Flame-grilled Hot Dogs and Scorched Woodpeckers

Like most Americans, I celebrated the 4th of July weekend with family, doing the typical things like picnicking outside all day, tossing the ball around, and cruising a lake in a boat in search of a good fishing hole.  Most people are able to focus on these activities exclusively; birders always have the incidental birding meter running. That’s how you ride in a boat and show your companions a patriotic scene, fitting for the weekend.

Bald Eagle NestIt’s also how you can point out to Grandma during that all-day gathering that the bird that flushes from the house each time someone goes in or out is actually a pretty cool bird and not some lame Robin that none of us can stand to have making a mess on our house.

Eastern Phoebe nestUnlike the Robin, the Eastern Phoebe’s nest is quite aesthetically pleasing and well-constructed.

Eastern Phoebe nestI almost passed on the opportunity to get crushing photos of the most accommodating Eastern Phoebe I’ve ever seen. That would have been a shame.

Eastern PhoebeEastern PhoebeBut don’t let me fool you, it wasn’t all incidental birding.  I was in northern Minnesota, after all, a land ripe with fascinating birds in all seasons. Local birding friend, Julie, had told me about a Connecticut Warbler she had recently found in a Black Spruce/Tamarack bog not more than 20 minutes from my parents’ house.  The Connecticut was a bird I had previously only had as heard-only in the Sax-Zim Bog, so I rose early one morning donning some knee-high rubber boots, long sleeves, long pants, and an unhealthy dousing of bug spray.  I was going all in to mosquito central.  No sane person does this.bogBut we die-hard birders do, especially when we think of the possible reward of visuals of a skulker like the Connecticut. It’s worth some welts and the loss of a little sleep.  Julie had made things easy for me by marking a tree where the Connecticut had set up a territory along this abandoned, water-logged road pictured above. However, as we are getting into July, the Warblers just don’t sing as much.  When I got to the spot after hiking a quarter mile, I didn’t hear it.  But patience eventually rewarded me with that clear, ringing sound of the Connecticut: “Bea-cher, bea-cher, bea-cherbeach!” After waiting it out a little longer, I did get some great up-close looks, but I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo.  Seeing one was a good improvement on my heard-only lifer, but I really wanted that photo.  Maybe this Warbler was busy with a nest because it never did show itself again despite me waiting for an insane amount of time in the cloud of mosquitoes. I finally decided to call it quits and head back to rejoin the family.  A heard-only Boreal Chickadee and a Lincoln’s Sparrow were a couple of good birds on the hike out.

The next day on our final morning in the northwoods, I decided to give Julie’s spot one more try.  That Connecticut photo seemed in reach; like with the Phoebe, it would be foolish to pass on the opportunity to try. Thanks to a late night fireworks show, I was a little slower getting out of bed that next morning.  In fact, I arrived at the trail a full 40 minutes later than the day before.  Considering I had heard the bird right away that day and that it was singing sporadically, I didn’t like my chances for a repeat on the visual I got. When I got there and opened the car door, though, I didn’t hear the Connecticut but instead heard something just as cool–the unmistakable drumming of a Black-backed Woodpecker! And like that my search priorities shifted. I followed the sound of the steady drumming which echoed through the bog. And there, there he was just 10 feet off the waterlogged road about 10 feet up. I was blown away.

Black-backed Woodpecker

The Black-backed was not a lifer, but I have never seen a male before with his bright yellow crown and have always wanted to.  In a sense this felt just as fresh as a lifer. So I set out to accomplish one goal (photo of the COWA) and inadvertently and delightfully accomplished another.

I spent a lot of time enjoying this Woodpecker all while keeping an ear open for the Connecticut which did not vocalize even once. Black-backed WoodpeckerHere you can see and hear that distinctive drumming.  It’s such a cool sound.

I’ve heard that Black-backed Woodpeckers are quite tame and don’t really care about a person’s presence.  This experience certainly seemed to back that theory up. And if you have doubts about whether this bird was appropriately named…

Black-backed Woodpecker Black-backed Woodpecker Black-backed WoodpeckerBlack-backed Woodpecker Black-backed WoodpeckerHere’s another video.  I was hoping to capture him drumming some more, but instead caught him itching himself. Mosquito bite?

Eventually the bird went on its way, and so did I, trying to dig up that Connecticut.  I finally called it quits on the Warbler, vowing to try again next year when it was earlier in the breeding season and the birds’ hormones are still raging causing them to be more vocal. On my way back to the car I again spotted the Black-backed Woodpecker, but I noticed something different–no yellow crown, a female!

