A Tern for the Better

Apologies for the overused pun here, but it truly is fitting.  And apologies on further delaying reports from the Tommy D trip in order to cover an outing that happened after his departure, but there has been a tern of events. Apologies again.

I really hate &*%$ Terns.  I am, of course, still licking the wounds from the Gull-billed saga that you just read about, but newer readers may not know about that other horrible, awful, no-good, rotten Least Tern chase to Luverne two years ago.  Not only did we miss the bird by 15 minutes and see Randy get that one minutes before us just like he did with GBTE, but then there was the accompanying camping trip that put Murphy’s Law to the absolute test.  That trip was so miserable, I’m not even going to link to the post on it.  Look it up if you want to cringe.

Anyhow, this past Friday I was still recovering from the hardcore birding trip Tommy and I had last week.  The Gull-billed Tern fiasco actually seemed like a distant memory because of all Tommy and I experienced together (we’ll get to that, I promise). Then as I was contemplating chasing yet another rarity, a Yelow-breasted Chat, something bumped the Chat in the priority queue: a report of an ARCTIC TERN less than two hours from my house in Big Stone County (the bump on MN’s west side).  This was a stunning find by Bob Ekblad who had gone to look for some reported Black-necked Stilts, another casual species in Minnesota.

Despite being burned by two rare Terns in the past, I only hesitated for a moment before throwing the kids in the car and making a run out west.  It looks like things finally terned out for me. The Arctic Tern was right where it was reported, resting on the beach of a small wetland.  Even from this distant photo, you can see just how short the Arctic Tern’s legs are and how gray its breast is.

Arctic TernArctic Tern is casual in Minnesota with most records showing up in Duluth.  I never really expected to add this to my life list because A) I’d have to be in Duluth at the right time and B) I’d have to be standing next to an expert birder who could help me differentiate this species from the Common Tern while it flew in the distance.

So not only was it a thrill to add this unexpected (as in ever) lifer, but there was a driveway to a farm place that put me within 30 feet of the Tern where I could study the field marks for myself up close!  Here I could see the stubbier, all red bill compared to the Common Tern’s longer, black-tipped  bill.  Additionally, I could see the white stripe under the eye and above the gray breast/cheek.

Arctic TernI had thought the Tern was resting on its belly, but I guess its legs are just that short that it only appeared that way.  I was hoping to catch the Tern in flight to see the diagnostic dark trailing edge of the primaries.  I didn’t get to see it fly, but some other birders did see it fly and captured that field mark in photos.  The bird appeared quite lethargic to me, understandable considering the Arctic Tern is famous for its migration from the Antarctic to the Arctic breeding grounds and back each year, a minimum of 24,000 round-trip miles as the crow flies.  And we all know Terns don’t fly like Crows.  Research with tracking this species has shown that they typically put on 44,000 miles a year. This bird was probably quite wore out and chose the most random of stops to rest.

Arctic TernKeeping the Tern company was an American Avocet which is not that rare of bird this far west in Minnesota.  Avocets have almost become something of a trash bird on this blog this year. Who would’ve thought?

American AvocetSince the Black-necked Stilts are a good bird for MN and since they had been relocated while I was on my way to the Tern, I decided to check up on them too.  The Stilts would not even be a state bird, but I won’t pass up a chance to see some easy ones that are nearby.  They are still quite revered here and have not attained the trash nickname of ‘Mud Poodles’ as they have in some other states.

Black-necked StiltThree great birds, two of which were casual species and one of which was a lifer, made for a great day of birding. Terns out I made the right decision to chase when I did. Unfortunately for Randy and Steve, they were not able to relocate either the Arctic Tern or the Black-necked Stilts the next day.

I still hate Terns, just slightly less so than I did before. The urge to swear when talking about them is gone. Also, I hate Chats now too.

Time for Summer

May is always a busy month in this household with all four of us putting the wraps on another school year all while balancing a host of activities, recitals, etc.  And of course, this is coincidentally the peak of migration. It’s quite ironic that when I have the most free time come June, the birding starts to die down and settle into the rhythms of another nesting season.  Actually, though, I’m looking forward to some key searches in those slow summer months.  I have not been too uptight about migration since there are only a handful of migrants I’m looking for.  Vagrants, on the other hand, throw a monkey wrench into everything.  Let’s just say that it’s been a very birdy weekend for ABWCH and none of it has been by design.  Let’s recap it by day:

Thursday

I found myself home from work with a sick Evan.  Marin was okay, so Evan and I dropped her off at school and then took a detour on the way home.  We stopped by one of the area’s many marshes to take in the sights and sounds of the resident marsh birds that have returned: gliding Forester’s Terns, floating American White Pelicans, singing Red-winged Blackbirds, rattling Marsh Wrens, and caterwauling Yellow-headed Blackbirds.

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Moving on to the shorebird spot, I cruised by and saw…nothing. Just as well, I better get my sick kid home. The kid may not have been 100% but his eyes still worked because as I started to drive away he told me he saw an American Avocet!  Somehow I missed it, which is crazy because it was almost right by the road giving us crushing looks.

American AvocetAmerican AvocetI was hoping for lifer Short-billed Dowitchers, but an Avocet is a nice consolation.  Evan and I enjoyed watching this bird for 15 minutes while it chowed down.

It was a fun moment together as we watched and recalled our excitement over our first-ever Avocet a couple years ago.

Friday

Evan was back to normal and back to school.  He even sang at his school’s songfest which I attended and then promptly slipped away afterward.  I had a solid tip from ABWCH reader, Adam Roesch, on a Snowy Egret his friend Matt found about a half hour from me. So I chased this would-be state bird…and dipped. It was a great Egret spot, so this story may be continued…

Saturday

It seems more and more people are into birding than ever and are scouring all kinds of locales and turning up good birds.  Seeing as how it was a weekend during migration, I honestly approached the day with a “I wonder where I’ll be chasing today” mentality.  I didn’t have to wait long.  News came in of a Summer Tanager from Murray County in southwestern Minnesota.  Summer Tanager is rare regular for MN but has eluded my life list so far. Since it was a very cold day with nothing else to do, the fam decided to join me on this chase that would take about 5 hours round-trip.

We arrived at Janet Timmerman’s rural yard that was an oasis for gobs of migrating birds and one lost Tanager.  Trees were crawling with Warblers and Orioles, and the ground was covered with migrant Sparrows: White-throated, Harris’s, and White-crowned.  Thrushes were also everywhere and distracting me from the task at hand.  One of the dozen+ Swainson’s looked a little off…Gray-cheeked!

Gray-cheeked ThrushMy addition of Gray-cheeked Thrush to my life list has always been tainted with doubt–mostly because I never obtained a photo to back up my sighting. While the kids admired the local Chickens and while I was Thrush sorting, I was still keeping an eye out for the main thing.  It was proving harder than I thought, especially since other birders saw it just a minute before I arrived.  Finally I spotted the tie-died wonder, a first year male.  It wasn’t the coveted bright red adult male, but a cool lifer nonetheless. My camera had difficulty focusing on its mottled plumage.

