Penelopedia: Nature and Garden in Northfield, MN

Oriole with Maple Flowers

2013-05-12T17:02:00.000-05:00

Female Baltimore Oriole

A gorgeous female Baltimore oriole amid light green maple flowers against a brilliant blue sky. Irresistible!

This is a phenology post as well as a bird post. Here it is May 12, and the large maple in front of our house is only just flowering, before leafing out.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak - Immature Male

2013-05-10T05:30:00.000-05:00

Late Thursday afternoon a male rose-breasted grosbeak was feeding from a caged feeder designed to exclude larger birds such as itself. It was quite successful in reaching its head through the cage to retrieve spilled sunflower chips from the bottom.

After I took the photos and did some research, I realized that this is an immature male in its first breeding season. When in full breeding plumage, a mature male's head will be fully black, the rose color will deepen, and the brownish streaks will disappear, leaving the bird with its stunning black, white and rose-red coloring.

What a beautiful bird.

On this date in 2011, I posted a photo of a male and female (shown below) on one of our other feeders. You can see how the immature male in the photos above is like a blend of the female and the mature male shown below.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak pair (2011)

The Colorful Birds of Spring

2013-05-09T12:25:00.000-05:00

I saw my first Baltimore oriole and first rose-breasted grosbeak of the season yesterday, within about 15 minutes of each other. I'd put the oriole feeder up in the snow late last week, and just put the hummingbird feeder out yesterday. I haven't spotted any hummingbirds yet. The grosbeak was trying to eat from our caged feeder that only allows small birds inside, and was probably finding that quite frustrating.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak (2011)

I didn't see any rose-breasted grosbeaks at the feeders last year, but in 2011 they appeared at the feeders on May 7. Rose-breasted grosbeaks winter in southern Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and northern South America. Read more about them at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds site.

Baltimore orioles have appeared in early May the last couple of years. Here's a photo from last year. I've written more about orioles here. They winter in much the same areas as the grosbeaks, plus Florida.

Baltimore Oriole (2012)

Within half an hour last evening I saw birds of brilliant orange, rose, red and blue -- an oriole, a rose-breasted grosbeak, a cardinal and a blue jay. No goldfinches, though. I remarked on this sudden richness of colorful birds in May two years ago, saying I felt like Dorothy stepping into the technicolor world of Oz.

Bluebird Trail - 2013 First Report

2013-05-07T21:31:00.000-05:00

The horrendously late spring this year, including heavy snowfalls in late April and early May, has our bluebird season off to a worryingly slow start. It seems likely that there has been significant mortality for these insect-eating birds, since the insect season is also starting slowly due to the cold.

Tree swallows on overhead lines

By this time last year, we had 20 bluebird nestlings already! This year we have just started to get out to check the boxes, and we barely have any nests that are more than a few strands of grass, let alone having eggs or nestlings.

We have only seen two bluebirds yet this season, one male and one female, seen on different days at our prairie-habitat trail, where one of the four boxes today had a substantially complete bluebird nest. Tree swallows have been much more conspicuous on or near several of our other boxes. Perhaps tree swallows, which eat flying insects in the air, may have had an easier time finding food than bluebirds, which pick insects off the ground.

We have complete or nearly complete chickadee nests in two of our boxes, while last year we had no complete chickadee nests.

We plan to move some boxes from a couple of areas that last year produced wrens but no bluebirds.

Follow our whole bluebird trail adventures here: Bluebird Trail.

Red Squirrel Molting

2013-05-06T13:24:00.001-05:00

This morning I noticed a small red squirrel foraging under our feeders. Its coat was clearly in mid-molt, which can be seen especially in the photos below.

An information sheet about the red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) from Northern State University in South Dakota states:

This species of squirrel molts its fur coat twice each year. The summer coat appears in late spring and is brownish red on the back and sides and white on the belly. The tail is reddish on top and gray underneath. A ring of white fur around the eye is characteristic of this species. The winter coat comes in by September and is denser and longer than the summer fur. In winter, a red stripe stretches from neck to tail and the tail fur becomes more reddish on top. Reddish brown tufts of fur develop near the ears for winter also.

I hadn't realized that red squirrels really are redder in the winter, though they certainly look very red in contrast to the snow.

The Minnesota DNR says the red squirrel is found throughout Minnesota but is most common in coniferous forests. They eat conifer seeds, acorns, mushrooms, hickory nuts, walnuts and maple seeds. They clearly enjoy the seeds that fall from our bird feeders (primarily sunflower at this location), as well.

