Duluth and Two Harbors doing the Christmas Bird Count last weekend all of the cool birds where spotted hanging out down in the Twin Cities. First there was a Ross's gull spotted in South Saint Paul, which is about 5 minutes from my house, on Saturday. Then a snowy owl was spotted at the Minneapolis Airport, 20 minutes from home, on Saturday and finally a harlequin duck or two was spotted in Hasting, MN, about 15 minutes from home.

I didn't get home from Two Harbors until after dark on Sunday and so Monday after work was my time to go out and chase the cool birds around the Twin Cities. Since the Ross's gull was extremely rare, only a few sightings ever reported in Minnesota, many people were out looking for it on Sunday with out any luck. So I decided to concentrate on the other two.

Since the airport is close to work I headed over there first. I drove around the airport a couple of times but did not see the owl. Daylight was quickly fading and I was getting worried about a visit from airport police or someone worse, driving around the airport looking for a bird tends to arise suspicion since 911, so I decided to make a quick trip over to Hastings.

When I got to the St Croix river, where the bird(s) had been seen, the sun was already low in the sky. I figured that I did not have a lot of time so I threw on my boots, grabbed my gear and headed down to the shoreline. There was quite a bit of activity in the open water so I began to scan for my target. The first thing to draw my attention were the larger birds like the Canadian geese and trumpeter swans.Next I looked further out but I just spotted some more swans coming towards me.

As the royal procession of swans swam by they were observed by a group of commoners, common goldeneye and common mergansers that is.I also spotted a few ring-necked ducks, redhead duck and canvasback but still no harlequin.The light was fading fast, it looked like I would be struck out 3 out of 3 on this day. I figured that I would try and salvage my time by checking out the goldeneyes to see if their might be any Barrow's mixed in with the commons.And that is when I spotted it. Mixed in with the goldeneye was a harlequin. I tried to keep the camera on him but the light was getting bad and he was quite a ways away.He moved off from the goldeneyes to go check out some chick. Ultimately I got him alone. These were definitely not great shots but this was my first harlequin, a lifer if I kept a true life list. Eventually I hope to build a website to go along with the blog and that time I will feature my life list, in pictures, on the site. Hopefully before that time comes I will have the opportunity to get some better pictures of harlequin ducks but if not I will be happy to at least have pictures that you can definitely identify as a harlequin.

Another foray to Black Dog Lake

On Thursday December 13th I decided to go back down to Black Dog Lake to see if the horned grebe was still around so that I could get some more pictures. I did not find the grebe but the trumpeter swans that have been hanging out on the lake were in a better possition for me to get some pics.

Out on the river the warmer weather has melted some of the ice so there is now more open water then there was at the beggining of the month when we had extremely cold temps. The hooded mergansers were still hanging around.
But a group of common mergansers has now also moved into the area.

The eagles where still around but they spent most of their time perched in the tall trees across the river. One immature did take off and moved up river.I had to practice my parking in the middle of the road technique and shoot through the small trees lining the road just to get a pic.

A trip down the Mississippi River in search of open water and eagles

Well winter finally came to Minnesota at the beginning of December, which is much earlier then we have seen in quite a while. Minnesota in the winter does not have a large assortment of birds to photograph but there are some birds that are easier to find and get pics in the winter. The bald eagle is one of those birds. There are more bald eagles living in Minnesota then in any other state in the US other then Alaska. Bald eagles do not mind the cold of the Minnesota winter, which often gets down below -20 Fahrenheit with a -40 or lower wind chill factor, but they do require open water. They require open water for fishing, their primary food.

They also require open water because eagles are opportunistic eaters. This means they will eat what ever takes the least amount of energy to get. Carrion, in the form of already dead animals or fish, requires no energy for hunting and so bald eagles will take advantage of this easy food source. However dead carcasses are usually dry and so the bald eagle requires a water source to drink from. Golden eagles on the other hand eat mostly live prey, which they catch, and get most of the liquid that they need from their food.

During the winter when the lakes and rivers in Minnesota, the surrounding states, and south central Canada freeze up the eagles migrate south to where they find open water. There are several places in the greater Twin Cities area that the water usually stays open all year. On Friday December 7th I got off of work and headed out to explore a couple of these areas.

The first area that I checked was Red Wing, MN. The Excel Energy Steam Plant on the south end of RedWing keeps the river from freezing. There is a small local harbor and park located south of the plant which is a great place to eagle watch during the winter months.

