Some Time Well Spent

Yesterday afternoon, Mr Johnson and I took a trip out to our deer hunting woods. He had put a block of "deer candy" out a couple weeks ago and wanted to find out whether the deer had found it yet. (In case you're wondering, deer candy is the brand name on a big mineral block enhanced with molasses and other stuff deer are supposed to like, plus it's supposed to help the bucks grow better antlers.)

It was a sunny day, but nowhere near the mid-30's temps predicted by the weatherman (a stiff breeze from the east felt pretty chilly blowing across the snow). I was interested in going along mostly because there are a pair of bald eagles that hang around down there and I wanted to see if I could find out if/where they're nesting. It's ideal habitat for the eagles, with high limestone bluffs and a river meandering through the bottom with some open water most of the winter. There are towering white pines along the bluff tops and also large deciduous trees on the rest of the hills.

When we finally found the deer candy, we found that no deer had yet partaken of the treat, so we moved it closer to their trail. I happened to look up and see a Bald Eagle soaring overhead. It headed to the top of a white pine, but I couldn't see if a nest was there. A few minutes later another eagle soared over and we knew it wasn't the same one because it had a feather missing from one of its wings. I stayed there a while to watch some more and it wasn't long till I saw both of the eagles soaring overhead and could even hear them vocalizing a little.

I couldn't get a good photo--I have yet to figure out how to take a good picture of a flying bird, but I did manage to capture a few seconds of video (hope you don't get motion sickness watching it!)


I watched long enough to see one of the eagles land in a tree across the valley. My monopod/walking stick came in really handy for taking this picture (not to mention helping me maneuver up and down the hillsides in deep snow).
Here are some interesting tracks I found in the snow.
I'm thinking raccoon, but 'coons generally hibernate around here in the cold weather and I thought these footprints were really big for a 'coon.
Anybody have an opinion on these tracks? We've seen some pretty huge 'coons in these woods before, and maybe the weather has been moderate enough to wake up some of those big daddies.

I never see a fungus covered tree without thinking of Jennifer! This was a really nice one.
Looks like a woodpecker has decided to excavate for a new home in this tree. I asked Mr. Johnson to put his big paw next to this freshly drilled hole so you could get an idea of how big it is. It's about 4" deep into the tree, but nothing's been chipped downward yet. This hole is only about 6 feet above the ground, so pretty easy to view, and I'll be curious to see if there's any more development when I visit this area next time.
Here's an interesting-looking tree. What do you suppose happened to cause this tree to grow this way? I'm thinking maybe when it was a much smaller tree another larger tree blew over onto it. Of course, there's no evidence of a blown-down tree near there anymore, so this crooked tree will remain a mystery.
It was getting late, so we decided to head for home. Along the way, Mr. Johnson spotted a couple of hen turkeys scratching around in some corn stubble where enough snow had melted away that they were able to find something to eat. One of the hens was pretty cautious and took off shortly after we stopped the car, but I got a good picture of this other one still searching for food. Those big feet can really scratch!

The discussion in the car was Mr. Johnson asking if I could hear her clucking....at first I couldn't (concentrating on taking the movie), but then I listened closer and heard it (affirmative at the end). The hens are funny birds.....they will walk around in the woods just clucking softly to themselves as they dig and scratch for something to eat.

Hope you enjoyed this little trip to the woods without having to bundle up!

Here's an Update on the tracks: I got a couple of e-mails this morning from Richard and he was busy doing some homework for me. He sent me some links to look at for porcupine tracks: http://www.bear-tracker.com/porcpine.html and http://www.fishbc.com/adventure/wilderness/animals/porcup.htm. Sure looks a lot like porcupine tracks to me. What do you think? I never even thought of a porcupine, but according to Stan Tekiela's Mammals of Minnesota field guide, Fillmore County (where I took these pictures) is at the western edge of the North American Porcupine's range and they are active all year round! Now I wish I had paid more attention to where these tracks led. You can bet that next time I'm down that way I'll definitely be searching for these tracks again to see if I can solve the mystery. Thanks Richard for your help!