I've previously written about red squirrels making tunnels in the snow. Fortunately, our recent snow has almost completely disappeared.

This squirrel could well be supporting babies right now. The Minnesota DNR says:

Red squirrels mate in late winter. They nest in hollow trees or build a 12- to 19-inch ball-shaped nest in a tree top using leaves, twigs and bark. In early spring, females have two to five babies which are born hairless and weigh less than an ounce. The young squirrels are independent within 12 weeks.

In late May two years ago, I captured some video of young red squirrels playing at the foot of a tree near our house.

May Snow (Crazy! Enough!)

2013-05-03T09:16:00.001-05:00

This was the scene through my living room window at about 7 a.m. yesterday. The official snowfall in Northfield was 6.8 inches.

Here are some of our daffodils, which had just struggled into bud during the warmth of the past week. On Sunday it hit 81 F.!

In this return to winter, I've noticed starlings (above, in tree) coming to eat from our suet feeders, which I don't remember ever happening before. I cropped the photo to show the leaf buds which are finally swelling.

I've read on the MNBird listserv that Baltimore orioles have been sighted in the region, so despite the snow I put grape jelly in the oriole feeder and hung it up this morning. Hummingbirds often arrive around now, as well.

With very few insects, little spring growth, virtually no flowers yet, and last year's seeds and berries pretty well picked over, birds and other animals are facing a tough situation. Continue to put out a variety of high-quality bird foods (small and larger seeds, nuts, suet, jelly, even hummingbird nectar) to help at least some of them get through this.

Facebook birders were abuzz yesterday over Greg and Linda Munson's photo, shared by the Zumbro Valley Audubon Society (based south of here, where they got even more snow) of a Canada goose faithfully incubating her eggs while chin-deep in the snow.

Much of the snow melted yesterday, but it is snowing again this morning. That is supposed to turn to rain, and we should be back into the 60s and low 70s in another two or three days. Hang in there, birds and people.

Willet and Whimbrel (California)

2013-04-23T20:11:00.000-05:00

During a far-too-short trip to the San Francisco Bay Area for a reunion this past weekend, Dave and I went out looking for shorebirds in the aptly named Shorebird Park near the Berkeley marina. We saw a nice variety of species we don't see often or at all in Minnesota. Two of these were the willet and the whimbrel, both seen picking their way along next to shellfish-encrusted rocks at the edge of a wide, flat beach.

Willet

The willet is a large, straight-billed shorebird, mostly gray in its winter plumage and a more mottled brown in summer. It's an elegant bird, to my mind, and is most often seen alone. We have seen them in Minnesota, but not often.

Whimbrel

Here's the whimbrel. Look at that bill! How would you like to go through life with that on the front of your face? It's well-suited to its job, though: apparently the curve of the whimbrel's bill exactly fits the shape of the fiddler crab's burrow, perfect for reaching in and pulling the crab out.

The Cornell Lab says about the whimbrel (which has also been known as the Hudsonian curlew):

One of the most wide-ranging shorebirds in the world, the Whimbrel breeds in the Arctic in the eastern and western hemispheres, and migrates to South America, Africa, south Asia, and Australia. It uses its long, down-curved bill to probe deep in the sand of beaches for invertebrates, but also feeds on berries and insects.

The only other time I've seen a whimbrel was along the rocky northern California coast in March 2009.

Whimbrel (front) and Willet

Here they are together. While you can't see the full bill of the willet in this photo, you can get an idea of their relative size and coloration. Both are considered large shorebirds, weighing roughly between half a pound and a pound, but the whimbrel is the larger of the two.

New Yard Bird: Fox Sparrow

2013-04-15T05:30:00.000-05:00

Amidst the many dark-eyed juncos we've been seeing in the last few days a new visitor suddenly appeared: a fox sparrow. Its rusty red tail caught my eye first; then I noticed how large and plump it looked next to the juncos. The heavily streaked breast is another field mark of this large sparrow.

This was the first fox sparrow we've seen at our house. A new entry in our "yard list"! Those are pretty rare at this point. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a fox sparrow at all before, in fact. It's a very distinctive bird, with its rust-red-and-gray coloring, bold facial markings and heavily streaked breast. There are considerable regional variations in color and bill thickness, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, with "sooty," "slate-colored" and "thick-billed" variants seen in various parts of the West, as well as the rusty red variant that is widely distributed across the northern boreal forests.