Summer TanagerSummer Tanager

Summer Tanager

After thanking Janet for sharing her bird, we were on the road for the two-hour, uneventful trip home.  We did stop in Marshall to grab a pizza and walk the dog at a park–Marin was pretty excited to see a wedding party.  I kind of figured it was a boring day for the kids.   Apparently our Kindergartner and soon-to-be 1st-Grader thought otherwise as she penned us a note in the back seat:

Marin note

It was a some nice family time and a successful chase. Life could go back to normal the next day…or could it?

Sunday

I woke up wondering if I would be bringing Marin on another adventure.  Sure enough, my phone rang that morning.  It was Ron Erpelding.  The imagination goes crazy when you see that Ron is trying to get ahold of you.  Ron informed me that he had a Pacific Loon in BREEDING PLUMAGE waaaay down in Rock County, the very southwestern corner of the state.  I had just returned from a long-distance chase that direction the day before, but the pros of another chase were winning decisively over the cons.  Pacific Loon is annual in MN, but mostly on Lake Superior in the cold months. The thought of traveling 2.5 hours to see a bird in breeding plumage on a 2-acre pond in the spring was far superior to the alternative of traveling 3.5 hours to Duluth to see a drab bird on the gargantuan Lake Superior in the winter where a) the Loon could easily disappear or b) appear as a speck on the horizon or c) I could freeze to death.  It was a no-brainer.  Chase on.

The family opted not to return to the southwest with me.  I don’t blame them.  As I headed back down the same highway as I did the day before, I wanted to cry when I passed the turn-off for the Tanager spot. If only I could have combined trips! Nevertheless I eventually reached my destination, an old gravel pit filled with water and one very sexy Loon.

Pacific LoonI was not anticipating such a great distance to the bird.  The distance coupled with heat waves emanating from the soil made photography difficult.  The temptation to trespass was real. But those tiny green specks in the soil are brand new corn plants. I did not want to tick off some farmer.  I did ask a couple of neighboring residents about who owned the land and was bummed to find out the owner didn’t even live around this spot.  So, I did the best I possibly could given the circumstances.

Pacific LoonPacific LoonDespite the distance, this was a thrilling bird to see.  It is a life bird I always imagined getting as a speck on Lake Superior and being nothing more than a check mark on my life list. I had another fun find while seeing the Loon: Janet Timmerman whose yard I was just in the day before. We shared a laugh over the double chase and enjoyed the Loon together for a bit.

After watching the Loon, I popped into neighboring Blue Mounds State Park two miles to the west to try for a reported Northern Mockingbird.  I see Mockingbirds annually in Arizona, but I still needed the rare-regular for my Minnesota list.  The bird had been hanging out by the ranger station at the campground.  It took me a half a minute to find it. Good thing too–I was already pushing it for time in order to be home for kids’ bedtimes.

Northern Mockingbird

Northern Mockingbird

Rock County redeemed itself from that awful, miserable Least Tern chase a couple years ago.  It was a sweet 2-for-1 grab this time.  The good times kept rolling, too, when I spied a rare-for-this-area Swainson’s Hawk fly over the highway halfway home.

Swainson's Hawk

Monday (today)

Before I departed for the Pacific Loon chase on Sunday, I promised Melissa I would stay home on Monday, a scheduled day off work.  This act on my part is almost certainly the reason a Little Blue Heron showed up in Duluth today. Doh! I did, however, sneak out for a bit after the kids went to bed and finally claimed Short-billed Dowitcher for my life list.  Joel had seen some Dowitchers at the shorebird spot in our county but couldn’t ID them.  I was able to see them fly away and hear the soft tu-tu-tu calls, clinching the ID.

Short-billed Dowitcher

What’s next?

With the Dowitcher locked up, I’m waiting around and hoping for one other migrant for an inconsequential add to my county list. But afterward, we’ve got some fun summer searches ahead.  In the meantime, maybe some other fun stuff will show up.

When Will It Ever Happen?

April 22, 2016, that’s when.

Willet

Willet has been my nemesis shorebird for a couple years now. I’ve chased and searched but could never catch a break with this one until Joel Schmidt called me up after work on Friday.  Joel asked me if I still needed a county Willet.  I practically stuttered when I admitted my shame of telling him I needed a Willet period. My bag of shame birds got a little lighter, but I still tote a few around.

Funny thing is that I took this bird for granted in my early birding career.  It’ll come, I told myself. One time I even turned down a similar call from Joel two or three years ago when he found a Willet in the county.  Learning that it was over a 100 yards from the road in the disappearing light of the evening, I turned Joel down thinking that there would be better opportunities.  I have not been more wrong. On Friday I didn’t hesitate. I got Joel’s call as I was pulling into the driveway after picking up kids from school. I promptly dropped them off in the care of their mother and then sped away.

Willet To a non-birder this is pretty drab bird, but it can be quite flashy when it flies revealing a striking white and black pattern.  I watched the bird for over a half hour hoping to catch a glimpse of it flying, but it never did.  Eventually I had to get back to the house.  Flashy wings or not, the Willet never fails to impress Minnesota birders because it is such an uncommon migrant.  As such I posted Joel’s sighting on FB. I love posting birds like this because we are such an underbirded county–good birds may attract a few visitors who in turn could find something great in the home county.

Feeling the energy that a new life bird can bring, I went out birding this morning looking for nothing in particular, hoping to find a rarity.  Cinnamon Teal is always high on the want list for a county bird, but I won’t snub a chance to finally get a good photo of its much more common cousin.

Green-winged TealGreen-winged TealAs I was Teal-gazing, though, someone answered the Willet ad in the classifieds. Visiting birder Brad Abendroth struck out on the Willet but instead discovered a whopping 23 American Avocets at that pond!

American AvocetThe birding fun doesn’t end there. Later in the day I took the kids on a short hike at my Gray Partridge spot.  As we walked a fence-line in 20 mph winds we got lucky and kicked up a single Gray Partridge from just 2 feet away! It startled Marin pretty good; she wanted to walk behind me after that. Evan enjoyed seeing this lifer.  Based on the deep rusty color of the outer tail feathers, it must have been a male.  When I saw the two the other day, one had bright rusty outer tail feathers like this and the other had lighter-colored ones, possibly indicating a pair.  If that’s the case, perhaps the female we didn’t see today was sitting tight on a nest. We can only hope.

Want Some Sauerkraut With That Vireo?

I had seen the report and dismissed it quickly.  There was no way that a White-eyed Vireo would stick around long enough to chase it. Their presence in Minnesota during migration is ephemeral. Then I got a phone call a couple weeks ago that changed my thinking.  Ron Erpelding, a locally-based 87-county lister, calls me whenever something good shows up within a reasonable distance from Willmar.  Ron told me that he went to see the Vireo at Flandrau State Park in New Ulm a few days after the initial sighting and that it was singing up a storm.  Hmmm. Could it be that this misplaced Vireo was trying to set up a territory for the summer?