Black-backed WoodpeckerThrilled with the bonus Woodpecker, I continued my waterlogged hike back to the car.  Then I again heard a Black-backed Woodpecker a couple hundred yards from the first two, and then I saw one of them following the other around.  I thought they must be those two that I saw earlier.  I glassed the two birds as one followed the other up a Spruce and was shocked to see that both were males–an adult being followed by this juvenile!

Black-backed Woodpecker

This meant I had for sure seen three different Black-backed Woodpeckers and maybe four if the second adult male was a different bird than the first.  It’s not everyday you see a Black-backed Woodpecker, let alone a small pile of them.  Additionally, seeing a good northern bird like this outside of a birding mecca like the Sax-Zim Bog and close to “home” is always a huge thrill for me.  This encounter did not go unappreciated by me and will likely be one of my all-time birding highlights.

The Tanager Trifecta

Summer TanagerOne of the most popular birds in Minnesota this summer has been the Summer Tanager discovered by Wilmer Fernandez at the University of Minnesota’s Landscape Arboretum in Chanhassen.  Summer Tanager is rare-regular in the state, but the fact that this bachelor bird was in the Twin Cities and singing endlessly on territory made it all the rage for the better part of a week.  Not even the Arboretum’s steep per person entry fee could keep birders away, including yours truly.

Summer TanagerIf you’ve been following ABWCH this past spring, you may recall that I already made a Summer Tanager chase to get my lifer.  So why did I go after another if I’m not a county lister? Two reasons: this bird was solid red, unlike that tye-died creature I saw earlier this year, and this bird was singing on territory.  I wanted the full SUTA experience.  That quick migrant sighting didn’t fill the void.  Plus this bird was relatively close to home, and I had the time off.

Summer TanagerA couple of others who had the time off were teaching colleagues Brad Nelson and Theresa Nelson. The mother-son Nelson duo joined me on this little excursion. Our semi-annual birding get-togethers are always productive and fun–the last time the three of us met up was over a Snowy Owl near one of the towns in our district. Just like we had no problem getting that Owl, seeing this Tanager was a piece of cake.  We could hear it singing immediately once we got out of the car at the nut trees section of the Arboretum where it apparently has set up shop for the season.  We spent the better part of an hour following it around as it sang endlessly from its various perches, not even stopping its song while it feasted on insects:

Summer TanagerSummer TanagerIt’s been the year of the Tanager here in MN. To close out this post, here’s a pic of each of the two rare-regular Tanagers and a brand new Scarlet Tanager all seen in state this year.  Sorry for turning the Scarlet into a trash bird on this blog. No, I’m not–they are still an exciting bird and this post celebrates all things Tanager.

Western TanagerSummer Tanager

Scarlet Tanager

Blogger’s Potluck: Leftovers, Locals, even a Lifer

The birds have not allowed any dust to collect on this blog.  It is, of course, hard to collect dust when the bird clutter is accumulating at an alarming rate.  Lest I be featured on some blogger hoarding show, it’s time to start shoveling.  This post ties up a lot of loose birding ends.  In truth I haven’t been too excited about writing it since it does not coalesce around a single bird or birding locale.  Despite that, there are a lot of good nuggets in here–hopefully something for everybody.

Tommy Trip–The Rest of Wisconsin

Let’s get started with wrapping up the Tommy trip.  Not making the cut for the Wisconsin posts was the locally common Eastern Towhee.  Before this trip, this bird was still very novel to me as I had only ever seen just one male and one female.  I got my fill after this trip. This bird, which was a lifer for Tommy, was everywhere.

Eastern Towhee

Birders like to say EATOs sound like they are saying “Drink your tea!” when they sing.  This has been true in my very limited experience in Minnesota with this bird.  But well-traveled birders know that birds in different geographical regions often have different dialects of the same song.  I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but in Wisconsin the Eastern Towhee sounded more like it was singing “Drink your beer!” Given how commonplace this bird was, it explains so much.

Another lifer for Tommy in Wisconsin that was surprisingly hard to track down was the Ruby-throated Hummingbird.  Also surprising was that I had never before taken the time to photograph a male of our only, fairly common Hummingbird species. Luckily they had a feeder at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge with one lonely male showing up, allowing Tommy and me to rectify our respective deficits.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Another great find near the Visitors Center was a lifer Yellow-billed Cuckoo for Evan and me.  Tommy found the bird for us which started as a heard-only bird and then eventually give us a quick fly-over sighting.  It left me wanting more. Tommy always likes to “give back” something when he comes up birding.  Last winter it was the Black-backed Woodpecker near my parents’ house that I had been wanting to see; this year it was the Cuckoo. So, thanks for the cool birds, Tommy!