Fox sparrow at center right, with male (darker) and female juncos

Rice County records on eBird show that fox sparrows are seen here only in migration, in late March through late April and again in late September through October. The Cornell Lab describes them as birds of dense thickets and scrubby, brushy woods, with a rich, musical whistle. They breed in remote locations in the northwestern mountain states, northwestern and far northern Canada, and Alaska. They spend their winters in the coastal West and the south and southeastern states.

The streaky breast is supposed to concentrate on one large central chest spot, but I wasn't able to get a photo of that. The bird was quite skittish and quick to fly away if it sensed movement, even through the window where I was watching and trying to take photos unobtrusively.

Winter in April and Juncos Galore (with video)

2013-04-13T19:29:00.000-05:00

The weather has been on our minds and in our face in Minnesota this week. Just ask this squirrel.

Much-needed rain followed by sleet, snow and more snow have dragged weather more typical of early March into mid-April, and most people are pretty sick of it. There's another weather advisory out for more snow, sleet and freezing rain for tonight and tomorrow morning, and temperatures will remain below normal for some days to come. Sigh.

It's been hard on the animals and birds, as well. We've had plenty of views of robins in the snow, and rabbits came to feed on seed we'd put out by our front steps yesterday.

People in Minnesota have also been commenting on the huge numbers of dark-eyed juncos seen in the last few days. At our house in Northfield, throughout most of the winter we tend to see just a few juncos at a time -- typically just three or four, though occasionally more (we would have more, I'm sure, if we routinely scattered seed on the ground) -- but suddenly this week we were seeing first a dozen, then two dozen, then 30+ at a time.

Below is a short video clip of juncos I took yesterday feeding on seed we scattered for them under our hanging feeders. And yes, that is the juncos you hear in the video. They sound like a video game with "pyew, pyew" shooting noises, don't they? While this was going on, twice as many juncos were feeding under some of our other feeders. We have also seen them trying to eat from the hanging feeders, which -- being ground-feeding birds -- they don't generally do. I previously wrote about the dark-eyed junco in December 2012.

Northfield-based bird bander Dan Tallman reported on Tuesday that he banded 197 juncos this week, including several of the lighter "Oregon race" which are not often seen here. In an earlier post he offers a quick tutorial on the differences between the Oregon junco and our familiar "slate-colored" junco.

Central Minnesota nature blogger Richard of "At the Water" commented on seeing large numbers of juncos this week as well.

We were at Minnesota's annual Bluebird Expo here in Northfield today, and the well-known Minnesota phenologist (one who observes and studies seasonal patterns of animals and plant life) Jim Gilbert, one of the featured speakers, remarked on the large numbers of juncos. Many in the audience raised their hands to indicate that they too had been noticing flocks of juncos in the past few days. In conversation with him later, I asked him if he has seen juncos flocking in such huge numbers in previous years. He said that he has not, and he speculated that the cold front associated with the wet and then wintry weather that hit us this week may have had a "fall-out" effect on migrating birds. When the weather improves, it's likely they will be gone again very quickly.

Speaking of bluebirds, a few have been reported in the state in the past few days. By this time last year (which was truly exceptional), many bluebirds had already nested and laid eggs. This year they face a cold, rather miserable start to their breeding season.

Red-breasted Mergansers

2013-04-07T19:08:00.000-05:00

Late this afternoon half a dozen male red-breasted mergansers were on Northfield's Superior Drive pond, keeping company with several pairs of hooded mergansers.

We haven't often seen these here. In late April 2011 we saw a lone female red-breasted merganser on the same pond, and I noted that I'd only seen them before up in Grand Marais, where we'd seen a mother with ducklings in August 2008.

Mergansers are diving ducks that eat mainly fish.

(Click on photo to see it larger)

Above, a male hooded merganser is flanked by five red-breasted mergansers -- note their considerably larger size than the small hoodie, as well as their bold, dark, fluffy-crested heads. An American coot is in the foreground -- a duck-like bird that is actually more closely related to rails and moorhens than to ducks. I last wrote about coots on April 4, 2012, after we saw large numbers of them at Lake Byllesby.

This pond was still almost entirely iced over as recently as Friday evening. Yesterday's warming temperatures and the afternoon's rain, followed by sun today, cleared out the ice in a hurry. Some remains, but the pond is largely ice-free today.