New State Quarter

Have you been saving the state quarters? There's only 4 left to go for 2008 and then all 50 states will have a state quarter in circulation. There have been 5 minted each year since 1999. I have mine all displayed in the U.S. map folder and displayed on my dining room wall.

The newest quarter for 2008 is Oklahoma. The Spousal Unit got one yesterday and he got another one today and gave it to me. If you haven't seen it yet, here's what it looks like:

"Wow, is that a Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher?" I asked excitedly.

So, I googled "Oklahoma State Quarter" and found this really neat website that provides information on all the state quarters minted so far (and yes, it IS a scissor-tailed flycatcher).

In looking at all the quarters on my map, I found 8 more which featured birds.

Arkansas - Mallard

California - California Condor

Idaho - Peregrine Falcon

Louisiana - Brown Pelican

Maine - Seagulls

Minnesota - Common Loon

South Carolina - Carolina Wren

South Dakota - Ring-Necked Pheasant

It's been fun collecting these coins. Way back in 1999, it seemed like 9 years would take forever to fill this map, but the time has gone by pretty quickly and now there are only 4 spots left to fill.

So watch your change for a scissor-tailed flycatcher quarter coming to a convenience store near you!

Thank You Susan

Ooh, I'm so happy! Today in my mailbox, the package containing my beaded lanyard from Susan finally arrived. And it's so beautiful!

When Susan asked what colors I would like I told her blue and purple, or anything she had in her bead box. She wrote back and told me she had lots of blue and purple beads (lucky me!) It matches really well with my snowy owl t-shirt, don't you think?

Here are some close-up details of some of the special beads Susan used.

I love these little cobalt blue beads with birds in them. Susan said she did a "happy dance" at the bead store when she found these and I can understand why.

How about this cute little bead? You wouldn't find something special like that on a "made in China" beaded lanyard!

But wait.....there's more! Included in the package was this neat little zipper pull. And look at the special bead she added to this one too.

I have a black fleece vest that I wear at work (because I'm usually cold). I was just looking at the zipper today and thinking to myself that I should make a colorful zipper pull to add to this vest. How DID Susan know I needed one of these also?

Thank you Susan, from the bottom of my heart! I absolutely love them and will wear your beautiful creations proudly.

National Eagle Center

This afternoon, my spousal unit and I visited the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, MN. A couple of other bird bloggers have posted about their recent visits to the NEC and even though I live less than 50 miles away, I have never been there.

It's quite a beautiful facility, located right on the Mississippi River in the heart of downtown Wabasha. There are live eagles on display at all times. Here's a couple of close-ups of Angel. She's 6 years old.

Just off the main lobby, there is a live eagle exhibit area where the eagles spend most of their days. The Center has 3 resident Bald Eagles: Harriet, Columbia, and Angel.

Here are a couple photos of Harriet.

They also have a Golden Eagle in residence. I don't know the name of that bird.....but it was quite magnificent also.

Here's a little video of Angel watching some eagles that were flying over the river outside of the Center. You can almost sense her frustration as she looks away from the window....she can see the other birds, but knows she can't fly out and join them.

The woman working there said that Angel sometimes gets quite upset when she sees eagles flying past outside. We could hear Angel calling and that's what drew us over to see what she was so upset about (I was too late to get a movie of her calling to the outside eagles).

The Center has a couple of outside observation decks and we were lucky enough to see several eagles outside--flying and perched in trees. Wabasha is located at the confluence of the Chippewa and Mississippi rivers, so there is always open water, making this area quite desirable for eagles and other waterfowl. We also saw several female Common Mergansers and I managed to also get a picture of this Common Goldeneye.

So if you're ever in the Wabasha area and have an hour or so of extra time, please be sure to visit the National Eagle Center. The chance to learn more about Bald Eagles and see them up close is definitely worth the small admission price of $6.00.

Sunny Saturday

It's hard to believe we're enjoying our second sunny day in a row, and tomorrow's supposed to be sunny too. Hopefully this will tide us over through the possible winter storm the weatherman keeps talking about for Monday.It's in the 20's and hardly any wind today. The sun is so bright coming in the windows and my pets are soaking it up. I've even got some laundry hanging out on the line and it's actually drying pretty fast.