Tommy Trip–Night Birding in the Minnesota River Valley

One night during Tommy’s stay, he and I ventured down to the Minnesota River Valley just east of Granite Falls for some night birding.  Birding at night is always safer and more fun in good numbers, so we joined forces with Steve Gardner and Garrett Wee.  Our prime target for the night was the Eastern Whip-poor-will.  Tommy needed the lifer, and I was hoping to finally photograph one.  Chippewa County Road 40 is probably the best place in the state to reliably find this bird.  Despite Garrett already being down there before we arrived and having heard a half dozen of the Whips, the woods was completely silent when Steve, Tommy, and I got there. We birded on anyway and soon understood why the Whips weren’t whipping it good–a pair of Barred Owls vocalized right near us.  We got amazing flashlight views as one soared just over our heads.  It was eerie and awesome.

Eventually the Barred Owls disappeared, and the Whips began to sing their unending songs as they are so well known for.  We never could get a visual unfortunately, but at least Tommy got to tally the bird for his life list. I also got to tally a new bird for my Minnesota list: a calling Yellow-billed Cuckoo in the dark!  Even though Tommy had it directly above his head at one point, we never were able to get the flashlight on it.  So the bird went from being a lifer to a state bird in a matter of two days but still left me unsatisfied.

Tommy Trip–Keeping it Local

For Tommy’s last full day of birding we decided to bird close to home even though two Minnesota Megas showed up that very day, a Baird’s Sparrow and a Calliope Hummingbird. A chase would have been fun but exhausting given all our recent travels.  We started at Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center.  I had never really explored this place before, so it was fun to give it some serious attention.  One of our highlights was yet another Scarlet Tanager. This one behaved like a proper Scarlet, hanging out exclusively in the canopy.

Scarlet TanagerThe other highlight was when Tommy picked out the sound of a calling Yellow-billed Cuckoo, a county bird for me! Once again, Tommy gives back! So in three successive days, this bird went from life bird to state bird to county bird.  But it still was a no show.  Someday.

One of our other stops of the day was Sibley State Park.  Despite this gem being so close to me, I haven’t given much time to explore it which is something I really need to resolve.  Tommy and I gave it a good effort that day, though.  It was fun to look at some common-place birds through Tommy’s fresh perspective.  We took time to enjoy Ovenbirds, Field Sparrows, and Swamp Sparrows.

Ovenbird

Field Sparrow

Swamp Sparrow

We also had a couple of good finds in the more uncommon species, like three additional Scarlet Tanagers…

Scarlet Tanager…and two Blue-winged Warblers, a very good bird for central Minnesota.

Blue-winged Warbler

Birding After Tommy

After Tommy went home with a hefty bag of 26 lifers and a plethora of good bird sightings, I have continued to poke around close to home.  The Dickcissels have invaded the state in good numbers this year.  In fact, I even added one to my yard list.

DickcisselAnother fun find I had one evening when I went out to a local wildlife management area was a completely unexpected county Least Bittern.  Though I had a killer look at one flying toward me, I wasn’t able to get any photos but did record two Least Bitterns giving their “chuckling” call.  You may have to turn up the volume.

Birders can never turn off the birding.  Even when I accompanied Evan to a Cub Scout camping weekend, I had a couple of fun finds.  Highlights included yet another Scarlet Tanager and this Pine Warbler.

Pine WarblerPine Warbler

While the Pine Warbler was a good find this far south, I found something even better at Scout camp, probably my best sighting yet…

bigfoot

There are two more fun posts coming out soon–a chase to see a rare bird and an exciting Woodpecker encounter while visiting family in northern Minnesota over the 4th.

Necedah: Refuge for the Red-headed Woodpecker

One bird that Tommy, Evan, and I kept watch for as we traveled through Necedah National Wildlife Refuge was the Red-headed Woodpecker.  Tommy got his lifer a couple days prior on his Grand Forks trip.  This was a bird I hadn’t seen since 2014.  And whether you have freshly lifered on this bird or seen dozens, it is one that you really can’t get tired of seeing.  I was pretty excited about the possibility of finally ending my streak of days passed since seeing a Red-headed Woodpecker.

Once we got closer to the Visitors Center on the south end of the refuge, we started driving through some Oak Savannah habitat–good-looking stuff for a Red-headed Woodpecker.  It didn’t take long to spot one. Or two. Or three. Or a dozen.  They were everywhere.  It was insane and wonderful all at once.

