Sunday Afternoon Birding

Today was the first time in 95 days that our temperature topped 40 degrees. Even though it was mostly overcast, we decided to go for a drive and see if we could spot any good birds. Our first stop was the nearby reservoir to see if there was any open water yet maybe attracting some waterfowl. We got there only to find that the only open water was in the ice fishing holes drilled by these fishermen. I was amazed at the number of people fishing! We watched one guy drilling through the ice and it looked to be at least 16-18 inches thick yet! But the weatherman is predicting highs in the 40's all next week, so the end of the 2010 ice fishing season isn't far away.

I was keeping my eyes open for newly arrived spring migrants including grackles, red-winged blackbirds, or maybe even a bluebird. We didn't see any of those birds, but we did have to slow down for this early season possum trotting across the road.

There were horned larks everywhere! For me, these are the most difficult birds to photograph. They are so flighty and will take off if the car comes within 100 yards of them. I managed to photograph this one after Mr. Johnson stopped the car and we waited for the flock to land on the road behind us. (The birds were still quite a ways back, so this photo isn't the greatest, and even though you can't see the "horns" of this lark, you can still see its black facemask.)

We turned another corner next to a plowed cornfield where most of the snow had already melted. Something interesting caught my eye in this field. Can you see it?

"Stop, stop, stop the car!" I ordered my driver. My window was down and I was trying to get my camera ready to take a photo. I could tell this bird wasn't a pheasant, but I had no idea what it was. I took a couple quick photos and then got my binoculars on it again to see any other field marks to help in the ID. Fortunately, on this trip, I remembered to bring my big Sibley guide along and after seeing the orange face and throat, plus the rufous barring on the chest, I was able to ID this bird as a Gray Partridge. Way cool! There were actually 2 of these birds in the field here and although it wasn't a life bird for me, it's been years since we've seen them in SE Minnesota.

A lot of the streams and rivers are starting to melt and these Canada geese were enjoying the shallow water and the chance to pick at grass on the riverbank.

On our way home, we spotted a huge flock of turkeys walking up this driveway. These birds all looked pretty healthy after this long winter.

It appeared that all of these turkeys were hens, and since we can only take toms during the spring turkey hunting season, the size of this flock shouldn't be affected by the upcoming spring hunt. In fact, with this many hens around, the future of wild turkeys in SE Minnesota looks pretty good!

Looking for Golden Eagles

We went for a drive this afternoon down to Houston County in a search for Golden Eagles. We probably got too late of a start in the day and never did see any Golden Eagles, but it was a nice afternoon for a drive and isn't this beautiful country?
Our trip wasn't disappointing because we did manage to see quite a few Bald Eagles and Red-Tailed Hawks. Houston County also hosts Minnesota's largest population of deer and wild turkeys and boy, did we see deer and turkeys!

Here's the first small flock of turkeys we saw close enough to the road to photograph. When you see large flocks of turkeys together this time of year, they're almost always hens with the surviving youngsters they hatched last spring. (Sometimes you will see small groups of tom turkeys together also, but none of these that we saw had beards, so we knew they're hens with first year offspring.)

I have no idea what they find to eat this time of year, but apparently there's enough seeds that they're able to scrounge from the ground to survive through the winter.

Coming around another curve in the road we saw this big flock crossing the road. You definitely wouldn't want to drive too fast on this road!

Since the mortality rate of turkey poults is pretty high, I'm going to guess that this might be two family groups that have flocked together for the winter. They really weren't in any hurry to get across and I don't think this is a very heavily traveled road.

It was getting late enough in the afternoon that the deer were starting to move around from their sunny afternoon napping spots. Can you see the deer in the picture below? (click on the picture to enlarge it) Mr. Johnson spotted it and thought maybe it was dead, so we backed up to check for sure.

A quick look through the binoculars revealed the deer was definitely alive, but I noticed that it appeared to have an injured hind leg (where the orange arrow is pointing). Sure enough, after we sat there a bit longer, the little deer got up. Its hind leg was completely broken right at the "elbow" and just flopped as the deer hopped up the hill.

We wondered what the survival chances were for this poor little deer. Does the injured leg finally fall off? Or does the deer eventually die from infection? I've seen an adult doe with an injured and completely useless hind leg but she had twin fawns with her, so obviously she had been able to survive with her leg injury. Deer are some of the toughest animals I've ever seen.

Here's a nice healthy looking deer we saw on another hillside. They've gotta be tough to be able to survive a Minnesota winter.

Here's another big group of deer we saw on the drive home. They were taking advantage of the bountiful food supplies left behind from this recently picked cornfield.

We'll definitely head back to this area soon in another search for Golden Eagles, and probably look for some real estate for sale too, because this is about as close to bowhunter's paradise as we've ever seen.

King of the Forest

In the fall, our white-tailed deer bucks with their beautiful antlers are the undisputed kings of the forest.

But in spring, the bucks have lost their antlers and a new king reigns supreme in the forests of southeastern Minnesota -- the Eastern Wild Turkey!

The colors in this photo haven't been edited--his head really was that blue!

We went on an early morning turkey scouting adventure today and arrived as this big tom was just waking up and gobbling his turkey head off before flying down from roost. After he landed on the ground, we spent close to 30 minutes watching him parade around in full strut, trying to attract a hen. I was wishing for one of those nice long lenses for my camera as this is the best I could photograph from about 200 yards away.

In Minnesota, the turkey hunting licenses are chosen on a lottery system. For shotgun hunting, there are 8 different 5-day seasons that you choose in December for the zone you want to hunt in. If you're lucky, you will get chosen for the season you pick, or if you don't get chosen, shotgun hunters then have the option to choose any leftover zones or seasons. We didn't get chosen for the shotgun season we applied for, but fortunately there is also a bowhunting option that doesn't depend on the lottery system. So this year, for the first time, we will be trying to get our turkeys in the bowhunting season which starts May 15th and lasts 10 days. There are several advantages of bowhunting the last 2 seasons: by the middle of May the weather should be pretty decent, we can hunt in any zone (so hopefully we'll be able to find a hunting spot closer to home), and that late in the season a lot of the hens are already sitting on eggs, so we might have a better chance of calling in a big tom to one of our hen decoys. Neither of us have ever shot a turkey with a bow and arrow before, so we're really looking forward to this. Mr. Johnson has been shooting at the turkey target since January and I pulled out my bow this morning to practice shooting for the first time since last November. It felt good to shoot that bow again and I did pretty good hitting the targets even after 4 months.


The picture below shows a flying turkey Mr. Johnson shot a few years ago. (He had it "stuffed" and it now hangs on one of our living room walls.) This should give you somewhat of an idea of what a turkey would look like when it's flying. I think the tail is probably flared out a little bit more than usual (for display purposes). The wingspan on this huge tom is about 5 feet and if I remember correctly, this guy weighed around 22 lbs (27 lbs! Mr. Johnson set me straight on this!).....a pretty huge bird!

A Sunday Afternoon Drive

So much seems to be happening on the weekends now that I'm getting days behind with pictures and stories to post in this blog. But now that I'm temporarily unemployed, I can get some blog posts done ahead of time and store them to post automatically--that's a pretty cool feature of Blogger.

Anyway, since Sunday was a beautiful and sunny late winter day, Mr. Johnson offered to take me for a birding drive in the afternoon. That's always fun for me because it means he'll stop the car whenever I see something interesting that demands a closer look with binoculars or camera. We were only a few miles from home when I spotted this:
A pair of Red-Tailed Hawks with thoughts of love and starting a new family!

Here's a close-up of the happy couple.This was the second side-by-side pair we saw over the weekend. I think it's just so neat to see something like that.

I thought this stream made a pretty picture.

A few weeks ago we had a big thaw and some rain. Many of the streams and rivers flooded and this one was no exception. Here are some of the huge ice chunks that were still left along the bank of this stream.

I'm guessing these chunks were at least 12 inches thick. Can you imagine how much force the water in this stream must have had to dump these huge chunks of ice up on the bank? Wow!

We saw lots and lots of wild turkeys on our drive too, but none close enough for pictures except for this one silly hen turkey pacing and clucking because she couldn't figure out how to get over a fence and into the woods. I guess she forgot she could fly......

Sullys Hill National Game Preserve (Part 2)

Boy, it's tough getting everything done after being away for 5 days! 75 new e-mails in my mailbox at work, so things were busy there and then I had to take advantage of the sunny afternoon to get my lawn mowed after work today before more rain moves back into the region. I'm running late again tonight, but I want to try and get one more installment of my North Dakota trip posted. Before I get back to North Dakota though, I want to show you something exciting I found while mowing today. I usually check my bird houses as I'm mowing and I was quite surprised to find this bluebird nest with 5 eggs today! I've heard the male bluebird singing occasionally, but very seldom see him and I've never seen the female in the backyard, but apparently they've been busy, doing what bluebirds do best. This is the closest they've nested to the house in many years. I'll have to keep a close eye out to make sure the wren and sparrows don't bother this nest box.

OK, now back to Sullys Hill National Game Preserve. Just beyond the prairie dog town, was the winter feeding area where they provide hay as supplemental feeding for the resident bison, deer and elk. I was lucky to see a large bull elk nearby in this field. They are beautiful animals and he was growing a nice set of antlers, still covered with velvet. He wasn't real thrilled about me standing near the fence to take some pictures, but I tried to be still and he eventually seemed to ignore me.

Here's a little video of him walking through the pasture and enjoying some nice tender grass.

Also in this pasture were two turkeys--a tom and a hen. This is the closest I've been to a tom turkey this spring. This guy was pretty quiet and not gobbling or displaying for the hen at all. He was a nice big bird, but it looks as though he may have some sort of an injury to his wing (or maybe his feathers are just molting).

I made a stop at the visitor's center to see if they had a bird checklist for the park (yes!) and to purchase a souvenir sweatshirt. They had quite a few birdfeeders set up outside the center and I was surprised to see that they had several clay-colored sparrows and pine siskins at their feeders. They also had a couple of nectar feeders with hummingbirds visiting.

After leaving the center, I found this very large buffalo wallow. Because of the recent rains, it was almost full of water, but you could see plenty of animal footprints around the muddy edges. In this picture, you can also see the wildlife trail (white arrow pointing to it) that comes down from the woods directly to this wallow/watering hole.

I continued following the road which wound around through the beautiful oak/ash forest. There were so many birds singing in these trees and I was able to stop periodically and roll down the window to watch and listen. In one spot, I heard a thrush singing (WOW!) I knew it wasn't a wood thrush and the birding checklist I picked up earlier showed the park had 3: Swainson's, Gray-Cheeked, and Hermit. I took this little movie and if you listen really closely (right around the 3 second mark) you should be able to hear the thrush singing.

Later in the evening at our wine tasting reception, I replayed this movie for Sharon (the Birdchick) and she positively identified the thrush as Swainson's. Thanks Sharon!

My last stop before leaving the park was the Devil's Lake Vista. Again, this must be a fantastic view on a sunny day, but still quite a nice sight even on a rainy day. Even from up here, you could see all the whitecaps on the lake from the strong wind that was blowing.

It was getting late in the afternoon, so I decided after leaving the park to run up to the city of Devil's Lake and find a little lunch. The road to town runs right along this lake. I almost changed my mind about proceeding down the highway when I saw this sign:

Fortunately, there was no water on the road and I had an uneventful drive into and back out of the city of Devil's Lake.

I got back to Carrington just in time to attend a seminar called, "The Ten Most Important Things You Can Do for Birds and Bird Conservation." It was a good talk presented by Paul Baicich. I learned that some of the things I'm already doing, but also a few new things that will be easy for me to start doing.

Later that evening we walked over to the wine tasting and appetizers event at the Historic Putnam House near downtown Carrington. It's a beautifully restored home that was built in the early 1900's. We were also treated to music by Bill Thompson, Julie Zickefoose and some of their equally talented friends (who just happened to also be attending this festival). As we say here in Minnesota, "A good time was had by all!"

I hope to post the final installment of my North Dakota trip tomorrow night. I hope you've enjoyed these stories and pictures enough that you will think about maybe trying to attend this festival next year (or another year in the future). It was a well organized festival and the groups were small. Everyone was very friendly and some of us had the added benefit of already knowing people when we got there (through blogging). As you know, it's so nice to go someplace where you already know people.....