We visited the Fish & Pets store this morning. Ohmigosh, so many fish! Now I really want to add another larger aquarium somewhere in my house and give my guppies some new fishy friends.

After seeing all those nice clean aquariums at the store, I decided I'd better clean out my goldfish aquarium this afternoon. Their water was starting to look pretty murky and when I took the filters out I realized why. Yucky stuff! I took out 5 gallons of water and replaced it with clean. (Some of the old water goes for watering my houseplants, plus I'm taking a gallon of it to work for a co-worker's and my plants--good aquatic fertilizer!)

I dropped in a seashell I found in Florida years ago. I'm sure the goldies don't care, but I think it adds an exotic look to their home.

I like being able to see these beautiful, huge goldfish up close. Once the weather warms up and I get my backyard pond going again, these fishies are headed back outside for the summer.

Here's a little video of them swimming around in their tank. The little flecks you see floating around is their food.

I got a note in the mail today addressed to "Aunt Ruthie Johnson" from my nephew in California. How cute is this? My brother must be drilling it into little Charlie's head that Aunt Ruthie is nuts about birds.

Thanks for the note Charlie, you made my day!

Only 30 More Days

Did you know the first day of spring is March 20th? That's only 30 days away!! Even though it's only 4 degrees outside right now, it's a beautiful, sunny afternoon and I noticed some signs of thawing--on the deck......
and on the patio below where snow is melting and dripping off the roof......

(gotta remember to watch my step here tomorrow morning--my birdseed bins are right next to this icy spot!)

I've been inspired by some of the other gardening bloggers like Robin (Bumblebee), Barefoot Gardener (the queen of raised bed gardening) and Tracy (who posted links to seed catalogs the other day) and I've already decided that this year I'm going to expand my garden by adding one more raised bed and try to be more conscientious about pulling weeds and faithful to the idea of growing and preserving more of my own produce.

After looking at some on-line seed catalogs this morning, I also did a little "googling" to find out more about compost tumblers and rainbarrels. Gosh, that was so much fun I completely forgot about work for a while!

Here's the Envirocycle Compost Tumbler

I think this would be a little bit easier for me to work with and obtain good compost results than the composting box I have on the ground next to the garage (that I forget to turn faithfully). Plus the cost includes the price of shipping (which is rather substantial on a unit this large). I would really like to get one of these and if anyone has any experience or information they'd like to share with me, I'd really appreciate it.

I've been reading and hearing quite a lot lately also about saving water. Did you know you could use the rinse water from your washing machine to water plants? Now I'm trying to figure out what sort of bucket I could use to collect the rinse water as it pumps out of my washer.

We also have a gutter downspout on each corner of our house. Ideally, I need to figure out a way to divert the water from the downspout on the back of the garage out to the garden for watering purposes, which would still leave me with 3 downspouts where I could place rainbarrels.

They sure have come a long way from the old 55-gallon metal drum my grandma in Wisconsin used to have outside her house.....

I still need to do some thinking about the whole rain barrel idea because if it's raining enough to fill the rain barrel, then I wouldn't need to worry about saving water for the gardens since Mother Nature is already taking care of that, right? So if any of you have thoughts or advice on rainbarrels also, please feel free to share them with me in an e-mail or in my comments section.

Sax-Zim Bog Birding Festival

Well, it's all over now (sigh), but years from now Lynne and I will still have fond memories of the weekend we spent at Mike Hendrickson's very first Sax-Zim Bog Birding Festival! I'm going to borrow a phrase from the old days: "A good time was had by all."

I got to Lynne's place in New Hope around 10:15 on Friday morning. After meeting her pets and her husband Art, we loaded her gear and we were off on our journey north. We made great time in good weather, so after stopping off at Subway for the new Chicken Florentine sandwich (you gotta try this one folks--it's as good as the TV commercial says), we took a little detour to Hasty Brook. Wow, what a great place....after seeing it for myself, I know why Lynne enjoys being there so much. (sorry, I never even thought to take a picture....you'll just have to visit Lynne's blog for that).

