Friday Morning Birding

When I heard on the weather forecast that Friday was supposed to be a nice, sunny day, I rearranged my work schedule to have the day off. My plan was to wake up early and head out for a morning of birding in Fillmore County and hopefully check some warblers and other spring migrants off my list. It was a beautiful morning and since I had no schedule, I was able to stop and enjoy some non-bird sights during my journey.

Mammals always provide good photo opportunities because they don't move nearly as fast and are much larger and easier to capture with a camera than birds. I had to stop the car and turn around when I spotted these longhorn cattle in a small pasture. Cool, aren't they? Scroll down for closer looks..... What a beautiful animal. They're a little different than most of the cattle I see around here because they weren't the least bit curious about me and never approached the fence like most cattle would. Good thing my camera zooms!

I thought this one was so pretty -- looks like maybe a cross with White Park cattle (I'm basing that assumption on the black ears and nose). I noticed its left horn had some fuzzy stuff stuck on the end.....wonder if they use their horns to scratch their back and this was some fur??

In the field right across from the longhorns, there were some horses. It was a little chilly this morning, so you can see the steam from this horse's breath.

These horses came right up to the fence for me to pet and get a closer look at. I really like the way horses smell, don't you?

Here's another cute little mammal -- the red squirrel. It's not very often they sit still long enough for a photo, so I felt particularly lucky to get this picture.

Down at Mystery Cave State Park, this little bat (I think it's an Eastern Pipistrelle) was sleeping in a high corner outside of the visitor's center.

There were lots of spring wildflowers blooming at Forestville State Park. Flowers and plants are also much easier to photograph than birds, so I took advantage of that.

Wild Blue Phlox

Wood Anemone (Mayflower)

Wild Ginger

Virginia Bluebells

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

(I loved the way this picture turned out - backlit with the sun!)

And now finally, I've gotten to the birds! It was an amazing morning, filled with all kinds of birds and their beautiful songs. Thankfully, I remembered to bring my BirdJam and field guides along, and was able to identify almost every bird that I saw and heard. I spent most of the morning at Forestville State Park under the canopy of deciduous forest and along the river. It was a most perfect day for birding!

Eastern Meadowlark on a fencepost

Song Sparrow preens his feathers after taking a bath

And then interrupts his preening to sing a pretty song!

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

Green Heron (and reflection!)

I love their crazy yellow feet!

Here's a listing of the birds I saw this morning in Fillmore County -- a total of 60! I was pretty happy with this total for my 5-hour birding adventure.

Hope you get a chance to enjoy some good birding adventures this weekend too!

Greetings from the Neglectful Blogger

Sorry, I've been kind a neglectful blogger lately! For some strange reason, I really thought I'd have more time for blogging once the lawn mowing and garden tending chores were done for the season, but things haven't turned out that way. Deer hunting seems to be taking up quite a bit of the weekend time, and knitting to keep my Etsy store restocked is keeping me busy indoors. But, I decided to put off housework a little while longer by editing some of the photos that have been in my camera for weeks and getting this blog post ready today (actually anything that delays housework is a good thing -- at least for me!)

Our deer have been quite busy in the backyard lately. With all the rain and snow we've been having, their tracks are quite evident and also the fact that the corn trays are emptied nearly every night. I put a couple of the trail cameras in strategic locations and here's a few shots from last week. This one is my fave! I wonder what they're looking at? Could be the gray fox or maybe the possum I saw again Friday night for the first time since last spring.

I like the trail cameras because they tell us what time the deer are showing up. The other morning there was a nice big doe here at 4 AM when I took Sophie out. I always keep her on the leash now (since the skunk incident), but that doe didn't even run away when Sophie started barking at her. We walked within about 18 yards of her and she finally ran.

This little buck was a complete surprise! We're rapidly approaching the deer's first "rut" season (this year it will coincide with the full moon in the first week of November). I'll have to put the cameras on again next week to see what other interesting pictures we get.

By now, most of you have probably heard we had a little snowstorm last week. Here's what it looked like out my backdoor on Friday afternoon. This was completely unexpected!

We ended up with 4.1 inches of snow! This broke the previous record set in 1910! It was awful wet and sticky snow--great for snowmen but pretty horrible for driving in. We saw quite a few cars in the ditch on the way home from work. Thankfully it was all melted by Saturday afternoon. (I'm really glad I finally got my carrots dug up earlier this week.)

This little song sparrow was right outside my back door looking for seeds on that snowy Friday. They're usually the first migrant sparrow to show up in my backyard in the spring, but I almost never see them -- especially this close to the house. I checked my migration chart and it said they usually head south around the 3rd week of October. I bet this guy was wishing he'd left last week instead!

The end of fall also marks the time when pocket gophers are extra busy digging new holes before the ground freezes for winter. Mr. Johnson has been busy trapping them again lately and it looks like this particular pocket gopher decided to get his revenge by digging in my weedy perennial beds right next to the house! Grrrrrr! I hope it dries out in a couple days so I can get this mess cleaned up before winter.

On my way to a medical appointment a few weeks ago, I happened to spot these lovely cattle on a little farm not far from here. I didn't have the camera with me, but was on the same road a few days later and stopped the car to get out and take some pictures. In this area where Holsteins, black Angus, and red & white Herefords are the norm, these cattle are definitely a unique sight. I love that face!

They are White Park Cattle (I had to google that!) These guys were all napping in the pasture on this fine sunny afternoon, but as soon as I parked the car and started walking up to the fence, they all got up and trotted over to investigate me. I resisted putting my hand out for them to get a sniff (even though I really wanted to). I just thought they were cute and unique and wanted to share these photos with you.
Have a good week everyone!