We also saw several yellowlegs, probably lesser yellowlegs, on the far edge of the pond that is to the south of the large pond. These, along with some recent killdeer, have been our first shorebirds of the season.

Dozens of ring-billed gulls were on the remaining ice on the large pond that lies between Jefferson Parkway and Superior Drive. Many of them were tearing at hunks of fish that we presumed had been dead in the water.

Mergansers and Herons on Ice

2013-03-30T15:26:00.002-05:00

Dave and I had heard that the ice was starting to open up at Wells Lake just outside of Faribault, which often offers good early-season views of migratory ducks, geese and swans, so we headed down there after this morning's rain had finished. We didn't see large numbers of birds, but we had a great view of a couple of dozen common mergansers, a small number of hooded mergansers, three double-crested cormorants overhead, a couple of coots, as well as some mallards, Canada geese and a few gulls. Several times groups of mergansers took off and circled overhead, looking pure white with black heads -- an impressive sight. With an overcast sky and the sun (what there was of it) behind us, the light was beautiful. You can see in the photos below how it lit up the white bodies of the male mergansers.

Common Mergansers (3 males, 2 females) and a pair of Mallards

Common Mergansers and Mallards

Hooded Mergansers (2 male, 1 female)

While we were in Faribault we stopped by Slevin Park, near the mill, and caught sight of four, soon joined by another three, great blue herons that were lined up on the ice like statues. It was quite a startling sight.

It looks as if we're going back near or below freezing for the next several days, but soon this ice should open up for the season.

A True Sign of Spring

2013-03-25T19:37:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I suddenly noticed that two male goldfinches at our feeder were showing bright yellow feathers, clearly having started making the transition to their brilliant lemony breeding plumage. All winter long they've been a soft olive color, like the females, except for the black and white wing bars. Spring must be on its way, after all.

The Forgotten Art of Spring

2013-03-23T19:03:00.000-05:00

Here's the pond that I call the Superior Drive pond, which has become our favorite spring duck-watching pond in Northfield. Last year on March 7, I reported that the pond was almost ice-free and occupied by more than 40 scaup, several hooded mergansers and the usual mallards and Canada geese; of course, we had unprecedented warmth as the month went on and were starting to care for our bluebird boxes by the end of the month.

In 2011 we were seeing ducks in mid-March, and that felt early. In 2010 I didn't mention ducks until a mid-April outing to Lake Byllesby, but noted that the snow in front of our house was almost gone on March 17. In 2009, I first discovered the Superior Drive pond in early April, thanks to the urgent promptings of a friend who lives there, who said I must come to see all the ducks.

I do look forward to spring!

One thing that will keep this spring particularly interesting is that I will be taking the Minnesota Master Naturalist Program covering the Big Woods/Big River ecosystem, which is being offered at the Carleton Arboretum starting April 1. It's five hours a week for six weeks, plus two all-day Saturday field days. It's been a long time since I sat regularly in a classroom, but I am truly excited to expand my knowledge about our local geology, flora and fauna, water, land history and more, taught by local teaching biologists and other experts who really know this area.

From the Master Naturalist program website:

The mission of the Minnesota Master Naturalist Program is to promote awareness, understanding, and stewardship of Minnesota’s natural environment by developing a corps of well-informed citizens dedicated to conservation education and service within their communities.

Any adult who is curious and enjoys learning about the natural world, shares that knowledge with others, and supports conservation can be a Minnesota Master Naturalist Volunteer. [That's so me!] If you enjoy hiking, bird watching, following tracks, or identifying wildflowers, you'll love being a Minnesota Master Naturalist Volunteer. Minnesota Master Naturalist Volunteers are a motivated group of fun and interesting people: teachers, retired professionals, nature guides, hunters, eco-tour operators, farmers, and...YOU!

The Minnesota Master Naturalist Program is a joint effort of the University of Minnesota Extension and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

I hope the course will help me bring new perspectives to Penelopedia, and I expect I will share some of my learning here as the program goes on.

Berkeley Burrowing Owl (Lifer!) and a White-tailed Kite

2013-02-22T22:39:00.000-06:00

I saw my first-ever burrowing owl last weekend, finally, in Berkeley, California, while visiting my family there. There is a popular bayside park where a few come each winter, even though they are just a few yards from where people and dogs regularly walk and run.

The area is chained off from visitors during owl season (I believe it's roughly October to April). Signs advise viewers not to watch too long, which stresses the owls, nor to point at them, which might alert raptors. The area is riddled with ground squirrel burrows, which are just what burrowing owls like, though they are also apparently quite capable of digging their own holes.

