Laura Erickson's For the Birds

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Snowy Plover photo gallery


I've added 18 photos of today's Snowy Plover to my Snowy Plover Photo Gallery. Thanks ever so much to Shawn Zierman for alerting us all to this splendid bird, and to Mike Hendrickson for calling my house yesterday to make sure I knew about it--I'd been gone to the Twin Cities all day and may not have had a chance to check the Minnesota birding listservs if I didn't know about it. And a special thanks to Harold Nordin for looking beyond the little flock of Monarch butterflies on the beach that were gathered like a flock of shorebirds to find the plover for the final bird of this year's Spring Warbler Walks.

Last Warbler Walk report

As has suddenly become our tradition, we saved dessert for last--both in terms of today being the best of all the warbler walks for the total number of species (75) and in terms of seeing the best bird of the day (the Snowy Plover originally discovered there by Shawn Zierman and today first noticed in our group by Harold Nordin) at the very end. Here's the list:

Canada Goose
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal
Redhead
Greater Scaup
Red-breasted Merganser
Common Loon
Red-necked Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
Black-bellied Plover
Snowy Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper
Whimbrel
Sanderling
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Dunlin
Wilson's Snipe
Bonaparte's Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Common Tern
Mourning Dove
Black-billed Cuckoo
Common Nighthawk
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Red-headed Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
Alder Flycatcher
Least Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
Blue-headed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Purple Martin
Tree Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
House Wren
Veery
Swainson's Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
Tennessee Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Cape May Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Mourning Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Wilson's Warbler
Canada Warbler
Scarlet Tanager
Chipping Sparrow
Clay-colored Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Indigo Bunting
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
American Goldfinch

How can such a rare bird be so cute?

I'll post our final list and more trip photos in a bit, but WOW--there may be birds as cute as a Snowy Plover. But no bird is cuter.



Reader question

A reader writes:


We live near Santa Cruz, California in a meadow, surrounded by Riparian
Zone/Creek and Redwoods. At night we hear a loud, lonely sounding ?bird,
almost loon like or a loud very long hoot. We are wondering what it might
be. Do you have any ideas?


Any ideas?

Meeting Blaize!



Today was the day I went south of the Twin Cities to meet Blaize Kandler, the 10-year-old boy who got perfect scores on both parts of the state-mandated MCA-II tests last year. When the Star-Tribune interviewed him, he specifically told them to mention my book, 101 Ways to Help Birds, which is his favorite book. (The article is archived here.) Archimedes and I went to Blaize's school to make a presentation to the fourth grade classes about owls, and then I went to Blaize's house for dinner. He made a room into "Birdsville"--a little museum with all kinds of cool exhibits he created and lots of cool bird stuff. I made a few small donations to the museum--a beautiful photo of a Northern Hawk Owl I'd received this spring, a copy of Don Kroodsma's wonderful The Singing Life of Birds since Blaize is fascinated with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as well as birds, Kenn Kaufman's superb field guide, a copy of Good Birders Don't Wear White: 50 Tips from North America's Top Birders, and a carving of a Shining Honeycreeper I received in Guatemala.

I was shocked at just how much Blaize and his little brother Talon know about birds! Spending time with these wonderful boys was great fun for me, and well worth the 380-mile round trip.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Last Western Waterfront Trail spring Warbler Walk

Optimistic little wren trying to get this stick in the nest hole,

And succeeding.

Warbling Vireo nest

Common Yellowthroat

Rarest bird of the day--Common Moorhen!













What a great morning--an amazing testament to spring hormones and making babies. We watched orioles and wrens mating (boy are wrens quick!), a Warbling Vireo, House Wren, and Baltimore Oriole each working on a nest, one family of 5 tiny baby geese and another of 4 slightly older baby geese, a pair of Bald Eagles sitting out resting from what we assumed were parental responsibilities, twitterpated Hairy Woodpeckers--all in all, spring was definitely in the air! Our list of 44 species:

Canada Goose
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal
Turkey Vulture
Bald Eagle
Red-tailed Hawk
Common Moorhen
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Common Tern
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Hairy Woodpecker
Least Flycatcher
Warbling Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Tree Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
House Wren
Swainson's Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
Yellow Warbler
American Redstart
Common Yellowthroat
Wilson's Warbler
Song Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Indigo Bunting
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Monday, May 28, 2007

Kirtland's Warbler side trip


Russ and I had to head out toward Oberlin, Ohio, Friday to pick up our daughter's stuff--she's moving back home Friday. We decided to take the scenic route through Michigan, and started talking about where we should stop for the night as we came up to the Mackinac Bridge. That's when it hit me--we were going to be driving right through Grayling! So of course that's where we stopped, and stayed at a Day's Inn. I got up at 6 to head to the Holiday Inn, where Michigan Audubon's daily Kirtland's Warbler tours depart every morning at 7 and 11. Our tour guide, Sean Fitzgerald, used to live in Wisconsin where he birded and posted on WisBirdNet, so it was a pleasure to meet him in real life, plus he's a splendid field trip leader! So we got several looks at Kirtland's Warblers, including one that was simply fabulous. If only it had occurred to me before we left that seeing a Kirtland's Warbler was a real possibility I'd have brought my own spotting scope and digiscoping camera. I took the above photo holding my Sony DSC-H5, a 12x extended zoom camera, up to Sean's 60mm Raven spotting scope--not the best choice for either the camera or the scope, but beggars can't be choosers and for the first time in my life, I've taken some photos, regardless of how crappy, of Kirtland's Warbler! Of course, now I've whetted my appetite and am hungry to get back there with better equipment.

These trips are really a wonderful opportunity to see a splendid, and critically endangered, species. If you're interested in seeing Kirtland's Warbler, check out the US Fish and Wildlife Service's web page: Kirtland's Warbler Tours. And if you want to see my photos, there are several even worse ones of the bird but also some of the cowbird trapping setup, the habitat, and Sean at Laura's Pretty Pathetic Kirtland's Warbler photo gallery.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Peregrine Watch!


It's that time again! There are four baby Peregrine Falcons in the nest box on the Greysolon Building in downtown Duluth. They're going to be banded next week. And with luck and funding, we'll soon see Julie O'Connell's smiling face back downtown, showing off the most popular family in Duluth to passersby. If you want to keep track of the news, check out the Yahoo Peregrine Watch group!

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Splendid morning!


Black-bellied Plovers

Dunlin

Semipalmated Plover

Common Tern

This may be a Least Sandpiper, but the yellow legs we saw in the field don't show up--that may make it a Semipalmated Sandpiper.


The goslings have hatched!

Herring Gull

Two plumages, same species

Song Sparrow

Two photos of a Lapland Longspur


Female Redhead

Tree Swallow

We saved dessert for last! Red-headed Woodpecker (there were two by the parking lot!)
****************

Today was one of the DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDs--those dull, dark, dank, drippy, drizzly, Duluth days that birders delight in. The light was poor for identifying warblers, but we still had a nice variety, and had a smörgåsbord of shorebirds who were apparently enjoying a smörgåsbord of their own in the form of a dead deer washed up on the beach, along with the array of tasty maggots and other bugs gathered on it. We didn't get close enough for a photograph of the feast, which may be a good thing or a bad one depending on your sensibilities and point of view.

We didn't surpass Tuesday's 60 species, but came pretty close with 59:

Canada Goose
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal
Redhead
Greater Scaup
Red-breasted Merganser
Common Loon
Pied-billed Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
Black-bellied Plover
American Golden-Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Lesser Yellowlegs
Spotted Sandpiper
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Dunlin
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Common Tern
Mourning Dove
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Red-headed Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
Least Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
Blue-headed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
House Wren
American Robin
Gray Catbird
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
Tennessee Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Palm Warbler
American Redstart
Common Yellowthroat
Wilson's Warbler
Canada Warbler
Song Sparrow
Lapland Longspur
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Oh, wow--the Bronze Passenger Pigeon Award!


At some point in my 20s, I made a list of goals I wanted to attain by the time I got "old," which at the time I pretty much defined as hitting 50. I'm half a decade past that, but oddly enough, I've achieved a surprising number of these goals--and I don't even feel particularly old yet! One goal was to be published in Audubon magazine--I hit that when I wrote an article for them about the birding trail along the Mississippi River. One was to take a photograph of a bird that would be printed in a magazine--and the last issue of Birder's World had SIX of my photos!! One was to get my North American lifelist up to 600--this goal was inspired by Roger Tory Peterson's Bird Watcher's Anthology, which had an essay about the "600 Club." I accomplished that in 1999, and my Number 600 bird was a wonderful one--the Florida Scrub-Jay.

I think my biggest goal was to do something with my life that would be worthwhile enough that I'd one day earn the Bronze Passenger Pigeon Award from the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology, an award given "For significant contributions to Wisconsin Ornithology." I'd joined WSO in 1976, the year we moved to Wisconsin, and although we moved to Minnesota in 1981, I've always felt like Wisconsin is home in a very real sense. It's where my favorite birding spots in the world are--the places I've known most intimately and fondly: Picnic Point in Madison and Port Wing, where my mother-in-law lives and where I've made the same long hike over the same route year after year since 1975. And WSO has been my concept of the ideal state birding organization, whose membership runs the gamut from truly accomplished, top-tier birders (people who way more than me deserve to be included in Good Birders Don't Wear White: 50 Tips from North America's Top Birders) to novices. WSO members include those whose passion may be technical identification and/or distribution of birds, conservation, education, social birding, or birding at any level and angle. And many of my real heroes have been part of WSO--people such as Joseph Hickey, Sam Robbins, and Noel Cutright. As with every organization, there are strong egos, but overall WSO people don't boost their own egos by cutting down other people. It's an organization that is truly large enough for everyone. That's why when I finally had enough money, I became a life member of WSO. And it's why the one recognition I ever coveted was the Bronze Passenger Pigeon Award.

So imagine my shocked delight when Daryl Tessen called me last month to see if I was going to be able to attend the WSO Convention, and told me I was going to be honored! I couldn't make the convention--I was committed to the Manitowish Waters North Lakeland Discovery Center's annual birding festival. But today the plaque arrived, and I had to keep myself from floating skyward when I held it in my hands. Bettie Harriman from WSO asked me to get a photo with it for the archives, so here it is. And all I can say is, WOW. This is one mighty happy and proud 55.5-year-old woman!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Warbler Walk today





Brrr! The temperature hovered barely above 40 for most of today's warbler walk, and the chill was exacerbated by the dampness--it was foggy and windy and, well, darned chilly. But it was nice that the number of species exceeded the temperature, and fairly significantly, with a total of 60! I'll get some photos up ASAP, but here is the list:

Canada Goose
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal
Great Blue Heron
Turkey Vulture
Merlin
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Greater Yellowlegs
Solitary Sandpiper
Spotted Sandpiper
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Dunlin
Ring-billed Gull
Mourning Dove
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
Least Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe
Blue-headed Vireo
Warbling Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Tree Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
House Wren
Veery
Swainson's Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
European Starling
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
American Redstart
Northern Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Wilson's Warbler
Canada Warbler
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
House Finch
American Goldfinch

Monday, May 21, 2007

Singing Painted Bunting video



47 seconds of a Painted Bunting singing in Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge on May 12, 2007. This species was the #2 Most Wanted Bird in a recent Birder's World poll!

Black-capped Vireo songs!


I just posted a minute-long recording of a Black-capped Vireo singing near a dam in Oklahoma. The dam was pretty noisy, but for the most part it's in the background. Please don't use this recording for "playback" in the field! I just posted it so you can appreciate the cool, complex, varied song of this exquisite species. I was only able to get recognizable photos of one individual, but you can see what little I have at my Black-capped Vireo photo and sound gallery. Oh, darn--looks like I'll have to go back to the Wichita Mountains again.

Nesting loons and more!




I spent this weekend in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, at one of my favorite birding festivals of all, hosted by the North Lakeland Discovery Center. This year there was a lovely reception on Friday night, and then a VERY full day on Saturday--I led two field trips, gave a breakfast keynote talk about climate change and birds, and then presented two talks about Whooping Cranes. After all that, I was exhausted--fortunately, I got to spend both nights at the wonderful Timberline Inn. The owner, Rich, came out before I was even out of my car with my key--he remembered me from the past two years, and that's the friendly kind of place this is. Each room has a balcony looking out into feeders and forest where a bazillion birds were singing. I love staying here!

Sunday morning it was only 34 degrees, and I drove home in snow flurries. In a couple of places I didn't know if I was looking at trees covered with apple blossoms or snow! Spring weather, like spring birds, is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.

Anyway, I didn't take a lot of photos, but posted the ones I have on my 2007 Discovery Center bird festival photo gallery.

Partial albino hummingbird!

Gaige and Linda from over by Lake Louise sent a couple of photos of a splendid partial albino adult male Ruby-throated Hummingbird! You can read about albino hummingbirds at Lanny Chambers's wonderful hummingbirds.net page. Photos are copyrighted 2007 by Gaige and Linda Wunder.


Not about birds...


This isn't about birds, and I'm not into fancy wedding dresses, but this one, from 1947, which is in the Smithsonian's American History Museum collection, was made from nylon from the parachute that saved the groom's life in World War II! Read about it at the Smithsonian's site.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Trumpeter Swans



I took this video on a field trip for the Discovery Center Birding Festival Saturday. The swans flew off at the end toward another pair--they're apparently still working out territorial boundaries.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher



Best State Bird of all! I wish I could have gotten photos of them in flight--they're spectacular when they show off the salmon wing linings and flare that tail!