The singing White-eyed Vireo was intriguing on its own.  The location, though, was what pushed the decision to chase over the edge.  New Ulm was only an hour-and-a-half away, but more importantly, it was the city where Melissa and I got our first teaching jobs.  This chase would be a family affair and a chance for Melissa and I to revisit a beautiful place we called home for a few years and show the kids our first school, first house, etc.  It’s always held a special place in our hearts.

Nestled in the scenic Minnesota River Valley, New Ulm boasts the highest per capita population of German descendents, and it shows. It is a town where the industriousness of its residents is showcased in well-kept, stately brick homes and perfectly landscaped yards (there is no bad part of town), and the love of beer and all things sausage is proclaimed everywhere.  It is a town where you can (and I did) roll out the barrel.  You name a season, and I’ll name a beer festival for that season.  New Ulm is the only place in America, and this is no joke, where schools offer up vats of sauerkraut on hot dog day and the kids pile it on.  Life is a continual party in New Ulm, and partying it up just upriver from the famed Schell’s Brewery was a little bird I wanted to see.

After a quick drive-by of the old house, we went straight to Flandrau State Park right in town on the Cottonwood River.  There were other birders responding to the call and making the short hike along the river to the spot.  One guy, Bill Marengo, was in the parking lot and told us the bird was indeed present this morning. Yes!Evan MarinGetting to the scene a few hundred yards down the trail, I heard the bird immediately.  Several birders and I strained to locate it.  One lady claimed she saw it.

White-eyed Vireo Stakeout

The rest of us didn’t.  Then, we weren’t hearing it at all.  After an hour or so, I decided to call it quits.  You can only stare at the same trees for so long.  Hiking back to the parking lot I checked my email and saw an eye-bulging report from the very same Bill Marengo with whom we had just spoken.  He had made his way over the waste-water treatment ponds in nearby Sleepy Eye and found gobs of shorebirds–really good shorebirds. The trip went from being a downer to all the sudden being exciting again.

Once we were back at the car at Flandrau, there were some FOY Indigo Buntings to enjoy– a paltry, albeit lovely, consolation prize.  The promise of some shorebird lifering was making up for any disappointment over the White-eyed Vireo.

Indigo BuntingBefore we left, I thought I heard the soft bee-buzzzz call of a Blue-winged Warbler.  Nah, couldn’t be…

Even with a heard-only White-eyed Vireo and several potential lifers in Sleepy Eye, probably the best find of the day came when we stopped for a hot dog lunch at one of our old haunts, the Kwik Trip. (And yes, there was a huge tub of sauerkraut with the condiments). As we were leaving, who should we run into but our old neighbor and friend, Adam! The next half hour passed quickly as we reminisced, laughed, and caught up with Adam; I didn’t even have the usual anxiety when life birds are on the line.

Eventually we did part company and make the 15-minute drive to Sleepy Eye.  Bill wasn’t kidding about the shorebirds.  There were two main groups, each in different ponds and close to the entrance.

Sleepy Eye WTP

Sleepy Eye WTP

Birders who read this have probably already tried to sort through some of the goodies in these photos.  When I was sorting through them in real life, I was looking for one, larger bird in particular that Bill reported–the Hudsonian Godwit.

Got it.

Hudsonian Godwit

It was not the more striking male that I was hoping for, but when it comes to Hudwits, beggars can’t be choosers.

Hudsonian Godwit

Hudsonian Godwit

It was pretty sweet to pick up this unexpected life bird, but the fun didn’t stop there.  Bill Marengo was still on the scene and helped me pick out a Sanderling lifer, even letting Evan and I get some good scope views.  I was surprised by how plump they are and close in size to the Dunlin.

Sanderling

SanderlingIf two unplanned lifers weren’t enough, how about a third?!  Several Terns caught my eye right away when we got to the ponds.  Their bills looked excessively reddish and other clues were leading me to the conclusion that I was looking at Common Terns, which aren’t so common in Minnesota compared to the excessively common Forster’s Tern.

Common TernsI spent much time agonizing over this ID after the fact as Common and Forster’s Terns are incredibly similar looking.  Many hours were spent scouring images on Google, studying Sibley, etc.  Common Terns have reddish-orange bills while Forster’s Terns have a straight-up orange color.   The red really popped when I looked at these birds.

Another field mark of the Common Tern are the wings.  The primaries of a Common are gray and flush with the tail while the primaries of the Forster’s are whitish or frosty and shorter than the much longer tail.

Common Terns

Finally, I found evidence of a remnant dark carpal bar which Common Terns have during the winter months before the black bar fades to gray.

Common Tern

Common Tern

The birders among you have already detected some great shorebirds.  American Avocets were plentiful with a dozen birds representing their species.  This elegant bird is always a rare treat during migration in Minnesota.

American Avocet

American Avocet

American Avocet

Black Terns are summer residents here, but it was nice to see one up close and still.

Black TernDunlin were excessively plentiful and quite striking in full breeding plumage.

Dunlin

Dunlin

Stilt Sandpipers are also fun and handsome shorebirds.

Stilt Sandpiper

Another great addition to the shorebird mix were two Ruddy Turnstones, a crazily-patterned shorebird.

Ruddy TurnstonesThere was a lot going on with the shorebirds, both in numbers of birds and numbers of species.  Wilson’s Phalaropes and White-rumped Sandpipers can be seen in my photos, but I didn’t focus any of my photography efforts on them.  I probably could have spent hours photographing all these shorebirds, but I wanted to take another crack at that White-eyed Vireo and the day was already getting long for the non-birders.  It was time to head back to New Ulm and hit the trail one last time.

Evan Marin

Joining us this time were Joel and Amanda Schmidt from back home.  It didn’t take the six of us long to hear the White-eyed Vireo.  Joel and I bushwhacked and tried to get on it, but we just couldn’t get a visual despite a valiant effort. I had to give up for real and make the painful decision to go ahead and count this bird as a lifer despite it being heard-only.  I normally don’t like to do that, but exceptions sometimes need to be made for vagrant visitors of the Vireo variety. Precedence has already been set with my Bell’s Vireo lifer.

As we were about to part company with Joel and Amanda, we heard the soft bee-buzzz of a Blue-winged Warbler!  I may not have been hearing things earlier after all! In no time we got some incredible looks at a Warbler I have only seen twice before.

Blue-winged Warbler

Blue-winged WarblerThe Blue-winged Warbler was another great consolation prize in a day full of consolation goodies.  It felt good to get better photos of this species.Blue-winged Warbler So, we went to see a White-eyed Vireo and failed in that regard.  However, this day was an unimaginable lifer and FOY grab.  Getting four lifers (WEVI, HUGO, SAND, COTE) in a day instate is unheard of at this stage in our birding.  Topping it off with some incredible shorebirds like the Avocets and Turnstones as well as the Blue-winged Warbler really made for an exciting day back on our old stomping grounds.