After the side trip to Hasty Brook, we resumed our journey to Duluth, checked in at the motel, and headed out to Meadowlands for the registration and welcome to the Sax-Zim Bog Birding Festival. Lynne and I both got a big hug from Mike on our arrival.....what a stress-filled week he had getting all the last minute details ironed out to make this festival happen. Here's Mike giving his "welcome to the festival" speech.

We also heard Dave Benson speak about owls. Dave is so knowledgable about owls and also a humorous speaker. If you ever have an opportunity to hear him speak, be sure to attend.....I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

After the opening ceremonies, we headed back to Duluth and our motel since our tour buses the next morning were scheduled to depart at 6 AM! (and it was about a 45 minute drive from Duluth to Meadowlands)

Our bus was a little delayed pulling out of Meadowlands, but we finally departed around 6:30 AM and not too long afterward, we were treated to a lovely sunrise over Sax-Zim Bog.

The bus drove slowly down the back roads as we scanned the trees for a Great Gray Owl and/or Northern Hawk Owl. As we were driving, we came across another bus group that had stopped and were watching for a Black-Backed Woodpecker. We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of that woodpecker as it flew across the road into the woods -- 1st Lifer for the day!

Next we were off to visit a bird feeding station at the home of a local family.

The little white arrow (above the man in the red coat & hat) is pointing at the bird feeding station

My words cannot describe how wonderful this place was! We were enthralled with the non-stop bird activity here: mostly Common and Hoary Red Polls, but also a large number of Evening and Pine Grosbeaks, as well as the more common birds: Black-Capped Chickadees, White-Breasted Nuthatch and even 1 Bluejay.

After reluctantly leaving the bird feeding station, we headed over to the other side of Sax-Zim Bog in search of a Boreal Chickadee. We heard it, but never caught of glimpse of the little guy. In this area, somebody had fastened suet and part of a deer carcass to a pine tree. The Black-Capped Chickadees were taking advantage of this bounty. We had also hoped to see Gray Jays at this suet station, but apparently they had the dates of the festival weekend mixed up and had gone elsewhere for Saturday.

Further down this road, we stopped and hiked in a ways to another area where the Black-Backed and Three-Toed Woodpeckers had been seen. Eureka! A very cooperative Three-Toed Woodpecker was working a pine tree right next to the road and we all got great looks at this handsome fellow.

After hiking back to the bus, we continued on to our next sighting: the Northern Hawl Owl. We were delayed only a short while to make a quick stop so everyone could add the North American Porcupine to their life mammal list. (Sorry, no pictures--this guy was in someone's yard behind some other trees and I just couldn't get a clear shot out the bus window and through the trees, but Lynne saw it too and she will verify that I'm not making this up!)

We headed out to the main road and soon spotted the Northern Hawk Owl near a farmyard. We were treated to several views of this owl soaring out across the fields and finally returning with a small animal in its talons. That was pretty cool. It was quite a ways off the road, but many people on our bus had big spotting scopes along and each of us got the chance to look through the scope at this handsome little owl.

Finally we headed over to Duluth for a little lunch and then on to view some seagulls at the garbage landfill in Superior, Wisconsin. These gulls looked quite beautiful soaring through the sky and we got some pretty good looks at them as they dipped lower toward the landfill. They were mostly Herring and Ring-Billed Gulls, but we also spotted the Glaucous Gull and someone saw a Thayer's Gull. There were also a few Ravens hanging around there too....I really like hearing their croaky-sounding calls.

I was fortunate to get this photo of the Glaucous Gull.

It was getting late in the day and with the Duluth Harbor frozen over and limiting other bird sightings, our trip leaders decided we should head back to Meadowlands to check in and get ready for the evening banquet.

Here's a picture of Lynne and me with Mike before the Saturday night banquet....don't you think he looks a lot more relaxed than the night before? He's already making plans for next year's festival which sounds like it will be even bigger and better than this year.

