Wordless Wednesday: White-throated and White-crowned Sparrow

Watery Wednesday: Turtle Dance Party

So have you ever wondered what goes on in the ponds and lakes when there are no people around?
The turtles all get together and have a dance party. I was lucky enough to stumble across one of these raves at Wood Lake while I was out birding. Being a good member of nature's paparazzi I stopped to snap, no pun intended, some pics. It is difficult to tell in the picture above but these turtles are really party animals.

Then there were some turtles that partied just a bit too much. Remember that partying and driving don't mix. It looked like he could probably use a tow but I figured that I would just let him sleep it off.

Of coarse where ever you find a party you will usually find a minor trying to sneak in.

My World: Crex Meadows

Now that we are in May its time for me to start thinking about heading up to Crex Meadows.

Crex Meadows is a Wisconsin Wildlife Management Area that is located about an hour and a half north of home near the Minnesota and Wisconsin border.

I make a lot of trips up to Crex in the summer and fall. I usually begin going up in late May or early June because that is usually when the trumpeter swans are out with their new cygnets.

Crex is pretty large and has a good mixture of diverse habitats. They use a system of dams and dikes to help manage the water system which provides the park with numerous wetland areas.

These wetlands are home to a lot of different types of waterfowl through out the year. Besides the trumpeters that nest here I have also seen several types of grebe and geese, many types of ducks, like the canvasback pictured above, as well as members of the rail family, such as the American coot.

There is also quite a bit of field and prairie habitat. Much of the prairie land is managed by using controlled burns, either in late fall or in the spring, to allow new growth to take hold.
The fields are where you can usually find one of the largest birds in North America the sand hill crane. There is a small population of cranes that nest in Crex each summer. In Crex is used as a staging area for cranes as they migrate south for the winter.

During the spring and summer, and even into the fall, the fields of Crex become a pallet of color as the wild flowers bloom.

In the early summer the fields are usually a wash in purple as the wild lupine comes into bloom. These fragrant purple flowers attract many insects. They are also the host plant for the endangered Karner blue butterfly. The Karner blue have been spotted in the park but even though I have looked I have not spotted one at Crex. I have spotted many of its cousins though, like the silvery blue pictured above.

Even after the lupine is no longer in bloom their are still plenty of blooming wild flowers and colorful insect to photograph. This Olympia marbled caught my attention with the gold overlay look that it has on its wings.

With a lot of bugs around Crex is a smorgasbord for insect eating birds. Flycatchers, kingbirds, and warblers, like the yellow warbler above, are common place during the warm summer months.

Today's Flowers

here are a couple more flowers that I photographed at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in St Paul.
This first is a type of freesia. Freesia is a genus of 14 to 16 plants native to Africa. I am not certain which species of freesia it is but freesia corymbosa is a crossbreed of freesia refracta and freesia leichtlinii which is commonly cultivated and flowers in either pink or yellow.

This next flower is a hybridized lily named butter pixie. It is an upright Asiatic type of lily that is desired for its large upright yellow flowers.

Camera Critters: Osprey

Warmer weather has once again heralded the return of osprey into this part of the world.
Ospreys are a widely distributed member of the family Accipitridae, which includes hawks, eagles, kites, harriers and old world vultures. They can be found on every continent except for Antarctica. Osprey are a migratory bird. They will leave the parts of their range that have a more temperate climates when the temperatures begin to decrease. The birds that we see here in the summer will typically spend their winters south of the US. Many will head down to South America for the winter. This is the only time that osprey can be found in South America.Osprey typically nest near a fresh water source such as a lake, river or large pond, they can also nest near coastal water. The nest is typically made up of sticks and is built on a tree, utility pole or special osprey platform. The female will lay a clutch of two to four eggs which take about 5 weeks to incubate.

Osprey are sometimes called fishing hawks however they are not truly hawks. Hawks have 4 toes on their feet 3 that face forward and one that faces back. Osprey are like owls and can have 3 toes in front and one in back or can shift one toe and have two in front and two in back.