The photo below shows the setting. It's not really what you'd expect, is it? -- although actually, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, burrowing owls are notorious for showing up on golf courses, air fields, college campuses and other open grassy areas quite close to human activity. One even tried to take up residence on a cruise ship's mini-golf course a couple of years ago.

The little owl (they stand only about 8 to 9 inches high) is barely visible as a pale speck in front of a boulder close to dead center in the photo above. Can you see it? (Click on it to see it bigger.)

At the same park, we saw a beautiful white-tailed kite, which I've seen here before, perhaps the very same bird, as described as a highlight of the birds I saw in 2011:

My first white-tailed kite, seen hovering over dunes in a Berkeley, CA, bayside park in August -- a beautiful, medium-sized white hawk that at first I took to be yet another gull but whose hovering behavior caught my eye as something very different. This is a coastal bird, in the U.S. generally only to be seen along the west coast, the southern Texas gulf coast and the tip of Florida.

I wish these cropped photos were clearer, but though hovering the bird was still moving. The first time I saw it (presuming it's the same bird as in 2011, which of course it might not be), the dark tips to the wings and its raptor head helped me identify it. There is also a distinctive black spot near the bend in each wing, visible above.

The Cornell Lab describes the kite's distinctive hovering:

While hunting, the White-tailed Kite characteristically hovers up to 80 feet off the ground and then drops straight down onto prey items [almost entirely small mammals]. This ability to hold a stationary position in midair without flapping is accomplished by facing into the wind, and is so characteristic of these birds that it has come to be called kiting. White-tailed Kites also perform ritualized courtship displays in which a male offers prey to a female prior to egg laying. In an often spectacular aerial exchange, the female flies up to meet the male, turns upside-down, and grasps the prey.

The word kite, which nonbirders mostly associate with the colorful toys we fly on the end of long strings, was used for the bird first; the toy very likely got its name from the way it hovers like a kite. (See, e.g., http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=kite.)

I came to this park in August 2011 with my son, both of us keen to see the burrowing owls we had read were to be found here. (They can be found in a few places in the western prairies of Minnesota, at the eastern edge of their range except for some outliers in Florida, but they are a state endangered species according to the Minnesota DNR.) Sadly, we learned that we were there at the wrong season; we had no chance of seeing a burrowing owl in Berkeley in August. So when I had an opportunity to go again last week, I had to see if I could finally see my lifer burrowing owl. I hope my son gets to see his before too long.

Snowy Afternoon with Woodpecker

2013-02-11T17:28:00.000-06:00

A downy woodpecker visited our suet log during the heaviest of Sunday's snow. I liked the image.

Birds with Their Mouths Full

2013-02-09T18:46:00.001-06:00

The title of this blog post captures the theme of today's post about birds seen at our feeders last weekend.

As I noted in a recent post about the dark-eyed junco, juncos most often eat on the ground and aren't commonly seen at our hanging feeders. Last weekend I happened to capture this junco's visit to a snow-covered fruit-and-seed block. At this angle the bird appears to be straddling that cage and the nearby wreath-style feeder we use for peanuts in the shell. A sunflower seed is in its beak.

The lighting's not great on this photo of a white-breasted nuthatch, but I liked the face-on position and the half-peanut in its beak.

Here's a male cardinal with a sunflower seed.

It's interesting to watch the different ways birds get seeds and nuts out of their shells. Birds with heavier beaks that are suited to the task, like cardinals and finches, will hold the seed in their beak, manipulate it with the tongue to get it in just the right position to crack the shell between their upper and lower mandible, and then eject the shell halves while retaining the seed. Other birds, like the black-capped chickadee, will hold the seed between their feet and crack the shell by pecking at it until they can get the seed out. And nuthatches get their name from their habit of tucking a nut into a crevice in the bark of a tree and then hacking, or "hatching," it out.

I found a kid-friendly website that does a nice job of showing the various beak adaptations and corresponding eating styles, as well as a lot of other information about bird physiology and behavior: Project Beak (the link shows the "cracking" beak of cardinals, sparrows, grosbeaks and finches; there is a dropdown menu from Beaks on the side menu to see other beak styles). They also have a nifty Build a Bird feature, where you can select different styles of wings, heads, feet and habitats to put together a proper bird or one of your own invention. Here's mine:

Pileated Sighting!

