2009 Minnesota Master Naturalist State Conference

There are going to be lots of photos in this post, so my apologies to those of you who are still dial-up users.

This past weekend the 2009 Minnesota Master Naturalist State Conference was held at the Audubon Center of the North Woods near Sandstone, MN, and I was in attendance from Friday afternoon until Saturday evening.

I had hoped to arrive by the 3:00 PM Friday afternoon birding trip, but I ended up leaving about an hour later than I had planned. Fortunately, for me, the birding trip was delayed until 4 PM. Unfortunately, it started raining (hard!) around 3:45 PM, so we birded from the front porch of the Audubon center. They had this HUGE hopper feeder right outside the front door and we were able to see quite a few cooperative birds right at this feeder (I didn't get shots of the red-breasted nuthatch and pine warbler that also visited the feeder this afternoon).

Rose-Breasted Grosbeak & White-Breasted Nuthatch

Under the eaves of the front porch a Cliff Swallow had crafted this fine gourd-shaped mud nest. In spite of all of us standing on the front porch, she did finally fly into her nest. The pale spot on her forehead was quite noticeable as she peeked out at us from the nest entrance.

"Please go away now, large human......you've taken enough pictures!"

Here are some of my Master Naturalist classmates who also attended the conference (L to R): Kate, Linda, Joel and Barbara. Joel was in a previous class, but I already knew him from my Mayo days (plus he's one of Minnesota's "Top Gun Birders" -- to borrow one of Troutbirder's definitions).

This is the main conference room at the Audubon Center. As you can see, our group had it pretty much filled up. I loved all the windows around this room and especially the six stained-glass windows up towards the top of the wall (click to enlarge the picture).

I was excited when I first got the conference schedule to see that Ann Bancroft was going to be a keynote speaker on Friday night at our conference.

Ann told us stories of growing up in Minnesota and being inspired by her mom, of her polar expeditions, and most importantly of her never-ending goal to educate and inspire all people (and especially girls and women) to pursue their dreams in life--no matter how big or small. Talk about female superpowers!! If you ever get the chance to hear Ann speak, please do so, I guarantee you won't be disappointed. And the really neat thing is that she's not full of herself at all--just a genuinely nice and gracious person!

After our rainy Friday, Saturday morning dawned windy and cold. However, that didn't stop us hardy Minnesotans from getting outside before breakfast for the 7 AM bird hike.

There wasn't much bird activity this chilly morning, but I did get my first Ovenbird and Chestnut-Sided Warbler of the year. (When I was heading back to my next class session after breakfast, I did actually spot a few snow flurries in the air! I was really thankful I hadn't forgotten to pack my wool long johns!)

My morning classes were "Rain Barrels and Rain Gardens" and "Aquatic Plant Survey." Deb (Sand Creek Almanac) was one of presenters of the aquatic plant survey class. Here'a an "action shot" of Deb showing some of the participants what types of aquatic vegetation can be found during a lake survey (the plants are on the edge of the boat behind the person in the blue jacket).

I was happy to see Deb again and after class we were able to spend a little bit of time together enjoying lunch and catching up on some things going on outside the "blog world."

The Audubon Center of the North Woods provides quite a bit of its own power. They have a geothermal heating system, their own wind turbine, and these solar array panels (that move to follow the direction of the sun). We were happy that the sun did decide to come out late Saturday morning and even though it was still chilly, the sun made it much more bearable.

Our Saturday afternoon consisted of a field trip to Moose Lake, Minnesota (about 20 miles north of Sandstone. There we visited the Moose Lake Historical Society and 1918 Fire Museum (located in the old railroad depot).

We learned a little bit about the 1918 fire in our Master Naturalist class. More people lost their lives as a result of this fire than the famous Hinckly fire and when someone asked the gentleman at the museum why we never heard much about the Moose Lake fire, he told us that it was overshadowed by the WWI headlines of that time period.

This map in the museum shows the areas affected by that huge 1918 fire--all the way to the shore of Lake Superior north of Duluth!

After the museum, we also visited the Blacklock Galleries in downtown Moose Lake (no photos) and then headed out to the Moose Lake Agate and Geological Center at Moose Lake State Park.

I thought this Minnesota state map created of native stone and embedded in the floor of the Moose Lake State Park headquarters building was pretty neat.

After learning more about agates and agate hunting, we boarded the bus one more time to head out to a nearby quarry to search for our own agate treasures.

As you can see, it really turned out to be a pretty nice afternoon and everyone was pretty excited to get out into the quarry and become "rock hounds" for an hour or so.

I'm not much of a rock hound, so I used my time to enjoy the scenery and watch for birds. I always like seeing the birch trees of the north woods--we have very few of these lovely trees in southern Minnesota.

While I was wandering the woods at the edge of the quarry, I heard some frogs singing, so I decided to follow a little trail into the woods and see if I could find where the frogs were singing from. I came upon this pretty little pond (a vernal pool?) and was happy to see quite a bit of bird activity.