Red-headed Woodpecker

IMG_8752What’s this bird looking at? Probably a mate or a competitor for a mate. There were two that were involved in a seemingly endless chase, never once pausing for a good picture.  At one point we saw them lock feet and fall to the ground like Eagles.  It was fantastic.

Red-headed WoodpeckerMy own personal RHWO drought along with the near-threatened status of this bird made seeing this abundance of Red-headed Woodpeckers extremely thrilling.  Never mind that this Woodpecker is ridiculously striking in appearance, sporting a bold, simplistic color pattern.

Red-headed WoodpeckerRed-headed WoodpeckerEvan enjoyed looking at all these cool Woodpeckers flying around us everywhere.

EvanThen again, who wouldn’t?

Red-headed WoodpeckerIt’s unfortunate that we didn’t have more time to spend with these Woodpeckers at Necedah as other areas of Necedah required exploration before we had to break for supper, hotel check-in, and Kirtland’s scouting.  But it’s good to know there is a place where one can go and see this species with ease.

On the home front, Red-headed Woodpeckers are getting harder and harder to come by.  As I mentioned before, I saw zero RHWO anywhere last year.  So I was quite thrilled when Randy Frederickson and I spotted one just recently in the home county while conducting our annual search for Blue Grosbeaks.

Red-headed WoodpeckerRed-headed Woodpecker

We can only hope that our local population will rebound to become even a fraction of what we saw at Necedah.

Necedah: Refuge for the Golden-winged Warbler

The prime target at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge was, of course, the endangered Whooping Crane.  But there were so many other good birds there, birds that have also faced steep population declines.  In reflecting on how I’d write about the rest of our birding at Necedah NWR, I decided to do two more posts, each focused on a singular, struggling species that we saw.

This post will be on the near-threatened Golden-winged Warbler.  Tommy, Evan, and I were fortunate to find a male Golden-wing on territory at the Refuge.  This was a key lifer for Tommy, and like the Cerulean, it was a bird I had only seen just a few times prior.  This observation marked the first time I had seen one on its breeding territory outside of migration. As such, it was the first time I got to see and hear one sing.

Golden-winged WarblerIf Minnesota did not already claim (appropriately) the Common Loon as its state bird, the GWWA would make a fine choice.  Minnesota plays host to roughly 50% of the world’s entire breeding population of this Warbler species.  Wisconsin and Ontario are the other major stakeholders in rearing these birds.  Maybe if most Wisconsinites knew this, they’d hold a referendum to denounce the Robin as their state bird and choose this Warbler instead.

Golden-winged WarblerThe Golden-wing’s preferred habitat is shrubby edges along wetlands and young forests. While the breeding population has remained stable in Minnesota over the last 45 years, this species has suffered a 60% population loss over that same time in the rest of its breeding range in North America.  Even though Minnesota contains only 10% of the GWWA’s breeding range, we host nearly half of all the birds of this species.  That puts an emphasis on just how much human development of wetlands and shrubby areas in other parts of the northeast has impacted this bird.

Despite Minnesota and Wisconsin being a major stronghold for this bird, the future is unclear for them here too.  GWWAs are early successional specialists that benefit from young forests that emerge after logging and/or fire.  With better fire control than ever and a decline in logging activity, prime habitat areas for the Golden-winged Warbler are growing up and not being “renewed” as often. Below is my favorite photo I took of the bird we observed because it shows the bird in a young Aspen tree, stands of which are prime habitat for this bird.

Golden-winged WarblerBesides human activity threatening this Warbler, the closely related Blue-winged Warbler is expanding its range in Minnesota.  This is problematic because the more dominant Blue-wings prefer the same type of habitat.

Blue-winged WarblerAnd when the Blue-wings aren’t kicking out the Golden-wings, they are hybridizing with them.  I have yet to see one of the two main hybrids.

I’m not sure what Wisconsin is doing regarding the conservation of this Warbler, but I’m proud of my state for taking their responsibility seriously as stewards of this bird. Something going on that’s pretty cool in Minnesota is that in 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service signed an agreement with the Red Lake Band of Chippewa to restore 1,000 acres of Golden-winged Warbler habitat each year for the next 12 years.

Golden-winged WarblerLike the Cerulean Warbler, the Golden-winged Warbler also winters in Central and South America, thriving in shade-grown coffee plantations.  Again, another reminder to drink bird-friendly coffee.  This beautiful home-grown bird is truly a treasure that needs all the help it can get.

Golden-winged WarblerKnowing how fragile a species is makes you appreciate a sighting like ours all the more. Hopefully the Golden-winged Warbler has a bright future.Golden-winged Warbler

Coming up: another stunning bird that is not just surviving but truly thriving at the beautiful Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin.