Hawk, of some sort

The following conversation took place this morning during a nature hike I was leading for a 1st grade class:

Cute little 1st grade girl: "Mr. Dunlap?"

Me: "Yep?"

Cute little 1st grade girl: "This one time, um, last year...there was, a hawk, that um...built a nest in our backyard."

Me: "Cool!"

Cute little 1st grade girl: "Yeah!"

And another birder is born.

Loggerhead Shrike

Despite the absence of more frequent posts, I have been out birding quite a bit lately. The tricky part is finding the time to sit down and write something interesting at the end of the day. And when my mind is preoccupied with work, as it has been these past few weeks, it's difficult to find the motivation to blog.

But I think I'm regaining some of that motivation. Nicollet County has been pretty birdy these past few days, and I've taken advantage of the nice weather and south winds to see what's out there. This afternoon, the highlight was probably this Loggerhead Shrike perched on a wire a few miles west of St. Peter.

For some reason, Loggerhead Shrikes are pretty rare and localized in Minnesota. They do breed in a few locations, and during migration in April and May they're possible anywhere in the state; nevertheless, few are seen.

Shrikes are actually predatory songbirds. This means that while they hunt other animals, as hawks and falcons do, they are more closely related to a Blue Jay than an American Kestrel despite the physical similarities. These birds have been known to impale their prey on barbed wire fences, either for caching purposes or territoriality (and perhaps intimidation?), and are known to many as "butcher birds." "Loggerhead" refers to the bird's relatively large head in comparison to its body, which, along with its hooked bill and black face mask, adds to its fierce look. Mice beware.

Sandhill Crane

This past week I observed one of my favorite birds, the Sandhill Crane, on three separate occasions near St. Peter. The first two sightings were both a few miles west of St. Peter out toward Swan Lake, and the third occurred at Kasota Prairie across the Minnesota River.

Prior to this year, I had never seen cranes in the south-central part of the state. There are actually two different routes that the Sandhills take through Minnesota: 1) they follow the Mississippi River north along the eastern edge of the state, and 2) they skirt the western side of the state toward their nesting grounds in the northwest corner of MN. Because of these opposite routes, finding a crane in the center of southern MN, which is where I'm located, doesn't happen often.

However, I may have found a small migration window in which some cranes actually do wander through this area, as evidenced by this past week's sightings (I saw two migrating cranes at this time last year near the town of Gaylord, which is about 30 miles north of St. Peter). Which is awesome, because I absolutely love cranes. They look cool, and they sound even more impressive. There's something prehistoric about these birds that I can't quite comprehend; if you've ever heard a Sandhill Crane before, you know what I mean. The sound is fairly loud and carries perhaps several miles away. Any bird that loud deserves special attention in my book.

The cranes do of course breed in many locations in the northern half of MN. They also stage one of the most amazing migrations of North American birds each spring through the Great Plains (which I have yet to experience personally). But it's always a good feeling when you discover something like this in your own backyard.

American Woodcock

On Thursday night I led a group of Gustavus students and professors to Minneopa State Park south of Mankato to observe the aerial courtship display of the male American Woodcock.

Woodcocks are one of my favorite birds simply due to this elaborate ritual. Every spring beginning around the last week of March, the woodcocks arrive back on their breeding grounds and begin the quest for attracting a mate. Every night from then until early June, the birds begin their dance a few minutes after sundown.

I was pleased to see ten students and six older folks waiting for me to arrive at the Interpretive Center at 7:15 Thursday evening. From there we carpooled south to the park, arriving to the show at 7:45. As I explained that the dance would begin soon after we arrived, I could see the anticipation in everyone's eyes. We waited, and waited, and waited, and just when I could feel a sense of doubt in the air I heard the first "PEENT!" at 8:15.

The dance actually begins on the ground, as the male emits forth this distinctive, almost electric "PEENT!" sound that can be heard from quite a distance on a calm night. We walked along the dirt road until we had the bird positioned straight out from us in the prairie. After a few minutes there was a sudden cease to his "peenting," which was immediately followed by a soft but audible twittering as the bird began his spiral up into the darkening sky. With a little light still left, we were able to watch this chunky, softball-sized bird with a long, straight bill flitter with all his gusto upward and out of sight.

Still able to hear the twitter, which is actually produced by air rushing through the bird's feathers, we began to hear a few chirps, which are vocalizations given by the bird on his zigzagging descent. The chirping got louder, and we were able to see him just as he plopped down back onto his "peenting" grounds.

The great conservationist Aldo Leopold termed this spectacle the "Sky Dance." Ever since I witnessed this spectacle for the first time nine years ago, I have never missed a spring performance. And just like all performances, the "Sky Dance" is best enjoyed in the company of others; hearing the bewonderment in the students' voices this time was just as enjoyable as watching the woodcock itself.