I’ve announced it before that there’s a lot more coming up, and even after such announcements, more incredible birding keeps happening.  Now in addition to the Colorado birds and more recent lifers near home (one being nocturnal!), wait until you see WHO we went birding with and what we helped him find!  Oh, and pretty soon we will be vacationing in Wisconsin’s Apostle Islands on the south shore of Lake Superior.  We’ll see what comes of that.  All I’ll say is that kayaks may be deployed; an endangered species may be had.

 

None Greater–The Story of Our Sage-Grouse Lifer (The Epilogue – Bonus Lifers and Other Good Birds)

When I planned the trip to Montana to see Greater Sage-Grouse with my dad, I had blinders on.  I was fixated on one bird and rightly so considering its significance.  Somewhere along the way, even as I was making birding plans for Arizona and a late winter trip to northern MN, curiosity got the best of me regarding central Montana. I began to wonder what other cool birds we could get.  Studying eBird bar charts for the Billings area, I started to realize there was a unique chunk of birds we could add to our life lists that would be difficult to find where we normally bird in MN and AZ. The prospect of bonus lifers was indeed exciting.  Not only could we pick up life birds, but we could pick up all kinds of other western goodies as well.  In both regards we were successful and had a lot of fun.  Here’s the run-down.

Good Non-Lifer Western Birds

1. Say’s Phoebe – still need one in MN and therefore still like seeing them everywhere else, even if that’s at a rest stop on I-94.

Say's Phoebe

2. Sharp-tailed Grouse – I’ve seen and shot my fill; a quick interstate sighting filled any remaining Sharptail void for the time being.

3. American Avocet – I’ve got better photos in the archives. This is probably the only shot I’ll get at seeing them for 2015, so it’s getting posted.

American Avocet

4. Swainson’s Hawk – If the big sky and rugged terrain don’t remind you that you’re out west, freeway fly-overs of this raptor will.

5. Mountain Bluebird – even when it’s a blur, this bird is a welcome flash of color on the monochrome landscape of early spring.

Mountain Bluebird

6. Burrowing Owl – never, ever gets old.  Hunting for them among the similar-sized, shaped, and colored prairie dogs in a dog town is a fresh take on owling.  The challenge is accentuated by the whack-a-mole behavior of both species.

Evan Burrowing Owl

Burrowing Owl

John Carlson, the facilitator of our Sage-Grouse adventure, told us that he worries that people who shoot Prairie Dogs for sport may inadvertently shoot Burrowing Owls – a terrible, but possible scenario.

Burrowing Owl

John also pointed out the vocalizations of Burrowing Owls.  I’ve seen several Burowing Owls in Arizona, but I’ve never heard one before.  It was pretty cool and distinctive.  You can bet I’ll be listening for that sound whenever I bird in western Minnesota.

7. Ferruginous Hawk – perhaps an even a better western hawk than Swainson’s Hawk and one heckuva a mother, finding time to rear a brood and decorate.  The word ‘nesting’ to describe the preparatory behavior of expectant mothers was taken from this bird’s efforts.

Ferrugionous Hawk

I never noticed the trash and Christmas lights until I got home and looked at my photos.  It’s not like someone left them on this tree, either.  We were in the middle of nowhere. John had spotted this nest for us and asked us if we wanted to see a Ferruginous Hawk nest.  I asked him later if he had this nest scoped out from a previous trip, and he told us it was his first time seeing this particular nest–he said a nest in a lone, short tree on the prairie was typical for this species.

Ferruginous Hawk

John then spotted the male nearby.

Ferruginous HawkIt was fun to see the male exhibiting the behavior described in the field guide, which is sitting out in the open on the ground and always in a perfect western setting.

Ferruginous Hawk

8. Western Meadowlark – a regular sight back home in MN, but a crazy ubiquitous sight out West.  I have never seen more Meadowlarks.  Therefore, the law of large numbers in birding says that eventually even I will get a good photo of one.  And considering this is Dad’s favorite bird from his childhood days on the North Dakota prairie, I had to post some photos of this bird from our special trip.

Western Meadowlark

Their song is beautiful and could be heard constantly from all directions.

Western Meadowlark

It is the song that my Dad enjoys most about them. Have a listen for yourself.

The only thing better than that is watching my dad’s favorite bird photo-bomb his research bird, singing the whole time.

The Bonus Lifers

1. Sage Thrasher – we saw one. Barely. John pointed out a bird that flew away.  Since we were still on the hunt for Greater Sage-Grouse, we didn’t take time to poke around for it.  It was positively identified by John and seen by us–those are the minimum requirements for a lifer but by no means make for a satisfying lifering experience.  It was an upgrade from a similar sighting with Laurence Butler in the Sonoran Desert last year; in that situation Laurence was pretty sure a bird that flew by was a Sage Thrasher.  We held off on counting it then.  It’s counted now, but better looks are required in the future.

2. California Gull – a very good-looking Gull with that dark eye and red orbital ring.  John found us a smattering of them at the Yellow Water Reservoir in the Yellow Water Triangle where Dad worked in the 1970s.

California Gull

Seeing this Gull has given me confidence in knowing what to look for when we comb through the hundreds of Ring-billed and Herring Gulls at the county landfill back home in hopes of finally turning up a county record.

California Gull

3. Chestnut-collared Longspur – a lifer for Evan.  This is a tough, tough bird in Minnesota.  Last year Steve Gardner and I traveled to Felton Prairie to successfully track down one of only a handful of birds in the whole state.  Here in central Montana, where there are seas of prairie grass, they are way more common.

Chestnut-collared Longspur

Chestnut-collared LongspurI don’t recall the name of the road we traveled where we saw this Chestnut-collared Longspur, but whatever it’s called, I’ve dubbed it Longspur Road.

Longspur Road

Why Longspur Road?

4. McCown’s Longspur – gobs upon gobs of this hoped-for bird were seen pecking grit off the road in the 40 mph wind. We literally saw hundreds.  John figures we were witnessing a large migration movement and not just birds on territory.

McCown's Longspur

This Longspur has such a limited range in the west/central part of the U.S. with most of its summer territory being in Montana.  Not only were we in the right part of the country, but we were there at the right time of year to see these awesome Longspurs in their breeding plumage.

McCown's Longspur

McCown's Longspur

5. Long-billed Curlew – this was another hoped-for bird that is a summer resident to the grasslands of the Great Plains.  I had the pleasure of spotting this lifer myself as this strange-looking creature seemed out of place as it strolled through the grassland interspersed with sagebrush.

Long-billed Curlew

It seemed so bizzare to see this giant shorebird out in the sea of grass and sage with no water in sight.  It reminded me of seeing the resident Marbled Godwits at Felton Prairie back in Minnesota.Long-billed CurlewWe ended up seeing a second Curlew a little later, but neither were very photogenic.

We had a couple life bird misses, but no one is complaining here.  In addition to the big lifer of the Greater Sage-Grouse, Evan picked up five additional lifers and I picked up four new ones.  These birds were the icing on an already delicious cake.