2013-02-05T18:13:00.001-06:00

Just two days after writing in my previous post, "We've never seen a pileated woodpecker here," I saw one in flight this morning, probably no more than four blocks away, flying right over my head as I drove to work. Okay, it wasn't actually on our property or at our feeders, but there is hope. A friend who lives less than half a mile from me has reported seeing one regularly at her feeders as well.

How did I know I was seeing a pileated woodpecker in flight? Though I couldn't see the red crest on its head, it was virtually unmistakable: a large black bird (nearly as big as a crow) with a large white area bordered with black on the underside of each wing. Here's a nice video I found on YouTube. The bird I saw was flying overhead, not this low, but you can see the markings plainly, as well as the flap-glide pattern of flight I saw today.

Good Weekend for Woodpeckers

2013-02-03T13:19:00.000-06:00

This weekend we saw a lot of woodpecker action at our suet feeders and in the big maple tree out front. Our new suet log is popular. We'd had a smaller one the last couple of winters, but it got chewed so much that one of the holes was completely open on one side. This one is much thicker and should be useful much longer.

Red-bellied Woodpecker - male

The first sighting that made me grab my camera was the red-bellied woodpecker (above) - always a beautiful and welcome sight for its large size and dramatic markings. This is a male; the female also has red on her head, but it doesn't extend all the way over the top of the head as it does here. (You can see a female I spotted a couple of months ago here.) This bird stayed around for a long time, visiting the suet occasionally but mainly spending time on an upright dead branch, or "snag," in the upper portion of the maple tree (below).

Red-bellied Woodpecker in tree

Look closely (click on any of the photos to see them larger) and you can see the signs of larvae leaving wormy trails across the wood. That's what the woodpeckers are after.

Let me put in a good word here for leaving dead branches, and even dead trees, in place, where it is safe to do so. In our world of tidy gardens, pristine lawns, and formal landscapes, dead branches or trees are often considered unsightly, and removed. This practice has reduced habitat for cavity-nesting birds, including woodpeckers as well as birds that make use of old woodpecker holes, like bluebirds. One of my resolutions this year is to learn more, and blog more, about gardening with wildlife in mind, sometimes called ecosystem landscaping. Shelter, water, native plants, a variety of natural food sources, and varied nesting habitat are important elements of bird-friendly gardens. If you think about the benefits provided by a dead branch or tree, you may consider it a beautiful part of your landscape. (Note, however, that increased woodpecker activity at an ash tree may be a sign of emerald ash borer infestation.)

Hole in tree -- made by whom?

The photo above shows a large hole in a good-sized branch of the tree, located much lower than the snag shown above. We first noticed this hole after the leaves dropped this past fall. I'd estimate the hole is three or more inches high. I've tried to keep an eye on it this winter. It's not being used for nesting, of course, at this time of year, but it might certainly be used as a sheltered roosting spot, possibly by smaller birds than the one that excavated it. The only bird I've seen approach it and look in was a white-breasted nuthatch, for which the hole is a huge entry point. During the breeding season, leaves block our view of this branch, so I don't know if we'll learn whose nesting hole it is, although the the two larger woodpeckers we occasionally see here, the red-bellied and the hairy, would seem reasonable guesses given the size of the hole. We've never seen a pileated woodpecker here.

Hairy Woodpecker - female

Speaking of the hairy woodpecker, one showed up this morning. Hairy woodpeckers are about the same size as the red-bellieds, though they apparently have more size variability. They are very similar in appearance to the noticeably smaller and more commonly seen downy woodpecker.

This female (it has no red spot on the head) hairy woodpecker hung around for a while today, so I took advantage of the opportunity to look for clues that quickly tell a watcher that a bird is a hairy woodpecker rather than a downy, since size can be deceiving from a distance. The beak size is a standard distinguishing point -- the downy's beak is small and stubby, less than half as long as the bird's head is deep (from the base of the beak to the back of the head). The hairy's beak is markedly longer -- almost as long as the depth of the head. (The angle of the photos above and below don't show the beak's full length.)

Also, it's my impression that downy woodpeckers move like small birds, with quick, darting movements, while the hairy woodpecker moves in a bit more stately fashion, like the larger bird it is. You'd readily describe a downy woodpecker as "cute," while a hairy woodpecker is a bit more formidable looking. Also, the tail seems to me to give the impression of greater prominence in the hairy. The Cornell Lab describes hairies as having "a somewhat soldierly look, with their erect, straight-backed posture on tree trunks and their cleanly striped heads."