This ability to shift its toes is an adaptation that Osprey have that help it to catch its favorite prey. Osprey primarily eat fish. They will eat other prey if fish are not available however they are extremely adapted for hunting fish. Besides its toe shifting ability the osprey also has sharp scales called spispicules on their feet to help them hold onto a slippery fish. They also have the ability to close their nostrils to keep water out when they dive.

To catch a fish the osprey will hover high above the water, usually from 30 to 120 feet above the surface, until it spots its prey and then it will dive down into the water, talons first, down to a depth of about 3 feet. It grabs the fish with its specialized talons and then begins the hard work of taking off from the water with the fish. To make it easier to fly the osprey will usually turn the fish head first to help eliminate unnecessary drag. It will then usually take the fish to the nest or a favorite feeding perch to feast.

Kestrel Watch

Recently The Raptor Center has started a new program called Kestrel Watch. They are asking people to report sightings of American Kestrels via the Kestrel Watch website which can be accessed from The Raptor Center home page. The reason why they have begun this study is because they have noticed that the number of American kestrels that have been admitted to the clinic has been decreasing each year. The numbers went from107 in 2000 to 22 last year.
Does this mean that the kestrel is in decline and in trouble? It certainly may but they need our help to find out. It would be impossible for a small organization like The Raptor Center to handle such a large study with their limited resources but with our help nothing is impossible. I have already reported one kestrel that I photographed at the North Mississippi Regional Park on April 9th, and will be looking for more while I am out birding. How about you?

Skywatch: Yellowstone

It is getting hard to concentrate on my daily life with vacation coming up but it will not be long at all before Michelle and I reenter the magical world of Yellowstone.
Lass year was the best trip to Yellowstone that we have ever had so it will be hard to top it but I am sure that we will have a blast. This year I am planning to try my hand at a bit more landscape photography as well as all of the animals. Both of these shots were taken in Yellowstone last year. The top photo is a shallow seasonal pool that we found on our way out to the Roosevelt Junction. Below is a a shot of bison feeding in the Madison River valley.

I do not think that I will do much blogging while we are away. I should have Internet access and will try and check up on things but we usually spend about 12 to 13 hours in the park each day so there is not a lot of time left for processing the pics and writing the posts. But don't worry because I am setting up posts for each day that I am gone and if I get time I will try and post some pics from Yellowstone on the new Ecobirder group page on Facebook. You can find a link on the sidebar of this blog and everyone is welcome to join.

Wordless Wednesday: Black-capped Chickadee

Karma

Karma is a theory of moral causation that is prevalent in many of the religions that originated in or around ancient India. While I do not really prescribe to any of these religions, or any particular religion at all for that matter, I do believe in the basic principle of karma and back on May 3rd I got my own little taste of karma. It was the day after The Raptor Center's Spring Raptor Release and I decided to head back to Hyland Park to search for a great horned owl nest that one of the other volunteers had told me was located in the park.

From what I was told the nest was located somewhere near the walking trail on the south side of Hyland Lake. So when I arrived I decided to head west around the lake. I had not walked very far when I noticed a large black bird in tree further down the path. I guessed right away that it was a crow but it appeared a bit strange. It was flapping its wings a lot but did not fly away so I thought that perhaps it had something that it was eating. As I got closer I found that the bird was actually in trouble. It had somehow gotten itself rapped up in fishing line and was now caught in a tree. There obviously did not appear to me any way that this bird was likely to free itself so I decided to head back to the visitor center to get some help. One of the park employees at the visitors center followed me back to the tree where the crow was tied up and called park services to come and help.

Since I new that the crow would get some help I went on my way around the lake in search of the owls nest. I did not get a lot of details on the nest or its location so I just followed the path and checked out all of the larger nests that I found but soon I came to the end of the path and did not see any owls.

Since there was several smaller paths that branched off of the paved path I thought that perhaps the nest was near one of these paths so on my way back I decided to try a different path. This just led me back to the paved path so I decided to head back the way I came. Perhaps they might be able to give me some information about the location back at the visitors center.

It was then when I heard a single crow begin to go into mobbing mode. Since I knew that there were owls in the area and crows are incessant about mobbing owls I decided to check it out. I walked back up the paved path a little ways and was able to locate an adult owl being mobbed by a single crow back in the woods.