The Ducks of North Dakota

On our way back home, we again spent the night in Bismarck.  The next day I decided to make a quick stop east of town to look for some reported Hudsonian Godwits.  There were no Godwits around, but one thing North Dakota is never short on is ducks.  Certainly this state has to have the highest duck to person ratio in the nation.  Try to not see a duck in North Dakota.  The highlight duck for me was seeing hundreds of Northern Pintails.  They are usually just a single digit bird back home and seen only during migration. Despite their numbers, I had trouble finding any that weren’t shy for photos.

Northern Pintail

With thousands of ducks you’re bound to get a good photo opportunity or two, even if they are common species like the Gadwall and Blue-winged Teal.

Gadwall

Blue-winged Teal

Blue-winged Teal

Shenanigans in Minnesota

On our trip, we saw three giant bird statues: Sandy, the 40-ft tall Sandhill Crane in Steele, ND; the world’s largest American Crow in Belgrade, MN; and the world’s largest Greater Prairie Chicken in Rothsay, MN.  In hindsight, I should have stopped at all three for photo ops, but at least we made the stop in Rothsay.  We were on a Grouse high after our big trip, so it only seemed fitting that we should stop for this one.  It wasn’t long before this trip that we were birding in Arizona with Tommy DeBardeleben and learning to inject more fun in our outings.

Greater Prairie Chicken EvanThis next photo was not completely orchestrated by me.  Evan really did discover the lesser end of a Greater Prairie Chicken all on his own.  The smiles are 100% natural. Oh, to be 8 again.

Evan Greater Prairie Chicken

Here’s one the grandmas can approve of.

Evan Greater Prairie Chicken

After seeing Greater Sage-Grouse do their mating display, Evan and I decided it would be fun to reserve one of the Minnesota DNR’s blinds this upcoming spring to watch booming Greater Prairie Chickens near Rothsay.  And eventually, I’d like to see all the Grouse species do their respective, springtime mating rituals.  There is no better way to see Grouse.

As our trip was drawing to a rapid close as we were racing to get back in time for a piano lesson, we squeezed in one more quick stop.  We simply had to.

Evan Evansville

This was a monumental trip for Evan and me filled with good memories, great birds, and new and old friends. There will no doubt be more birding adventures, both little and grand, but none will top this. I hope you enjoyed tagging along through these posts.

The story of our Montana Greater Sage-Grouse Lifer with Rick Wallestad is made up of four parts: 1) The Prologue–The Impetus, 2) Part 1, 3) Part 2, and 4) The Epilogue–Bonus Lifers.

2014 – The Biggest Year I Never Dared to Dream

What’s this, you say? A re-cap of 2014’s birds halfway through February?  Right now heads are shaking as they contemplate my foolishly late posting.  Well, to the detractors, I say the timing couldn’t be more right.  For you see, I did not rush to compile a “Top Ten” list in the waning hours of 2014 when the pressure of an artificial deadline might cause errors in judgement.  No, these ideas have been marinating and brewing for the most authentic and satisfying post possible.  Actually, the reality is that the birding has finally just flat-lined here in February and all this extra time has allowed me to steal a lot of cool ideas from those who have posted before me.

2014 was a monumental year–a year that will, in all probability, never, ever be matched again.  I do not anticipate doing future “Best of” posts, but I would be remiss if I did not commemorate the year that gave so much and so freely.  Though the word often loses its meaning in today’s vernacular, no other word is more qualified to describe 2014 than “epic.”  Evan and I began the year with a hefty-number of life birds, 200+.  So how many new birds could  a person reasonably expect to add in a new year at this stage in our birder development? 30? 40? 50?   No, we blew those figures out of the water.  I lifered 96 times and Evan 74.  Yes, we traveled out of state a couple times, but most of those life birds were found right here at home in the great state of Minnesota. The numbers don’t tell the half of it.  The actual birds included in those numbers are beyond anything I could have dreamed for us.  The stories of the finds, the chases, the hunts are dripping with adrenaline.  In fact, it was only just recently that my resting heart rate dropped below 120 BPM.

We’ll get to all that excitement in a bit, but first one must be grounded and look at the ugly side of birding.

Worst Birding Experiences of 2014

Far and away, this award goes to the Least Tern chase to Luverne.  I suckered the kids into going on an overnight camping trip with me to Blue Mounds State Park to see this bird.  My wife suckered me into taking along my dog. Now I’ve been to Blue Mounds before, so I promised the kids a great place to swim and a really cool city park in Luverne.  Long story short is that the drinking water at the park had e. Coli, the swimming reservoir was drained from a broken damn to due heavy spring flooding, and that beautiful city park was completely destroyed in that same flooding.  Not only did I have disappointed children and an overcrowded tent with two kids and a lab, but an overnight rain and lighting storm caused us to take shelter in the van at 4 AM and try to get some sleep.  The next day I was desperate to replace two balding tires before our return trip.  I found a dealership to do the job, and my plan was to take a walk around town with the kids and dog while it was being done.  Unfortunately a downpour caused the three of us and the dog to take shelter in the one-car showroom while we watched Sponge Bob on a 6 in. TV and waited for our car.  Oh, and that Least Tern we were after? Missed it by 15 minutes. Not even all the Common Nighthawks, Blue Grosbeaks, and Red-headed Woodpeckers we saw could salvage this trip.

Common Nighthawk

2014 also saw a few engagements with local law enforcement in the name of birding, mostly for the perfectly acceptable birding reason of speeding to get to a bird.  However, one low point was getting “stopped” at the Pennock sewage ponds.  I distinctly remember being shocked to see flashing red lights in my rearview while driving a dirt path around the ponds and then watching as the officer nervously approached my van from behind with his hand on his holstered gun.  Even after I explained I was just birding, he ran my license, checked my insurance, etc.  And when I thought it was all over? He stayed to watch me watch birds.  Not enjoying the company, I left…and discovered a back-up squad car with two more officers on the other side of the pond!  I guess a dirty mini-van at a rural sewage pond does seem a bit shady. But on an unrelated note, how about them nice treads on those tires?!

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Thankfully I didn’t end up tased or have my accompanying daughter placed in child-protective services so that we could go on to better days ahead.

Best Birding Experiences of 2014

2014 saw plenty of travel and with it, plenty of great birding.  Last March we made our first annual trip to Maricopa, Arizona to visit my snowbird parents.  The trip allowed us to pad the life lists with a couple dozen lifers and meet up with Phoenix birder/blogger Laurence Butler for some memorable Sonoran Desert birding.   In July we took a road-trip to Colorado to visit my Aunt Carol and Uncle Jon.  Birding the Badlands of SD and the Wet Mountains of Colorado pushed the life list even higher by about another 20 birds.  Not only did we go cross-country this year, but I went on several chases across the state with local birding friends Randy Frederickson and Steve Gardner and met many friendly MN birders at the stake-outs of the rarity after rarity.  2014 was ripe with such birds.  I think Randy added a half dozen state birds; usually he’ll get one every couple of years or so.