Hairy Woodpecker - female

The suet log is a good point of reference for size. In the two photos above, you can see that the hairy woodpecker covers just about the distance from the top of one suet plug to the top of the one directly below it, a distance which is about four suet-plug diameters in height. In comparison, the downy, below, covers only about three suet plugs in height.

Downy Woodpecker - female

Except for a brief spell a few weeks ago, when we suddenly had a drop-off in birds visiting our feeders, a pair of downy woodpeckers have been regulars at our feeding stations for months. Below are a couple of close views I got of the male downy yesterday at a hopper-style feeder that has suet cages on the sides. He rested on the ledge, then approached the suet from the side. More commonly he and his mate fly directly to the suet cages -- usually, of course, the one we can't see from inside the house.

Downy Woodpecker - male

My friend Dan Tallman has pointed out that while downy woodpeckers tend to have black spots in the white outer tailfeathers, the hairy's outer tailfeathers are unspotted. Note a hint of a black spot on the outer white tailfeather, immediately above, in comparison to the all-white outer tailfeathers of the hairy woodpecker in the two photos earlier in this post. A better view of the tail (and beak) of the hairy can be seen in this post from August 2011, when a hairy visited the tube feeder right outside one of our windows.

Downy Woodpecker - male

It was definitely exciting to get good views of all three of these woodpeckers this weekend. There were even a few times when I could see all three at once. Now I know where to look for the red-bellied woodpecker at the snag near the top of the tree, perhaps I will notice him there more often.

Ring (of Pine Siskins) Around the Rosie

2013-01-20T13:29:00.000-06:00

I recently happened to capture this nice threesome of pine siskins encircling our Nyjer (niger) seed feeder. As you can see, the birds were concentrated in the bottom few inches of the feeder because we had let the seed supply run low. When the feeder is full, they tend to arrange themselves more vertically.

In the photo immediately above, you can see (especially if you click on the photo to see it larger) a bit of the yellow feathers on the wings on the bird on the right. A better view of this distinctive splash of yellow can be seen in the photo below, taken in December 2010.

I have written about pine siskins in several earlier posts, collected here.

Life Seen Upside-Down - Happy New Year!

2013-01-02T21:01:00.000-06:00

I thank my birding/blogging/Facebook friend Ruthie, of Nature Knitter, for the opportunity to take these photos of a white-breasted nuthatch on her distinctive ball-shaped feeder (a gift, I understand, from another birding/blogging/Facebook friend, Lynne, of Hasty Brook), as seen from Ruthie's dining room on New Year's Day. We were celebrating the birthday of her bubbly, personality-filled dog Holly the Pibble, who could win over a legion of pit bull detractors.

An unusual perspective on a habitually upside-down bird

Thanks to the seemingly dozens of feeding stations visible from Ruthie's windows, I kicked off 2013 with fabulous views of 13 kinds of birds (white-breasted nuthatch, red-breasted nuthatch, house finch, black-capped chickadee, dark-eyed junco, house sparrow, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, northern cardinal and blue jay) in addition to the crows, pigeons, wild turkeys and hawks I'd seen from the highway.

A more normal view of one of my favorite birds

I do love white-breasted nuthatches, as well as their smaller red-breasted cousins. We have both a male and a female very regularly at our peanut feeder at home this year. Last year at about this time I wrote that we had really just started to see the female (assuming it is the same pair), though the male had been a frequent visitor, and that I hoped she'd get more comfortable visiting our feeders. It seems she has.

Female white-breasted nuthatch (Jan. 2011)

I have some more recent photos of the female, but none I like as well as this shot of her soaking up some rays, or maybe just resting and conserving energy, on a very cold but sunny day last January.

This year, may you have interesting encounters with natural places and wild beings. Notice what you see. And, if you like, show someone, or tell someone about it (me, if you like -- in comments here, or email me at penelopedia @ gmail . com. I would love to hear your stories.)

“Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Holiday Greetings

2012-12-24T09:31:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas and warmest wishes at this special time of year, when the light begins to return but months of cold still lie ahead for those of us in the northern realms. I so appreciate my readers, and I love getting your notes. Thank you for following Penelopedia and letting me share my observations with you.

May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white!