Since there were quite a few tree branches between me and the owl I could not really get any good pics so I decided to look around in the area to see if I could find the nest. While I was looking the crow finally gave up and flew away. A few minutes later the owl took off from its perch deep in the woods and landed on a dead tree that was closer to the path. I was excited because now the owl was more in the open and it might be possible for me to get some pics. So I moved back down the path and took focus on the owl.
That was when I discovered that this was the nest. One of the chicks came up out of a crack in the dead tree to greet mom. She checked on the chick and made sure that everything was OK and then flew off back into the woods. A few minutes later a second chick appeared and I was able to photograph them both. After clicking off a few gigabytes worth of pictures of the chicks I headed off down the path to investigate some recent pileated woodpecker holes in a different tree. I stopped by again on my way back and found that mom had returned and was sitting on the nest keeping the owlets warm.

On my way back out of the park I stopped by to check on the tangled crow. It was gone. I stopped for a second and smiled. Because I had taken the time to do the right thing a crow was now free and because of a lone crow I was able to find the owl nest that I was looking for. Perhaps it was the same crow and perhaps not, either way I do believe that it was karma.

Watery Wednesday: Wood Ducks

Thank heaven for wood ducks. If it were not for wood ducks I would pretty much just have mallards and Canada geese to photograph on most of the ponds and lakes around here this year.
I found this pair of wood ducks swimming in one of the pools at the Wood Lake Nature Center. They are particularly beautiful at this time of year when they are in their breeding plumage, especially the male who needs all of that color to attract a mate. This usually happens back in January while the wood duck are still in their winter territory. The pair will then fly north together to the breeding territory.

Wood ducks are pretty common at Wood Lake. One reason for this is the availability of nesting sites that can be found at the nature center. Wood ducks typically nest in tree cavities about 4 or so feet above the ground which are located near to water. If tree cavities are not available wood ducks will nest in man made objects such as nesting boxes. There are quite a few wood duck boxes placed around the nature center. The female will line these boxes with some of her own down feathers to make a soft bed for her clutch of 6 to 40 eggs, typically 11 to 14. The eggs take around 30 days to incubate. The chicks are able to leave the nest about 24 hours after they hatch. When it is time to leave mom beckons to the chicks to follow here to the near by water. This can be quite daunting for the chicks since the nest is usually 3 to 4 feet off the ground.

My World: Como Zoo

When I was a child, back in the sixties and early seventies, my family used to go to the Como Zoo each year for my dad's company picnic. Now I work a few blocks away from the zoo and it is a nice place to get away if I actually take a break for lunch.

Back in the past Como Zoo was not a very good home for many of the animals. This building, now a zoo administration building, is a grim reminder of the past. The small cages on the side had an opening to small cages inside and this is how many of the larger animals were housed.

For a big cat, like a tiger, the space was way too small and very inhumane.

Fortunately times have changed for the better. The tiger, the zoo currently only has one, has a large natural area complete with trees and a water feature.

In the past the only contact the lions could have with other lions was through the bars with a lion in the next cage. Now the lions enclosure is large enough to give multiple lions plenty of space to roam about.

Gorilla's were a big deal for the zoo in the past but even though they helped bring people out to the zoo they still were housed in the same way as the big cats.

Now the zoo has a wonderful area where several gorillas can play and interact with each other. They also hope to expand and improve this area in the future.

The new buildings at the zoo are state of the art and are designed to provide the best experience for both animals and people. This is the latest building and it houses a small tropics area.

The tropics area has many different types of free flying birds as well as fish, reptiles and a sloth.

I have mixed feelings about zoos. I do not like seeing wild animals kept in captivity but zoos have gotten better over time at providing the animals with a better more natural habitat. Many zoos, like the Minnesota Zoo which was built when I was in high school, also have breeding programs to help make sure that some species that are endangered in the wild do not disappear completely. So as long as they are responsible and humane and try and keep the best interest of the animal in mind I think that a zoo can be a good place for people to learn more about wildlife around the world and how we affect it.