North Dakota Trip-Day 3 (Part 1)

Friday was Day 3 of the Potholes & Prairies Birding Festival. I was scheduled to be on the 5 AM birder's bus going to Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Friday's weather forecast was calling for lots of wind (20-30 mph) and rain (up to 1") so when my alarm went off at 4 AM and I peeked out my motel window, that's exactly what I saw. Since I've already admitted I'm NOT a hardcore birder and I knew even wearing my rainsuit wouldn't make the trip any more comfortable, I decided to skip the tour and went back to bed till 6:30.

The wind and rain finally let up a little bit and I decided to head up to Devil's Lake (about 54 miles) to see what that area had to offer. Fortunately for me, I found Sullys Hill National Game Preserve right along the south east shore of Devil's Lake. Because there was so much to see there and I took a whole bunch of pictures, this is going to be a 2-part post because it's getting late and I just can't get everything organized tonight.

The cost for getting into Sullys Hill was $2 per car and that was definitely a bargain for a bird & nature lover like me plus I pretty much had the whole park to myself because the weather was so crappy and not too many other people were out and about.

Because of the diverse habitat in this refuge, there were lots of different birds--I got a total of 39 and 1 lifer--Swainson's Thrush.

My first stop after entering the preserve was the Woodland Wetland. Because it was still raining, the birds were a little hard to see as they weren't flying around much (and if I looked up with the binoculars, they would get covered with raindrops). However, here's a little video clip of all the birds singing around me at the wetland overlook (the faint "ticking" sound you hear is raindrops falling on my jacket)

I continued on my drive and came upon this little flock of eastern wild turkeys just crossing the road. I managed to get a couple quick photos as they scurried up the hill. I was continually amazed to see wild turkeys in this part of North Dakota--I thought it would be too cold for them, but the local folks told me turkeys (and white-tailed deer) were thriving.

My next stop was Sullys Hill Vista. As I was driving over there, I spotted this small buffalo herd just hanging out at the edge of the woods. There were several little ones staying pretty close to their moms. That mama seems to be giving me the hairy eyeball--I suppose because I had stopped my car to take these photos. I'm pretty sure she's way bigger than the Toyota Corolla I was sitting in!

Here's a big ol' bull that didn't seem to be bothered by the weather at all. When I first saw him, I thought it was a huge, mossy boulder till I looked a little closer and noticed the horns!

Here's the "Stairway to (birder's) Heaven!"

In case you're wondering, I did not make it to the top without stopping, but only because there were lots of birds to look at on the way, so it was necessary for me to stop often.

Here's the view from the top--WOW! Too bad it wasn't a sunny day. This viewing platform was actually above the tree canopy, and from here I got to see the Scarlet Tanager and Eastern Towhee--two birds I haven't seen for many years.

Sullys Hill also has a Prairie Dog Town. I stopped by there thinking I might get to see a Burrowing Owl, but there were only prairie dogs present this day. They are such cute little buggers. Several of them were out trying to tidy up the top edges of their holes, but because of all the rain, they were mostly just getting dirty feet and faces.
While I was standing there watching, a prairie dog right by the viewing stand stuck his head up from the hole, spotted me and immediately sounded the "alarm" for all the others. I was lucky he was so close so I could shoot this little video so you can hear him.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Sullys Hill National Game Preserve featuring more large mammals, birds and nature scenes from this beautiful spot in North Dakota.

Turkeys 2, Johnsons 0

We gave up on our turkey hunt this morning. Our change of tactics involved each of us going to a different location (where we've heard turkeys every day this season) and sitting on the ground in full camouflage with a shotgun (the way we used to hunt turkeys before we used a blind). We were really optimistic this was the morning that we'd get our birds -- and I was thankful it was above freezing since I would be sitting outside on the ground.

As it started getting lighter and lighter, we still weren't hearing any gobbling. What's up with that? I wondered, since I was sitting practically right underneath the trees they had flown down from on Sunday morning. I checked in with Mr. Johnson on the radio to ask if he was hearing anything where he was sitting and he confirmed that nothing was going on over there either. It was as if someone had just come in overnight and taken every single turkey out of that area!

I did hear one turkey gobbling from probably a half-mile away and across the river, but there was no way he could hear my calls and was going to come to me. Finally about 9 AM, we just decided to hang it up for this disappointing turkey season. It was such a nice day we decided to pack up all our stuff and go home and see if we could get my motorcycle in for an oil change this afternoon. So at least we'll get to take advantage of the nice weather with a motorocycle ride.