As fun as all the traveling was and all the great birding it brought, the best birding experience occurred in August when I had to attend a training in St. Paul for work.  This afforded me the opportunity to bring along my family for a mini-getaway. It also afforded me the opportunity to check out an extremely accommodating and wildly popular Least Bittern at Wood Lake Nature Center.  It took a little bit of effort on the part of some other birders to help us all see this cool bird just 6 feet away from the boardwalk on which we were standing.

Least BitternAnd one of the birders who helped us find this bird was none other than Stan Tekiela!

Evan watching a Least Bittern with Stan Tekiela.

It was a joy to watch Evan as he was really digging this lifer, just watching it and watching it.  The whole family was having fun watching this Bittern and the other wildlife. And Stan turned out to be an incredibly nice guy engaging Evan in a conversation about Bitterns and excitedly calling us back to look at a Raccoon. Evan had no idea who he was talking to at the moment.  His eyes got to be the size of dinner plates when I told him later on.  It was a memorable experience like none other.

Rarest Personal Finds of 2014

You can imagine how hard it was for me to make a Top-10 in a year with nearly a hundred life birds.  I struggled to whittle down the list. So here is a tribute to some really cool (I mean REALLY cool) finds I had this last year.  All these birds were previously undiscovered by others.  You might consider it cheating as I’m extending my Top 10 by including these birds, but remember that 2014 was epic. I posted to the listserv so much that people either love me or loathe me.  My luck was enough for a lifetime of birding. I’m still pinching myself. These birds are ordered from least rare to most rare and surprisingly none made the final cut for Top 10.  Any bird marked with an * means that it had the bonus distinction of also being a lifer at the moment of discovery.

7. Eastern Towhee – Kandiyohi County – an Occasional bird for the county and a solid find for a county that mostly consists of prairie and fields.

Eastern Towhee

6. Western Kingbird* – Kandiyohi County – also Occasional.  This was just a plain ol’ feel good find, an East meets West kind of bird.

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5. Swainson’s Hawk – Kandiyohi County – Occasional.  Ditto above.

Swainson's Hawk

4. White-winged Scoter – Kandiyohi County – Occasional.  I went Snowy Owling and got a Scoter hunch when I drove by Green Lake. I had the good fortune of that hunch being right. This Scoter brought in dozens of birders, some just getting a county tick, but many others getting the more important life tick. And in a Patagonia Picnic Table-Effect of sorts, one of those county listers also turned up a Long-tailed Duck when viewing this White-winged Scoter and yet another found a Snowy Owl!  I missed the former by an hour and drove right by the latter.  The agony of defeat still burns, but hey, it’s good the home county gained an even greater birding reputation.

White-winged Scoter

3. Mute Swan* – Renville County – First MOU official record for Renville County.  I dismissed it in my peripheral vision as a pelican or Trumpeter Swan.  I only gave it a look after my wife asked what it was.  Wow, I should listen to her more often.  BTW, not a bad bird for a trip to see the accountant is it?

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2. Spotted Towhee* – Kandiyohi County – Considered a Rare Regular for the state, showing up once or twice annually.  It has been seen in the county before, but this one was the first official MOU record for Kandiyohi County.  This one really got the blood pumping when I found it.

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1. Lesser Black-backed Gull* – Kandiyohi County – Also a Rare Regular for the state but this one was the first official MOU record for Kandiyohi County.  Unlike the Spotted Towhee, though, not even the Kandiyohi birding greats of Randy Frederickson, Ron Erpelding, and Joel Schmidt have seen this gull here at home.  Unfortunately, it didn’t hang on for anybody else.

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Biggest Upsets for not making the Top 10

Again, more Top 10 stretching.  Any of the aforementioned birds could have easily made Top 10, but there are even more phenomenal birds that missed the top honors that are listed below.  Seriously, you have to wonder what’s in the Top 10 if these birds didn’t make the cut.

10. Harlequin Duck – If only you’d been mature, little drake, you’d be right near the top!

Harlequin Duck

9. Eastern Screech Owl – How does an owl lifer miss the top spots?  Maybe if it had opened its eyes or been a red-phase…  Regardless, here’s a shout-out and thanks to Tony Lau for sharing his yard bird!

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8. Prothonotary Warbler – A great, great warbler for MN and quite the looker too!

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7. Hooded Warbler – This warbler nests in extremely small numbers in certain parts of the Twin Cities metro area.  I made a special trip just to look for it, and I saw three in one day.

Hooded Warbler

6. Greater Prairie Chicken – Crazy, right?  This was a bonus find when hunting for one of the top birds.

Greater Prairie Chicken

5. Vermilion Flycatcher – Gorgeous, gorgeous bird and Target #2 for the AZ trip.  Again, crazy.

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4. Varied Thrush – Any other year it’d probably be in the Top 10, but not even bonus points for showing up right here at home was enough to get it in the top tier.

Varied Thrush

3. Eurasian Wigeon – Casual in Minnesota. I saw one. Kinda.

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2. Common Eider – Not even making its first reappearance on MN waters since the 1960s could land this duck in the Top 10.

Common Eider

1. Wood Stork – Minnesota’s second state record.  Its rarity is the only reason it’s in this list.  Since this bird is ugly, here is a more fun picture of people enjoying that ugly.

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THE Top 10

So here is what you’ve all been waiting for–the real Top Ten. You might find yourself a bit surprised by my choices, but keep in mind that the bird itself is only half the fun–often circumstances, the birding company, or the hunt itself influenced my decisions.  The list is not indicative of the rarity status of these birds.  A surprising twist to this Top Ten is that nearly half of the birds are not even lifers (Indicated by an *)! Moreover, a great majority of these birds were found in-state.

10. Snowy Owl*

Now hold on a minute, I know you’re sick of these things on this blog and wondering how, in their great abundance, could they make the cut?  Snowy Owls added life to both the dull winter landscape and the business-as-usual halls in which I work in 2014. When I got my lifer in late 2013 and learned of the impending irruption last year, I sent out an all-staff email requesting coworkers let me know of any sightings. That opened the floodgates.  I was opening email after email of sightings, taking calls, listening to wild-eyed students and giddy staff members tell me about yet another sighting.  It was an incredibly fun time.  The owls made for instant ice-breaker conversations with all kinds of people.  Though I never found my own Snowy Owl in 2014, I was able to point many people to their first which was quite a thrill.  Additionally, driving anywhere became fun as every pole top or barn roof could hold a Snowy.  And the amount of down time for Snowy Owl hunting was a mere 7 months as they were back in early November to begin an echo flight of last year’s irruption.

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9. Black-billed Cuckoo

This is an uncommon bird and nowhere near rare for the northern half of MN during the breeding season.  Still, it is an extremely elusive bird.  Evan and I found our lifer quite by accident.  We went for a four-wheeler ride on my parents’ property and stopped to play a tape of a Northern Parula only to be answered by the exotic sound of the Black-billed Cuckoo.  We eventually were able to lure it into the open for some good views using playback.  It was haunting how that bird moved and watched us from the shadows.  And the sound of that thing is the craziest and most awesome bird noise I’ve heard.  How could I have grown up in the northwoods and never heard or seen this bird?  I know how. They hide like ninjas, watching your every move as you walk through the woods.