I think that wherever I end up in life, the woodcock will always be a constant for me, which is something to be anticipated. For I know that each spring, the woodcock dances.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Yesterday afternoon I helped members of the Men's Leadership Club mount bluebird houses on trees in the college's Linnaeus Arboretum. The club had built the houses last fall as a gift for the arboretum, and today we finally got to put them up.

I thought that we could mount twelve of the houses yesterday afternoon in less than an hour. Two shattered houses, a broken hammer, and an hour and a half later, I was proved wrong. Lesson learned: don't mount bluebird houses on oak trees (they're a bit hard in the wood).

While I didn't see any bluebirds yesterday, I did notice another early spring arrival: this female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

This bird happens to be the name of my weekly bar trivia team. We wanted to pick a clever name, so we went with the name of a bird that could be taken as inappropriate in certain juvenile-istic contexts. American Woodcock and Red-headed Woodpecker were also considered.

The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, as you might be able to guess from its profile, is a woodpecker. So here's a trivia question for you: How many species of woodpecker occur in Minnesota year-round?

The answer will appear in the next post.

Dark-eyed Junco

A few weeks ago I was invited to be the special guest speaker at a St. Peter seniors group breakfast at Whiskey River, which is a restaurant in St. Peter that caters to people interested in birds (and by "caters," I mean that there are no less than thirty (30!) feeders of various make visible outside the restaurant's windows). This group of seniors meets once a month here for breakfast, and each month it gets a different speaker to present. The seniors wanted to know about birds, so their group coordinator found me and asked me to be the speaker for March.

This morning was that breakfast, and expecting a group of no more than twenty elderly folks, I was a bit surprised when I was greeted in the special dining room by sixty (60!) senior citizens.

Gulp.

I chatted with a few of the older guys as we ate our breakfast of sliced ham sitting on top of hash browns and scrambled eggs covered in cheese sauce (ask me another time if I enjoyed this). When everyone was finished, I got up and began my lecture on birds and birdfeeding.

Sometimes I need to outline my talks before hand; other times I just start talking and see what happens. After the first few minutes of talking this morning, I was a bit unsure of where to go next. Feeling a bit nervous in front of the sixty strangers staring at me, I glanced outside the window and caught a glimpse of a Dark-eyed Junco feeding on the ground. Seeing this one familiar face greatly encouraged me; I then talked briefly about juncos and the fact that they'd be around for about another month before heading back north. From here I went on to give one heck of a talk on birds to the group, complete with owl call imitations and mating behavior jokes. Everyone was very pleased and thanked me for an intriguing lecture on birds.

Thanks, junco.

Greater White-fronted Goose

Spring is here!!! Finally! Yay!

This past Friday marked the official end of winter. Good riddance, in my opinion. I was beginning to go stir-crazy.

Now, however, I have been afflicted by a bad case of spring fever. To salve this contagion (or to give in to it, rather), I went "goosing" out in the southwest corner of the state with my good friend Chad Gustafson.

The vernal equinox happens to coincide with the beginning of peak goose migration in southwestern Minnesota. But I'm not talking about our familiar Canada Geese; indeed, in 400 miles of birding yesterday, I saw under 100 Canadas.

Our targets were giant flocks of Greater White-fronted Geese and Snow Geese, numbering well into the thousands. Chad and I encountered our biggest flock of the day a few miles north of U.S. Highway 90 in Jackson County; we estimated a total of 8,000 birds in this juggernaut. The following photo, showing one of the "smaller" flocks, was taken at a wildlife management area south of Worthington in Nobles County.

There are actually three species of geese in the photo: 1) Greater White-fronted, 2) Snow, and 3) Cackling (a.k.a. tiny Canadas). Can you find them all? If so, try to find the bonus bird: the "Blue Goose," which is actually a dark color morph of the regular white Snow Goose.

Snow Geese actually aren't all that uncommon in MN; while the big flocks are found out west, they do occur in smaller numbers in the eastern half of the state. Greater White-fronted Geese, or "Specklebellies" as hunters call them, can also be found mostly in the southeastern portion of the state in smaller numbers. The difference is that the flocks of Greater White-fronteds disappear in early April while the flocks of Snows can be found into early May. The highest numbers of both, however, seem to occur simultaneously in the fourth week of March.

In fall, the majority of these geese avoid Minnesota completely, migrating farther west into the Dakotas. Spring, then, is definitely the time for "goosing." And the massive flocks of Greater White-fronted Geese and Snow Geese are an affirmation of this.