Dark-eyed Junco

2012-12-21T20:16:00.001-06:00

I write today to celebrate the junco. Dark-eyed juncos are members of the sparrow family that are seen only in the colder months here in southern Minnesota and in much of the middle part of the U.S. For this reason they are sometimes called snowbirds. They breed in Canada and Alaska, as well as in year-round territories in northern parts of the Great Lakes states (including northeastern Minnesota), the West and the Northeast.

The junco's pale pink beak is a key identifier, as is the strong contrast between the dark gray or brown top and the white belly. Males and females are similar, though the females' color is more muted. There are regional variations in coloration -- so much so that until the 1980s they were treated as several distinct species. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology notes:

A field guide is the best place to look for complete illustration of ranges and plumages, but in general there are two widespread forms of the Dark-eyed Junco: “slate-colored” junco of the eastern United States and most of Canada, which is smooth gray above; and “Oregon” junco, found across much of the western U.S., with a dark hood, warm brown back and rufous flanks.

Juncos eat seeds and insects and usually feed on the ground, as is typical for sparrows, and so they don't often come to our feeders, though they are often to be seen foraging underneath them. They are regular visitors to our yard, though typically not in large numbers.

Yesterday morning we got a few inches of new snow from the edge of the big storm that shut down Iowa and other midwestern states. The snow covered the typical seed litter under our feeders, and while I was at home at lunchtime, I saw a junco trying to get a peanut from our peanut feeder. That's not a sight I've ever seen before. So I swept away the snow from a section of our front walk and put out some seed on the ground for the juncos.

They are cute little birds, and we're always happy to see them.

Snow Snow Snow!

2012-12-11T21:47:00.000-06:00

Wow! Biggest snow in a year and a half. We had about eight inches here in Northfield on Sunday, and a foot or more north of us in the Twin Cities and beyond. I'll just let the photos tell the story.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

2012-12-02T23:01:00.002-06:00

We've been seeing a red-bellied woodpecker in the big maple in front of our house and sometimes at our peanut feeder in recent weeks -- several days in a row a few weeks ago, and occasionally since then. This photo is a bit grainy, but otherwise not a bad capture for a foggy morning, which it certainly was this morning. In fact, there was a freezing fog advisory - not a common occurrence.

It wasn't until uploading this photo just now that I realized that this is a female - her red cap sits more on the back of her head, rather than extend over the top of the head as it would with a male. Below is a photo of a male that visited one of our suet feeders one cold morning in 2011. You can see that his bright red cap comes all the way over the front of the head to the top of the beak.

I'm not sure if we have been seeing only a female in our recent sightings, or sometimes a male. I'll have to look more carefully from now on. We just noticed quite a large (maybe 3-4" in diameter), rather fresh-looking hole in a branch in the tree that's shown in the top photo, and are wondering whether this/these red-bellied woodpecker(s) is/are responsible. We'll keep an eye on it and give an update if we get additional clues.

[Updated] Canada Geese at Sunset

2012-11-28T17:39:00.000-06:00

Correction: This post has been amended to delete the erroneous identification of some of these geese as cackling geese, a smaller, shorter-necked, smaller-billed relative of the Canada goose. I am informed by one of my local birding mentors, Gene Bauer, that these are in fact simply shorter-necked Canada geese. The cackling goose is noticeably smaller in body, closer to the size of a mallard, and has a smaller, more pointed bill, and Gene tells me it would be highly unusual for us to see them in such large numbers as shown here.

I'd recently heard that hundreds of Canada geese have been gathering on the Superior Drive pond. Having taken a vacation day today, I was free to wander over that way as the sun was setting about an hour ago to see for myself.

Here's a view (above) of the east end of the pond, covered with geese and a few mallards. While I was there, many birds took to the air. Click on the photo below for a larger view of many dozens of geese in the air while dozens remain in the west end of the pond.

~~I noticed that many of the geese were actually~~ ~~cackling geese, which are smaller and have shorter necks than the Canada goose.~~ [See correction at top of this post.]

Here's a closer view (above). ~~You can see both Canada geese (front right and left rear) and cackling geese (center) for easy comparison.~~ Click on the photo to see it larger.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology says of the cackling goose:

Formerly considered the smallest subspecies of one variable species [i.e., the Canada goose], recent work on genetic differences found the four smallest forms to be very different. These four races are now recognized as a full species: the Cackling Goose. It breeds farther northward and westward than does the Canada Goose.

There was a lovely milky sunset against which the skeins of airborne geese could be seen in silhouette. My camera battery was running low, so I turned for home.