Black-billed Cuckoo

8. American Avocet

Ever since Evan and I got into birding, we talked about the awesomeness of the American Avocet.  It just stands apart from all the other shorebirds with that black and white plumage with the crazy orangish head and neck, not to mention the long, upturned bill. Not only did we finally see this bird in 2014, but we found our lifer ourselves right here at home–the best way.  I’ll never forget seeing it and then hustling down the sewage pond embankment to tell Evan.  His eyes got huge, and he scrambled to get out of the car.  We ended up seeing this species on three separate occasions in the county last year.  Such a bird! Such a year!

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7. Cerulean Warbler*

This was not a life bird, but it was a special treat to see one at our very own Sibley State Park right here in Kandiyohi County, and I finally got some killer photos of the bird. This was now the third Cerulean I’d ever seen, and I cherish each sighting as this bird is fighting for its future on two continents.  Evan’s seen this species a couple times now, but I hope that this beautiful, buzzy warbler will still be around for his kids and grandkids.

Cerulean Warbler6. Chestnut-collared Longspur

This striking Longspur is a state-endangered species.  Only a handful of pairs nest annually on a small tract of land known as the Felton Prairie IBA just east of Fargo.  Steve Gardner and I finally made the trip this summer just to look for this bird.  Picking up a bonus lifer Greater Prairie Chicken and seeing plenty of Western Kingbirds, Loggerhead Shrikes, and Marbled Godwits was pretty neat and all, but we nearly dipped on the main attraction at Felton Prairie.  This guy was a buzzer-beater, showing up just 15 minutes before the deadline Steve and I had set to go home.  This bird did not disappoint us in its looks.

5. Spruce Grouse*

This bird was a buzzer-beater for 2014 and slipped into this list at the eleventh hour. This was the first Spruce Grouse I had seen since circa 1999. Even Minnesota birders drool over laying eyes on this beautiful gnome of the deep spruce bogs. I happened upon this one while driving the short distance between my parents’ house and my in-laws’ house in the final days of 2014 while we were home for Christmas.  It felt so good to finally see this bird again and be able to photograph it.

Spruce Grouse

4. Long-eared Owl

I had the great pleasure of birding the Phoenix Mountain Preserve with Laurence Butler when we went to Arizona last March.  As we talked plans ahead of time to bulk up my life list with some desert species, Laurence mentioned the possibility of the rare Long-eared Owl prize. I honestly thought, ‘Pssshht. Whatever-like we’ll see ever that.’ But inwardly I was secretly excited too.  As someone who connected with birding because of the thrill of the hunt, it was a magical experience to wind our way through a tree-choked gully in the Sonoran Desert with the possibility of coming face-to-face with an owl that is coveted everywhere.  Then it happened. One exploded into the air in front of us leaving throbbing hearts and cursing mouths in its wake.  Eventually Laurence and I pinned it down and stared right into those yellow eyes.  It was a mountain-top high on the valley floor.

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3. Blue Grosbeak*

Yes, Josh, it’s a beautiful bird, but c’mon, #3?!  This is a bird I dreamed about seeing when I first saw it in the Kaufmann Field Guide and noticed that the very southwestern tip of MN was in its range.  Eventually I learned it’s a reliable find at Blue Mounds State Park which is where we got our lifer in 2013.  Getting deeper into birding, I was finding out that they are actually found much further north and east of that tiny corner of the state.  My curiosity was peaked after seeing them in Cottonwood and then when Joel had said he and Randy had seen a family of them a couple years ago just 25 miles away from Willmar in Renville County.  So I investigated the site and struck out.  However, I noticed a gravel pit in the vicinity and stopped to check it out since Blue Grosbeaks have an affinity for such desert-wash environments. I rolled down the window and was almost instantly greeted with the sweet, sweet sound of BLGR.

When I got home I looked at the gravel pit with satellite imagery and discovered that the tract of gravel pits stretched for nearly four miles being intersected neatly with a county road every mile.  I had to go back!  And so I did.  And I found a Blue Grosbeak on every county road that intersected that gravel tract for a total of four Blue Grosbeaks over a three-mile stretch.  As a bonus, another birder following up on my reports turned up a 5th one.  We were no longer dealing with a far-flung, slightly out-of-range individual bird or two.  Instead we had a thriving population of Blue Grosbeaks in Renville County which is far north and east of where they are supposed to be.  And they are only six miles south of Kandiyohi County!

Finding rare birds by chance is great fun, but investigating a theory and having that theory validated with multiple birds was a birding achievement that I prize more than any of my rarities mentioned in this post.  Contributing data to a possible range expansion is exciting stuff. I cannot wait to check on them again this summer.

Blue Grosbeak

2. Burrowing Owl

Since Melissa has taught the novel Hoot for years and since Evan and I are birders, this owl has a special connection with our family. It was the one bird that we simply had to see in Arizona above all others.  Laurence had told me Zanjero Park was pretty much a lock, but my dad, the chauffeur, went rogue and opted to drive us along random roads in the countryside south of Maricopa.  As zero new birds were being seen, especially not the Burrowers, I thought the day was going to be lost. So then a quiet, non-aggressive Norwegian stand-off ensued complete with beatings around the bush and passive-aggressive attempts to commandeer the situation.

“I think Zanjero could be a sure thing.”

“It’ll be more fun to find our own.”

Folks, let me tell you, always listen to your dad and kiss your wife because as my heart was sinking in despair along with the setting sun, Melissa hollers from the backseat that she found one! And another and another and another.  Dang!  The fun didn’t stop there either. I finally found a couple, and even my mom found herself one.  We had eight Burrowers in all!  Let me tell you, these Scandinavians were rocking that van with whoops and hollers.  It was a fun, memorable experience for the whole family.

In all, we saw 12 Burrowers on our trip with a pair even within biking range of my parents’ house.

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1. Garganey

You’ve seen the kind of birds we put up in 2014.  Honestly, could this spot be held by anything other than Wisconsin’s first state record of a Garganey that Evan and I went to see?  If you look up the word “serendipity” in the dictionary, you are bound to see a picture of a Garganey.  Kaufmann writes that it can show up on any marsh in the spring.  How awesome and hope-inspiring is that?!  Plus it is a gorgeous duck that I had been yearning to see someday before my time is up. And if seeing a Garganey wasn’t a thrill enough, we went on this adventure with long-time birding great, Ron Erpelding, and got to witness someone who has amassed over 50 years of birding and over 675 life birds see this bird for the very first time just as Evan and I were seeing it.  It was life bird #678 for Ron.  Not even the cats-and-dogs rain could detract from our joy that drenched us when we watched this bird just 15 feet out the car window.  It was, by far, the best bird of 2014.