Here are a couple pictures from our turkey hunting adventure:

Mr. Johnson next to our hunting blind. This is the Double Bull Blind; it was kind of pricey, but we really like it. Lots of room inside for 2 people and all our gear and we can actually stand up inside too. It's pretty easy to get set up and take down too, plus the fabric is very heavy and stands up well to windy and rainy conditions.

Here's a picture of me looking like a camouflage Michelin man! I'm truly amazed how much fatter these multiple layers of warm clothing make me look!

However, the morning wasn't totally disappointing for me.....I got to see several yellow-rumped warblers (my first for 2008) and also got this great little video of a Brown Thrasher singing from the treetop (he's a little hard to see, but look right in the center of the video). Can you recognize any of his imitations?

Sunday in the Turkey Blind

The wind died down overnight and there were clear skies and a half-moon as we hiked to our turkey blind at 5 AM today. It was still cold (around 30 degrees) but I had my blanket to wrap up in and we knew once the sun was up the day would be warmer.

We heard at least 3 turkeys gobbling right across the ridge from us, but were unable to call them over, so it was another long day of waiting for turkeys that never showed up. However, I had plenty of time for reading. Yesterday I finished "The Friday Night Knitting Club" and today I read "Tell Me Where It Hurts."

I still managed to work in a couple naps and by afternoon the sun had warmed up our blind enough that I was able to finally take off my gloves and knit a few rows.

For most of the day, we heard a woodpecker "sounding off" on the trees near our blind. I finally located who was making all the racket--it was a Hairy Woodpecker. I was able to capture this short video from the front window of our blind.

Before we left to come home, I walked over to the edge of the bluff to photograph the eagle's nest across the valley. The nest is in the top of a big white pine. I bet that nest was blowing at least 15 feet back and forth in yesterday's high winds.

When the adult eagle is not in the nest I can see something white sticking up that I think might be a chick, but I can't tell with just binoculars.

I'm so glad I finally found the location of this nest and have been able to get some photos and the chance to watch the eagles come and go.

Tomorrow's weather report sounds similar to what we had on Saturday (snow/rain mix, windy and cold) so I'm going back to work and will take Wednesday off instead when the weather is supposed to be warmer.

P.S. I just checked my stats and this is Blog Post #300!! Another reason for a celebration cake!

Happy to be Warm Again

I've got my furnace cranked up and I'm sitting in the sunny dining room window posting this blog. Most of me is finally warm again except for my toes and a hot shower should take care of that once I'm done here.

When we got to our turkey blind this morning, the temp was about 32 degrees and it was SNOWING! The winds were howling out of the N-NW at around 25-30 MPH (gusting to 45 MPH) with a wind chill of 19 degrees. I like to think I'm a reasonably sensible and sane woman, but this morning, I couldn't help wonder what the heck I was doing out in these conditions freezing my buns (and all other body parts) when I could have been back home cuddled up in bed with Sophie and Penny while Mr. Johnson (the die-hard hunter) froze all by himself. I guess some people will do anything for a blog posting!

Here's a little video I took from inside the blind around 6:15 AM. Those are our 2 turkey decoys you see out in front and you can tell from the audio and from watching the decoys how windy it was. If you turn up your volume and listen real close at about 21 seconds you will hear the turkey gobble.

We heard him gobbling for about half an hour but could also hear a hen with him. Shortly after 6:30, all became quiet and we never heard or saw another turkey the rest of the day. We left the blind to come home a little after 3 PM.

The day wasn't a total bust though. We were entertained by a group of fat gray squirrels running and playing near our blind. We did also spot this handsome fox squirrel all by itself. There are mostly gray squirrels in these woods so I was happy to see this fox squirrel and also capture his image.

On our way home, we saw a group of young deer out in a hayfield. In this short video you will see them come to a fence and then jump over to head across the road. Watch closely at the end and listen to Mr. Johnson's narrative!


Hope you all stayed warm today. Tomorrow's forecast is still for "unseasonably cold," but hopefully it won't be quite as windy. One thing I know for sure is that I won't forget my blanket tomorrow!