My World: Bosque del Apache

In the middle of New Mexico, surrounded by Mountains and dessert, lies an oasis that is one of the top birding locations in the United States, the Bosque del Apache.

The Bosque is a 57,000 acre National Wildlife Refuge that straddles the Rio Grande River in Central New Mexico. It is comprised of 3,800 acres of active flood plane from the Rio Grande as well as 9,100 acres of wetlands, farm land and riparian forest which was created through a system of water management. These wetlands are surrounded by arid foothills, mesas and dessert.

Because it is the only extensive wetlands in an arid region the Bosque attracts many different types of birds, over 340 species, through out the year. However many people choose to bird the Bosque during the winter months when large flocks of water fowl descend on the wetlands making it their winter home.
My last visit to the Bosque was in January of 2007, which is when I took all of the pictures in this post. It was great to be there during the peak waterfowl season.

There were a lot of ducks out on the lakes and pools when I was there. A lot of them are pretty common back home in Minnesota during the warmer months, like coots and mallards, but there were other ducks that I rarely get to see back home. In Minnesota we do not see northern pintails all that often, at least not in the eastern portions of the state, so it was a treat to get many very close views of them down at the Bosque.
There were also a few northern shovelers swimming around. Shovelers are another duck that tends to spend their time more in the western portions of the continent.

I also got a chance to see a small group of greater white-fronted geese. This was a life bird for me. These birds breed up near the arctic circle and then spend their winters down in the southern US and Mexico.

The greater white-fronted geese were on the outskirts of a large flock of snow geese. Although snow geese where not a lifer for me on this trip, we sometimes see snow geese as they migrate south plus I had seen them on a previous trip to the Bosque, they are still a bird that I have only seen a couple of times. The Bosque is usually home to over 30,000 snow and Ross geese each winter.

The snow geese are not the only things that winter at the Bosque in large numbers. Approximately 14,000 sandhill cranes spend the winter on the refuge.

Sandhill cranes nest in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin so these are birds that I have seen and photographed often but we do not usually see them in as great of numbers as is possible down at the Bosque.

The big spectacle, during the winter, are the "fly in" at dusk and the "fly out" at dawn. Each day large flocks of birds spend their day out in the fields and farmland looking for food, but at night they come back to roost on the shallow pools of the Bosque. The times when the birds are coming in "fly in" or leaving "fly out" attract large crowds of spectators.

The Bosque has many different types of habitat, besides the wetlands, to explore. The arid hilly regions were habitat that was different then anything that I have near home.
Some of the birds preferred the habitat of these dry open hills. Many raptors could be found circling these areas looking for prey. The raptors that I saw at the Bosque were eagles, red-tailed hawks, coopers hawks, American kestrel and mostly northern harrier, like pictured above.
There were also quite a few passerines and other small birds that were birds that I do not often see like roadrunners, spotted towhee and red shafted northern flickers, the northern flickers that we see in Minnesota or typically yellow-shafted.

Bowdoin NWR Waterfowl

We arrived at Bowdoin NWR at around 10:30 am. Even though this was our first visit to the refuge we could tell that, like Medicine Lake, it was suffering from a shortage of water. At one point when I was trying to get a bit closer to get a better shot I found myself standing on a bed of silt that should have been part of the lake bottom.

Even with the lower water levels we still found a few waterfowl and shorebirds around.

Lesser scaup
northern shoveler
eared grebe

We were quite happy to see some eared grebe in breeding plumage in pools that were close to the road. The eared grebes where one of the main reasons that we planned our visit to Medicine Lake. When we did not get great looks at Medicine Lake we were kind of disappointed but photographing them at Bowdoin made up for it. I saw quite a few horned grebes, in breeding plumage, as they passed through this year but the eared grebe are usually pretty scarce in Minnesota.

Medicine Lake NWR Waterfowl

Our adventure began on Thursday May 15th. We left the Twin Cities that morning and spent most of the day driving to Williston, ND. Williston is on the west side of North Dakota near the border with Montana. I chose Willistone because of it's close proximity to Medicine Lake NWR. The plan was to spend Friday and part of Saturday at Medicine Lake. We visited Medicine Lake on our way home from Yellowstone last year and had such good luck that we decided to leave a couple days early so that we could stop and spend some time on our way out. Medicine Lake is a great birding location for waterfowl and shorebirds but the main reason that we visit is to photograph eared grebe in breeding plumage. This year our luck was not nearly so good. Unbeknownst to us, at the time, Montana appears to be going through a bit of a drought. The drought did not effect the Medicine Lake so much, but many of the other lakes and bays that are near to the roads, and thus places where we got many of our pics last year, were dried up. We were still able to find some waterfowl though.
The most common of the waterfowl that we saw where either blue-winged teals