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So, 2015, it is unlikely you will live up to the high bar you’re bigger, all-American, older brother, 2014, has set.  But take heart because you will be special in your own right. Perhaps you will be known as the year of the Gyrfalcon!

Squeezing a Lifer out of a Busy Life

I’m quite shocked, frankly, at how quickly it came.  I’ve long been familiar with the busy lives that kids and teens lead both in and out of school.  Parents have long shook their heads and rolled their eyes while saying, “Just you wait.”  Though expected, I never realized just how soon our family would be caught up in the tornado of our kids’ extra-curricular interests.  Mondays are the worst of it.  Evan has both piano lessons and Cub Scouts that day, and they are not back-to-back nor are they immediately after school.

So on Monday, September 22nd when I picked Evan up from school and we had an hour to kill before piano, it dawned on me that we had enough time to check out Carlson’s Dairy, the premiere shorebird spot in Kandiyohi County.  Randy had called the day before with a fantastic report: a lone American Avocet, Long-billed Dowitchers, and Black-bellied Plovers.  The latter two would be lifers.  Unfortunately we couldn’t get out there the day Randy called.  So hopefully there might still be something waiting for us on this burst of Monday birding.

Turns out there was.  I found three dowitchers.  We had never seen Long-billed or Short-billed, so it was a lifer for sure.  I marked it as a Long-billed Dowitcher since Randy had made that call the day before based on the date of migration.  We were in the middle of the migration window for Long-billed Dowitchers and had just passed the Short-billed Dowitcher window.  Later on I was able to use the humpback shape and excessively long bills to confirm they were dowitchers of the long-billed variety.

Long-billed Dowitcher

Short-billed Dowitcher

Long-billed Dowitcher and Short-billed Dowitcher Lifers!

Long-billed and Short-billed Dowitcher

I’ve always been amused by birds that scratch themselves like a dog or cat, but it was especially delightful to see a dowitcher itching.

Short-billed Dowitcher

Satisfied with a lifer and the best photos I could muster (shorebirds at Carlson’s Dairy are always far from the road), it was a bonus to see some other cool birds.  That American Avocet was still around.  It was pretty swell to see my first one in winter-plumage.  They are not a bird that we get every year during spring and fall migrations. In fact, when I uploaded my photo to the Minnesota Ornithologists’ Union’s website, it was recorded as a first fall record for Kandiyohi County.  Neato.

American Avocet in winter plumage

American Avocet in winter plumage

I also wasn’t expecting to see a Northern Pintail.

Northern Pintail

Northern Pintail

There really was nothing left to see other than some common migrating shorebirds and waterfowl.  We came and scooped up the goodies in the half hour we had to bird before having to get to piano lessons. The lifer Long-billed Dowitcher and the American Avocet made for a tidy haul on this brief excursion.  It was efficient lifering – the best, and often only, kind of lifering in a whirlwind life.

The American Avocet – Not a Poop Bird

With spring migration well underway and many things happening all at once, I really quite often don’t know where or how to bird.  Not to mention that I have a family, job, etc. Do I go on another driving quest to find a Short-eared Owl or do I keep checking for those elusive American Black Ducks? Do I take the Christmas lights off the house or do I finally rake last fall’s leaves out of the yard? Decisions. Yet, for some reason, I had American Avocets on the brain.  Maybe this is because a couple of them had been reported out by the South Dakota border or maybe it’s because I remembered that a few had started to sprinkle our state by this time last year.  Whatever the reason, I was feeling avocety today.

I had never seen an American Avocet before, and it’s a bird Evan and I have talked about and wanted to see.  It is an absolutely stunning shorebird.  It is also a scarce bird for our state as we are just east of its normal range. This evening I had a chance to do some birding and quite possibly look for one of these guys on a hunch.  Melissa was taking Marin to dance class, so I dragged Evan in the car with me to go check out the sewage ponds at Atwater.  I told him that he could play his iPad in the car, but he had to come with as I couldn’t leave him home alone.  I debated heading up to Paynesville to check out their sewage ponds, a location that briefly had a couple avocets last year.  But I decided against it and opted for the poop ponds closer to home.  I had actually stopped by them earlier in the evening on my way home from work just to scout it out.  I was astonished to find 10 Bonaparte’s Gulls, a bird that we just saw for the first time last weekend.  No, I didn’t find an avocet, but I decided to return later anyway to investigate some shore birds I didn’t have time to identify. Who knows, there might have been a new one, so I had to come back to check.

Bonaparte's Gull

Bonaparte’s Gull

When Evan and I got there we saw the Bonaparte’s Gulls and a bunch of waterfowl – all things I saw earlier in the afternoon.  I also found the shorebirds I had seen.  Turns out they were just some Pectoral Sandpipers and a Lesser Yellowlegs. Bummer.

Lesser Yellowlegs and Least Sandpipers

Lesser Yellowlegs and Pectoral Sandpipers

These shorebirds flushed away from me and went to the west shore of the rectangular pond.  They were actually in a place where I could sneak up over a dike and see them pretty close to get some better photos.  As I walked up the dike and looked over the fence, the birds flushed.  But so did another gangly shorebird much further down that had a long bill and legs dragging out behind it as it flew. I couldn’t pull up my camera fast enough to see what it was.  I knew it was one of two birds – the Black-necked Stilt or American Avocet.  Either would have been an incredible find.  To my joy, it was our American Avocet life bird – the very bird I had been thinking about today!  I snapped this horrible shot in the wind and rain and then ran down the dike to tell Evan who was waiting in the car playing his iPad.

Amercan Avocet Lifer!

Amercan Avocet Lifer!

I wish I had a picture of that kid’s face when I told him I just found an American Avocet. His eyes were as big as saucers and he was racing to unbuckle and scramble out of the car.  I was able to show it to him with the camera, but I knew we could do better.  We went back down to the center dike which would put us much closer to the bird.  We then spent the next hour sneaking up on this bird from behind this other dike to get good looks at the bird.

IMG_7841IMG_7839I had texted Steve and got him on the road right away.  I knew that he’d probably want this one for his county list.  While we waited for Steve, Evan and I kept trying to get good looks and photographs of this bird.  I knew Evan was digging this new bird since he was with me the whole time in the chilly 42 degree weather of wind and spitting rain. A couple times we went back to the vehicle to warm up.  When my fingers would thaw, I’d head back out again to try for better photos.  I figured Evan had his fun and would just stay in the car, but when I was out doing my sneaking, I’d look back and see that he had left the comfort of the car for just one more look.

IMG_7852Who could blame him with a bird like this?

IMG_7843IMG_7860Several times I would sneak over the dike to try to get good photos.  The bird would spot me, vocalize an alarm, and then fly out and land in the water about 20 feet from shore. It would then feed and work its way back to the shore.

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It was quite a thrill to tally this one on our life lists.  And it was fun to watch Evan’s genuine excitement over seeing this beauty.  It’s hard to believe we found our fourth life bird in just three weeks, three of which have been scarce and even rare.  I’m hopeful and excited about what else migration has in store for us this spring.  It has already exceeded any wishes or expectations.