A Perfect Summer Day

Today was one of those rare perfect summer days we get here in Minnesota--hardly any wind or humidity and temps in mid 70's. It's actually the second time this week we had a day like this and I just couldn't bear the thought of wasting the entire day inside at work, so when Mr. Johnson decided to take a half-day off, I jumped right on that bandwagon! Fortunately, I was able to opt-out of a 9 AM meeting and had no other pressing duties to worry about. We drove out of the parking lot at 9:35 and with only one stop on the way, were home by 10:00!

I knew it would be a perfect day to do some birding--especially trying to find some new sparrows. So after a little lunch, I loaded all my gear into the car, and in my best "GPS voice," instructed Mr. Johnson when to turn right and left to get us to the optimum birding areas. Our first stop was a little pond where we found a snapping turtle a couple weeks ago. I got out and started focusing my binocs around the edges of the pond, hoping to see something, but never expecting to see this......A juvenile Green Heron! WOW!! Lifer!! It was way over on the other side of the pond so this isn't the best picture, but based on the size of the bird (as big as a crow), I'm checking Green Heron off my list.

As we continued, we saw this small herd of cattle relaxing in a pasture right next to the road.....not birds, but pretty darn cute nevertheless. I call them Ebony & Ivory!

My GPS voice then directed Mr. Johnson over to "Prairie Woodlands," an upscale housing subdivision in rural SW Rochester. This is a very cool bird area as there are large, undisturbed grasslands (I think they're lots for homes, but the lot prices are so high that most of them haven't been sold or developed yet). We heard several Clay-Colored Sparrows out here, and also saw flocks of Bobolinks--males and females, and possibly juveniles.

As we were leaving this area, I spotted this Sedge Wren singing loudly from the road ditch.

I saw one of the these little wrens on my trip to North Dakota in June, but I've never seen one here in Minnesota. What a great little singer this bird was and there were several more in the grassy field beyond.

We took one more familiar backroad on our homeward journey--still seeking sparrows and once again discovering the unexpected......can you tell what it is?

How about now?

Earlier this spring, we discovered there was a new vineyard and winery out here in the country: Salem Glen Vineyard and Winery. They have all kinds of different grapes growing here and also huge patches of rhubarb used for their wine. I wonder if they know about the fawns wandering through their vineyard in the middle of the day? It looked as though these little deer were feasting on clover or grass on the ground and didn't appear to be munching on the grape plants.

What a great afternoon! Even though I didn't see any new sparrows to check off my Minnesota list, we did see lots of other neat things and enjoyed a fun afternoon together. The trip lasted about 2 hours and consumed 1 gallon of gas (approximately 25 miles).

Rural Birding & More!

This post is going backwards in time a few days to last Friday evening when Mr. Johnson offered to take me out for a birding drive after supper. We ended up driving around the area where we turkey and deer hunt, so I know this trip wasn't just for my benefit!

It's actually been pretty dry here for the last week, so many of the farmers have gotten their crops in the field and some of the corn and oats are already coming up. Here's what it looks like around here--lots of flat fields and and the clumps of trees you see are either farmsteads or sinkholes. The arrow is pointing to a tractor--but you can only see the cloud of dust from the planter or whatever he's pulling behind. The majority of these fields are probably planted in corn, so by the middle of summer it will be a "sea of green."

Here's what hungry deer can do to an arbor vitae hedge during a long snowy winter. I think it's a funny picture, but I'm sure the homeowner who lives here doesn't!
As we were trying to figure out what was planted in the field near our deer hunting area, I noticed a large dark shape in the middle of the field. Binocular review showed me that it was a juvenile bald eagle.
The crows weren't happy about this eagle sitting in their field......
.....and after a few fly-bys, the eagle finally got tired of the harassment and flew away.
Our drive continued up the road and as we came over a rise we saw all the huge, dark birds in a field ahead. "Look at all those turkeys!" said Mr. Johnson. I grabbed the binocs again for a better look.
"Drive closer," I said, "those aren't turkeys, they're turkey vultures!"
I have never seen this many vultures together and on the ground--there wasn't even anything dead there! Here's a close-up for my friend Lynne.
They're not the prettiest bird in the world, but you have to admit they're magnificent in flight.
Continuing on our journey, we turned down another back road that used to be a good "parking" road for us back in the 70's (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). The road has been redone, so there aren't any isolated spots anymore, plus there are many more people who live out this way. One of the farms there had these magnificent animals in their field. Holy cow indeed!

I have never seen horns like these. I don't know my bovine species very well, does anyone else have any idea what kind of cattle these are? Those horns were massive.

UPDATE: After googling "texas longhorn cattle," I sent an e-mail to Mike Crawford at Red Peak Ranch in Mills County, TX asking if he could ID these cattle, since my pictures didn't look like the Texas Longhorns on Mike's website. I got a note back from Mike today and here's what he said, "It looks like they are a cross between a Watusi and Texas Longhorn. When their horns are thick and twist up they are Watusi which it appears 2 of the cows horns in your photos do this. The younger one where her horns are more lateral has some longhorn blood."
I'd heard of Watusi cattle (native to Africa), so I googled "watusi cattle" also. If you're interested, learn more about Watusi cattle at this Wikipedia link.

It was starting to get closer to dark, so Mr. Johnson drove me past the old trout farm where he had seen an eagle nest earlier in the year. The eagle nest was obscured by leaves now, but we did see one of the adult eagles sitting nearby. There were lots of geese on the trout farm ponds and I spotted Mom & Pop Goose with some fuzzy young 'uns.

I asked Mr. Johnson to take one more detour on our way home to see if the Western Meadowlark I have seen previous years was still in the same area. We finally spotted this meadowlark in a small tree, but it never sang, so I can't confirm whether it was Eastern or Western. Any guesses from this picture?