Kingfisher, Bufflehead, Egret, Pelicans

After doing some birding at Fort Snelling State Park on April 20th I headed down the Minnesota River a bit to the Minnesota Valley NWR to see what wildlife that I could find.
At the marsh across from Black Dog Lake, which technically is still part of Fort Snelling, I found the female belted kingfisher that I have photographed on a few occasions lately. She was perched on her favorite snag but she did not stay very long this time.
In one of the small ponds near Black Dog I found a pair of bufflehead ducks.
Across the river a the old Cedar Avenue Bridge I found an egret who was pretty intent on its fishing.
There was not a lot to photograph from the boardwalk at Old Cedar Ave. Quite a few ducks and geese around but most were not with in good photographic range. As I was leaving, to head over to Wood Lake Nature Center to check things out there, a kettle of white pelicans flew over, following the river north.

Migrating Waterfowl at Black Dog Lake

My birding expedition on Sunday began at Black Dog Lake. Much of Black Dog Lake does not freeze during the winter, due to the Excel Energy Plant that is located there, so while many other large lakes still had a lot of ice on them Black Dog was primarily ice free. This makes it one of the best spots around to see migrating waterfowl and this Sunday did not disappoint.
There were of course the usual mallard ducks out dabbling in the shallow waters.

They were joined by lesser scaups.
There were also a few pair of blue-winged teal.
The teal were located in the marsh that is east of the lake and actually a part of Fort Snelling State Park. This area has become a very good wetland area due mainly to beaver activity. I am going to try and get some beaver photos this weekend so that I can do a post on them. Since beavers work mainly at night it may be a challenge but I think that it will be worth it.
On the east channel to the river there were a couple of northern shovelers.
As I walked on the path that run along the lake from the east channel I startled a hooded merganser who swam away from shore with his hood in full display.

After I finished at Black Dog I crossed the river to check out the waterfowl at the old Cedar Ave Bridge. From the observation deck that goes out a little way over the overflow area of the Minnesota River I spotted quite a few ducks and mergansers but most were too far away to get any good pics. One exception was a group of white pelicans that had stopped over to rest on a shallow part of the river.

The shallow spot which they were roosting on was not that far from the observation deck so I was able to get some pics. Notice the notch on the beak which is an indication that it is the breeding season.

Ding Darling NWR

The Ding Darling Refuge on Sanibel Island is considered by many birders as the top birding location in the US. It was first set aside as the Sanibel National Wildlife Refuge in 1945 by Harry Truman. Later, in 1967, it was renamed for Jay Norwood Darling, environmentalist, political cartoonist and creator of the first duck stamp, who was instrumental in getting the land preserved.

Located on Sanibel Island on the gulf coast of Florida the 6400 acres refuge consists mostly of submerged seagrass beds, mangrove forest, cordgrass marshes, and West Indian hardwood hammocks and is habitat for over 220 species of birds. Many waterfowl from all over North America migrate to their wintering grounds in the Ding Darling NWR, these include American white pelican, double-crested cormorant, snowy and great egrets, and well as many other types of birds.

If you visit Florida and you are at all interested in birds Ding Darling is a place that you must visit.

Midwest Birding Symposium

I arrived in the Quad Cities on Thursday a little bit before 4pm. That evening at 5pm was the opening reception at the Putnam Museum in Davenport, IA. At the reception there was a short program with some awards given out and some announcements made and then we had time to check out the museum. The Putnam also provided people an opportunity to take a behind the scenes tour. I thought that this might be interesting so I signed up for one. Since we were a birding group the behind the scenes tour was focused on the bird exhibits that they had in storage. A lot of the people seemed excited to see a bunch of stuffed and mounted birds. A lot of the birders where identifying species or taking pictures. I was kind of creeped out by the whole thing. I love watching birds because they are so live and free and I try to capture that life with my camera. Stuffed and mounted birds are not live or free and it made me a little sad to see them that way. After the tour I wandered around exploring exhibits about the local history and the civil war which I enjoyed much more.

Friday morning was the first of two field trips which I signed up for. The trip was to the Andalusia Slough and Milan Bottoms on flatbottom DNR boats. The trip started at 6am and it was pretty cold out on the river. The first thing that we came across where several large flocks of white pelicans. I could not count them all but there was well over 100 pelicans all together, which the local people who were on the trip said was more then usual.

It was still a little dark so it was difficult getting a sharp picture, especially on a moving boat with no tripod. As we got closer the pelicans took of in a big wave of white and black feathers.
We saw quite a few waders along the shore lines including

solitary sandpiper

great blue heron

and great egret.

We also saw some waterfowl including american coot.

Other birds that we saw that I did not get a picture of where mallards, green heron, belted kingfishers and numerous songbirds.

The boat launch that we left from and returned too also had a very interesting weather vane. This was very confusing at first. We were not quite sure why all of these bikes where on a pole about 30 feet off the ground. Then the wind blew and the direction that it was pointing shifted and we realized that it was a weather vane.

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.