or northern shovelers.
We did find one pair of northern pintails in a small tributary that was still feeding into the lake.
We did find some eared grebe but they were on the big lake and too far to get any shots that compared with those that we got last year. We also did see a pair of western grebes out on the big lake. The western grebes were also pretty far out but since we do not already have close up shots of western grebes I decided to add another 1.4x converter and snap a couple of shots.
Another thing that Medicine Lake NWR is known for is that it is the location of one of the largest white pelican breeding colonies in the world.
We went out to the pelican over look to view one of the peninsulas that the pelican colony uses for nesting. The peninsula is blocked by an electric fence and gate. These protect the females and the young from predators like coyote, fox and raccoon. Unfortunately it also makes it difficult to get any good pics so we decided to just stop and have a picnic there and watch the pelicans fly out over the lake. Later on I did find these 3 white pelicans taking of near Gopher Point so I was able to get a couple of nice shots.

We also saw quite a few shorebirds as well as some passerines but since this post is getting long I will put them in my next post.

Bass Ponds

After birding Black Dog Lake and Old Cedar Avenue Bridge last weekend I moved on to check out the Bass Ponds. Normally I would have kept my truck at the Old Cedar Ave Bridge parking lot and just walked to the bass Ponds from there, both are part of the same unit of the Minnesota valley NWR, but they currently have the path that connects them closed, due to construction. There is a pond that is between the bridge and the bass Ponds that is a holding pond for the city of Bloomington. They decided to enlarge it earlier this year. It was supposed to be completed by March 15th but here it is after April 15th and it is still closed. which is really depressing because that area was always good for finding butterflies and dragonflies and if it is not done soon I think that it will be pretty empty this year.
Down in the trees that line the path that over looks the river overflow I did manage to find an eastern phoebe.
Usually phoebes dart around in the trees and are difficult to photograph but this one was a bit more cooperative and perched in a small tree on the side of one of the open ponds.
In the marshy area, just below the hill that leads to the parking lot, there was a northern shoveler out sifting for food in the shallow waters.
In the small pond that is filled by a run off pipe, a great blue heron was fishing for its breakfast.
Fortunately it would not be going hungry that morning.
I was hoping that I could photograph it getting another fish but then some dog walkers came down the path towards it and it flushed. That morning I also saw some great egrets, mallards, Canadian geese, trumpeter swans, and kinglets and the Bass Ponds.

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.

The Bass Ponds that I Misplaced

Since I have not been able to go out and do much birding lately, due to the very poor weather we have been having, I spent some time going through pictures. On one of my memory cards I found these pics that I took on March 29th at the Bass Ponds and Old Cedar Ave Bridge in the Minnesota Valley NWR that I forgot to post.
By the Old Cedar Ave Bridge I found a few American robins eating shriveled up berries from the bushes. Last fall I photographed cedar waxwing eating berries from similar bushes near the bridge.
I also found a cooperative white-breasted nuthatch doing what nuthatches do, climbing down a tree.
Over at the bass ponds there were some coots.
The catch of the day were 3 northern shovelers, 2 males and 1 female. These where the first shovelers that I had seen so far this year.
They were in the mud flats that border the Minnesota River. Much of the water was still frozen, at that point, so they were forced to stay close to the park where the open water was. This kept them with in a good range and allowed me to get some descent shots.

Hawks, eagles, ducks and waxwings at Black Dog

Monday I had some problems with my blood sugar so I went home early from work. After some rest I got to feeling normal and around 3:30pm I decided to go out and check the local haunts to see what birds where hanging around. I started by driving down by Black Dog Lake. The lake itself was pretty quiet but in the fields between the lake and river I spotted a red-tailed hawk perched looking for prey. As I slowed down the car to take a picture he took off.
He was circling on the thermals over head, gaining altitude, so I decided to get a flight shot.
While I was shooting pictures of the red-tail in flight another shape passed by over head, a bit lower but close to the hawk. This was an immature eagle.

Next I went down to the ponds across the street from the lake, which are a part of Fort Snelling State Park. Besides for Canadian geese and mallards there were quite a few wigeons in the first pond that I came to.There was also a couple of northern shovelers mixed in with the wigeons and mallards.At the second pond that I visited I saw wigeons, mallards and gadwalls.I didn't have a lot of time, and I wanted to check the other side of the river, so I left the park and headed towards the Cedar Avenue Bridge. Right before I got to Highway 13 I saw a flock of birds in the small trees lining the property of an industrial strip mall. So I pulled into the parking lot to check them out and found that they were cedar waxwings.I got pretty close to the waxwings and was able to get some pretty nice shots. I even got a few of them eating berries off some of the trees. I will save some of them for this winter when we will all appreciate the sight of a good looking bird, like a waxwing a lot more.