On this trip I only found a few eagles at Red Wing but there was a flock of common mergansers hanging around in the harbor and the river. As I have noticed before at Vadnais Lake and Black Dog Lake the females usually seem to be less wary and will often come closer. Maybe they are just more photogenic then the males.Especially when they get their doo all fixed up.But right when you get set up for that great National Geographic shot they decide to play hard to get and fly away.
The males just sat around on the other side of the water by the ice chillin' out.

The second area that I visited was on the river down by the very small town of Reed's Landing, which is between Red Wing and Wabasha. This is where the Chippewa River flows out of Wisconsin and dumps into the Mississippi. The fast flowing water from the Chippewa churns as it spills into the slower, wider Mississippi. This helps to keep the water from freezing up in this location. However early December has been unusually cold and there was only a small pool of water still open in the middle of the river.
There were about 30 eagles on the ice around the open water or circling in the sky above searching for their next meal.
Besides the eagles there was also a mixed flock of golden eyes and mergansers. The waterfowl were not bothered at all by the presence of the large raptors. Eagles will not usually go after a bird as large as these except perhaps if there was an injured or sick bird.
The bigger threat would be that an eagle might try and snag a fish from one of the waterfowl. Though mostly they were working hard trying to catch fish of their own.

On my way home I had a pretty nice fly by from an immature eagle on his way to the open water. I am sure that there are many people around the state who have used some choice words, most of them have four letters, to describe the maniac who flew off the road in front of them, slammed on his breaks and jumped out of his car to take a picture of a bird. That is how I will probably leave this world. I can see the headlines now. "Minnesota birder dies today, a victim of a crazy 75 years old housewife who shot him down in a fit of road rage". LOL

Common goldeneye and hooded merganser hybrid at Vadnais Lake

One of the more interesting birds that was swimming around Vadnais Lake appears to be a common goldeneye and hooded merganser hybrid.
This bird was pretty confusing at first.
But I did a bit of research on the web and found that others have seen this mix and there are pictures here and there and all pretty much look the same.

It was swimming around with a group common goldeneye.In a different group of goldeneye I did spot a hooded merganser female. She seemed to be hanging out with the goldeneye.So it seems that the two species do socialize.

Birding in Yellowstone part 1: water fowl

From May 20th to the 25th we took our annual trip to Yellowstone National Park. This is the 6th year in a row that we have made a trip to Yellowstone/Grand Tetons. We have been their 3 times in the end of September and now 3 times in the end of May.

When we go in the fall we typically stay down in Jackson, WY and spend most of our time down in the Tetons photographing moose. When we go in the spring we stay up in West Yellowstone and spend most of our time on the northern loop of Yellowstone. Unfortunately this year the weather was not as good as it has been on past trips so we did not see as much as we usually have.

We did see quite a bit of waterfowl this year. We spotted these lesser scaup swimming in the Bridge Bay of Lake Yellowstone. This picture was one of the few pictures that we were able to take on Tuesday. It snowed pretty much every day that we were at the park but on Tuesday it snowed all day long. This made the visibility pretty poor which made it very difficult to take pictures.

Thursday we had a bit better weather. It still cloudy that day but it only snowed off and on. While driving through the park we noticed a pair of common merganser swimming in the Gibbon River. I was pretty excited because grebes, loons and mergansers are some of my favorite non-raptors. So I stopped to take some pictures. As I moved up to get even with them to take their picture the pair kept swimming upstream. The current was pretty quick so they were not able to swim very fast. Each time I would get even with them I would stop to shoot and they would move further up stream. This happened a few times until I decided to get smart and wait to stop until I got a head of them. As usual it was the birds that out smarted me. As soon as I got further upstream then they were, they turned around and shot down stream flying quickly away on the current. I got a few more shots as I walked back to the car but I decided that if they were that determined not to have their picture taken that it would be better to be satisfied with the pictures that I had rather then stress the birds out any more.

We spotted this barrow's goldeneye on Floating Island Lake. This trumpeter swan was also photographed at Floating Island Lake. He seemed to have problems with the neighbors. A couple of times he chased canadian geese around the lake shore.
We spotted a group of american white pelicans swimming in the Yellowstone River. This was about the only time on Tuesday that it was not snowing. The break lasted long enough for me to get a couple of shots. I will post more bird pics as well as some of the other pics that we took in the next few posts.