Eagle Wordless Wednesday

Tropical Waterlily: Emily Grant Hutchings

Happy Waterlily Wednesday

Winter Birding Part 4: Sax Zim Bog

One of the best places to bird in Minnesota during the winter is the Sax Zim Bog Wildlife Management Area. The bog is located in northeastern Minnesota not far from Duluth.

The main attraction of the bog are the owls that come down from Canada during the winter. As food sources up north of the border decline, due to winter weather, owls head down to the bog in search of prey. The most common northern owl to see is the northern hawk owl, above, which is a diurnal owl, meaning that it is active during the day which makes it easier to find. Other northern owls that sometimes visit the bog include great gray owls and boreal owls.

Besides the owls there are some other colorful species that can be found in the bog during the winter. One of the most common is the pine grosbeak, pictured above. Male pine grosbeak are red and gray while the females are more of a mustard color. Evening grosbeaks and white-winged crossbills can also be found, though they are not as common as the pine grosbeak.

Northern finches can usually be found around feeders. The numbers of these birds that visit the bog changes each year depending on the amount of food available back in their summer range. Last year there was quite an irruption of northern finches with pine siskin, pictured above, and redpoll being spotted all the way down in Iowa. This year I spotted very few northern finches, only a few pine siskin and one redpoll on this trip.

There are always plenty of chickadees around. Even though they are very common it is important to keep your eyes on them because you never know when a boreal chickadee might show up. These are another resident of the boreal forests up in Canada who will sometimes come down to Minnesota looking for food, but these little guys are not looking for seed. They are insect eaters so they are looking mostly for protein. So for the past few years several local birders in the area have attached parts of deer carcasses to trees in different locations through out the bog. This is a good source of food for many birds, especially the boreal chickadees and it also gives birders a place to look for these special birds. Unfortunately this year a local resident complained that the deer carcasses were attracting wolves, despite evidence to the contrary, and the DNR took them all down. This looked like it was going to be the end of one of the best places to photograph birds in Minnesota during the winter until a compromise was reached. The deer would no longer be allowed on public land, however seed and suet were allowed. So feeders went up in many key locations and the birds continued to come in to eat.

I never did see any signs of wolves. There were no tracks around the feeding stations and the carcasses were never torn down. The closes thing to a wolf that I ever spotted in the bog was a red squirrel but I don't think that he was causing too much trouble.

Minnesota Valley NWR Darners

Here is a collection of some dragon shots that I took back in September.
All of these dragons where photographed in one afternoon at the Minnesota Valley NWR.
They are all members of the blue darner family.
These first ones appear to be green-striped darners.
Green striped darners have a shallow notch on the front thoraxic stripe.

These last two pics appear to be a shadow darner, the thoraxic stripes look like two 7s.
I apologise for the lack of info in today's post. Unfortunately I spent a good portion of the day rebuilding my photo PC because of a bad hard drive.

Tropical Waterlily Director George T Moore

As you may have realized, if you have been following along, the Como Zoo has a small but wonderful water garden during the summer. They grow a large variety of different water lilies. I photographed all of the lilies that I have been posting in one sunny afternoon but decided that it would be nice to save them and post them during the winter when everything here is white or gray. Their color and light always remind me of summer and it makes me smile. Hopefully they have the same affect on you.

Acorn Woodpecker

One of the birds that I was the most excited about photographing when we visited California, back in 2007, was the acorn woodpecker. Acorn woodpeckers can be found in parts of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Mexico and Central America. They got their name because of their tendency to collect and store large numbers of acorns. The acorns are stored in holes that the woodpeckers bore, usually in a single specific tree which is called a granary tree. This bird was in the process of caching food at a granary tree when I photographed it. Acorn woodpeckers do eat other things besides acorns including bugs and fruit.

Fall Rainbow

As I was on my way way home one day this fall I noticed that a partial rainbow had formed. Since I had my camera with, as I most often do, I stopped to take a shot to share with you.

Wordless Wednesday Burrowing Owl

American Wigeon

The American wigeon is a bird that we usually only see in Minnesota during spring and fall migration. I typically see them in parts of Fort Snelling State Park, Black Dog Lake or near the Old Cedar Avenue Bridge, which is where I photographed this pair, in the fall.

Minnehaha Falls

Not far from downtown Minneapolis, the Minnehaha Creek winds from Lake Minnetonka, east across south Minneapolis until it reaches Minnehaha Falls where it plunges 53 feet down a gorge on its way to the Mississippi River. The falls is another iconic Minnesota Landmark. The falls is also famous world wide because of its reference in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem, "The Song of Hiawatha." Longfellow referred to the Falls of Minnehaha as the "Laughing Water" however the name Minnehaha came from the Dakota name Mnigaga which translated is Mni meaning 'water' and gaga meaning 'curling' or 'waterfall'. The falls was originally name Browns Falls in the early 1800s.

In the winter the falls becomes a magical palace of ice.

Butterflies

Life for butterflies is hard here in Minnesota. The butterflies that live here need to find a way to survive the harsh winter climate. They accomplish this in a variety of different ways.
For example the eastern tailed-blue, pictured above, will over winter in its larval form. It will usually find a seed pod to crawl into for cover. When winter is over the caterpillar already has a food source at hand.

The cabbage white butterfly, on the other hand, survives winter in its pupae state. Because it has already begun to change over the winter we usually see these types of butterflies emerging from their chrysalis as early as the beginning of May. Other types of butterflies will over winter as eggs or as adult butterflies.

Hardy Waterlily: Texas Dawn

This is a fitting photo since we just returned from south Texas. We took a lot of great photos which I will begin to share with you as soon as I get them organized and Internet ready. This photo was taken at the Como Zoo water garden in the summer of 2009.

White-tailed Kite

We do not typically see very many members of the kite family here in Minnesota except for the northern harrier or an occasional migrant. That is why I was very excited to have the opportunity to photograph white-tailed kites at the Elk Horn Slough in California Monterey area back in 2007.

The white-tailed kite is typically found in open areas such as fields, marshes or savannas. Their range includes the west and gulf coast areas in the US as well as Mexico, Central America and parts of eastern South America. The prey that they eat and the way that they hunt is similar to the smaller American kestrel. Their prey includes rodents, small birds, reptiles and amphibians which it catches by ambushing them from flight.

Sky Watch Friday: Yellowstone

This is the last sky pic from last years Yellowstone trip. It was a great trip that provided us with a lot of fantastic pics. I am not sure if we will be traveling back to Yellowstone this year or not because we are taking a trip to south Texas. If we do it would have to be in the fall which is a great time to photograph moose.

Wordless Wednesday: Butterfly