Lynne and I both both have that wind-burned, "hat-hair" look, but the really great thing about being at a bird festival is that everyone looks like this at the end of the day, so a girl doesn't even have to worry about how bad she thinks she looks! (besides we were too tired to care anyway)

It was fun to sit and review the day with all the new people we had become acquainted with on our bus trip. Our bus had people from all over: Wyoming, Illinois, California, Indiana, and of course Minnesota. We had good tour leaders who made sure that everyone got a chance to see the birds at each stop.

After our banquet (a wonderful feast of meatballs, ham, mashed potatoes with gravy, green bean casserole, coleslaw, rolls, and cake for dessert), we were treated to a very entertaining talk about birds by Laura Erickson. Laura even brought her little screech owl, Archimedes, to this event. Here's a couple pictures of Laura and Archimedes for your viewing pleasure.

Lynne and I left Duluth early this morning to head back to southern Minnesota where we had heard some bad wintry weather was moving in. We did have time though to make a stop over at Sand Creek to visit Deb, her kids and her dogs, and absorb the beauty of her country estate. Wow, what a place! She also gave us the tour of her new home that they're hoping to have ready to move into this summer. It was so nice to meet Deb....no longer just a link on my blog roll, but a real live person! Our visit was short, but fun. Hey Deb, be sure and let us know when the housewarming party is next summer, so we can come back, OK?

Another photo op -- Deb, Starflower and Lynne

What a Great Weekend.....So Far

Well, no pictures yet, but Lynne and I are having a blast here at the Sax Zim Bog Festival of the Birds. Lynne is such a wonderful person and I hope all of you have the chance to meet her in person some day. It was great to check in at the festival and get a big ol' bear hug from Mike Hendrickson.....he did a fabulous job of this festival and promises it's only going to be bigger and better next year! We saw lots of good birds today: evening & pine grosbeaks, hoary & common redpolls, three-toed & black-backed woodpeckers, glaucous gulls, and A PORCUPINE!

So stay tuned.....pictures and the rest of the story when I get home tomorrow.

Sax-Zim Festival....Finally Here

Well, it's hard to believe that 24 hours from now Lynne and I will be sitting in the Meadowlands Community Center listening to Dave Benson speaking about "Owls of the North." It seemed like February would never get here when I registered for the Sax-Zim Festival of Birds back in November. Now the day is almost here and I'm almost ready. I picked up the Toyota Sienna from my local Enterprise rental this evening, my field guides are all together in a bag, bins and scope ready to go, organized some knitting projects to take along, and the spousal unit has been briefed in the fundamentals of filling the birdfeeders and feeding the guppies and goldfish. I'm planning to pick up Lynne at her place tomorrow morning around 10 AM and then we're off to the great white north country!

And even though the weekend will go incredibly fast, coming home on Sunday won't be too disappointing because we're going to take a little detour and visit Deb too! I'm so excited about getting to meet two of my blogging friends for the first time this weekend.

Lynne said she's bringing her laptop along, and hopefully the motel we're staying at will have a wireless connection so she can do a post while we're in Duluth. Be sure to check in for stories and pictures of our fun birding weekend.

Birds at the Window

My window feeder tray has been getting a lot of visitors this year. In previous years, I've only put peanuts out there for the bluejays, but this year (thanks to the Christmas gift from my Sissy), I have some really nice Winter Blend birdseed (from Wild Birds Unlimited). I can use this seed in the tray because all the seeds are hulled (no mess on the patio below). The blend contains mostly whole sunflower hearts, but also dried cranberries, nuts, and little suet balls. Of course, the bluejays still come and chow down on all the nuts, but when there's just sunflower hearts left, I have had lots of other birds stopping by this window tray. It seems now that it's been so cold, the birds' desire to find food has somewhat overcome their caution about coming so close to the house. So here are some pictures of visitors outside my window.

Bluejay

Mourning Dove (looks pretty comfortable, doesn't he?)

American Tree Sparrow

House Finch (partially leucistic)

Dark-Eyed Junco
And just for fun, here's a little movie of the chickadee snacking on mealworms at the window feeder.