A shy Yellow Warbler

Palm Warbler (there were several of these guys around the pond)

On the way back to bus, I even managed to find myself a nice-sized little agate!

We were all loaded back on the bus and ready to head back for supper, but not before Amy (our trip leader) got the DNR van stuck in some loose gravel at the quarry. All of her passengers climbed out of the van and some of the guys from our bus headed over to Amy's rescue.

Success!!

The conference did have sessions schedule for Sunday morning also, but I opted to depart on Saturday night after supper. This is just such a busy time of year for me and even though I'm only working part-time, I wanted to be able to have Sunday to catch up on some of my chores at home before the work week started again (I even managed to find time to give myself a much-needed haircut on Sunday morning!)

Have a good week everyone!

Caption Contest #3 - And the winner is.......

Caption Contest #3 winner is Marylee of the Merrilymarylee blog

(Marylee - please send your USPS mailing address to my e-mail [rjknits at msn dot com] so I can get your prize mailed off ASAP!)

Thank you everyone for playing along with this caption contest and sending in your submissions. All the captions were so good that it was difficult to choose a winner. I finally decided to go with the "random drawing" method and printed out everyone's caption for the drawing.

My sissy just happened to stop by this afternoon and I enlisted her timely help in choosing the winning caption from the bucket.

Caption Contest #3

Hey Everybody, it's time for another Nature Knitter Caption Contest, so get your witty thinking caps on and send me a clever caption for this picture........



I took this picture last Saturday at Nerstrand Big Woods State Park during our Master Naturalist field trip. That's my instructor's hand gripping this cute little American Toad.

Since I'm going to be kind of busy this week, I'll give you all until next Saturday (May 16th) to post your caption. The winner of this caption contest will be announced on Sunday (May 17th) and will receive one of my lovely hand-knitted cotton dishcloths as a grand prize!

Caption Contest Rules:

1. No nasty or naughty captions (my parents read this blog!)

2. Everyone is eligible (including my family members)

Good Luck Everybody!

More Time Please!!

Well, things are turning out pretty much they way I figured they would in May and I'm desperately trying to stay caught up and not succeeding at all. I was birding last Saturday and Sunday (those pics are still waiting to be edited), went out 2 nights this week to watch the woodcock "Sky Dance" (no pictures, just fond memories of a fantastic show and I can't wait to go again!), Master Naturalist class (more pictures stored and waiting to be posted), and a Master Naturalist field trip all day tomorrow and then off to an evening bonfire/picnic event sponsored by the people I work for. Whew! I don't think Sunday will be long enough for me to catch up and then next week it's pretty much the same......

Thanks for leaving your comments on my posts--I've been reading them, but haven't had time to respond. I used to be able to do that at work early in the morning, but now just working 4 hours, I have to actually "work" while I'm there to stay caught up. I hope you all understand. I'm hoping things will get better in June once the migration activity has slowed down a bit.

Today I had to work an afternoon shift to accomodate a meeting that had been scheduled (I was "strongly encouraged" to adjust my schedule in order to attend). It was nice to have a relaxed morning at home and for the first time this spring, I got to sit out on the deck with my coffee and knitting and enjoy the backyard bird serenades. And if I hadn't been home this morning, I would have never seen this........

Woo-Hoo!! Indigo Buntings are back in my yard!

I just love these brilliantly blue little birdies!

The Goldfinches are singing like crazy too, and I couldn't resist taking a picture of this gorgeous little guy.......

and his sweet little mate on the next branch.

My Baltimore Orioles just got back this past Wednesday also. I was going to try and get a little movie this morning so you could hear how loud he sings in the crabapple tree right by the deck, but he kept hiding on the other side of the tree and I couldn't get a good view of him. But I guess there's plenty of time left this spring.

It's raining right now and I'm hoping it stops in time for our Master Naturalist field trip tomorrow. We're spending the entire day at the Nerstrand Big Woods State Park. I can hardly wait--it's going to be overcast with high temps only in the 50's, but I'm still anticipating that we'll get a chance to see some warblers and other migrating spring birds. Here's an excerpt from an e-mail our instructor sent out this afternoon, "The wildflowers will potentially be spectacular, so bring a camera, a notebook, personal field guides, cool gadgets like Ruth’s iPod bird id gizmo, etc.," I had to chuckle when I read that--he's referring to my birdJam which I've been taking to class every week. I don't really consider myself a "hard-core" birder, but in our class there's only a couple other people who appear to be bird-watchers, so I guess that makes me practically an "expert." I'm hoping to use my birdJam to maybe call in some birds for classmates to get a closer look at--it worked really great with the Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher my sissy and I saw last weekend. (Oh yeah, I've got a shopping bag full of field guides that I'll be toting along to share with classmates too!)

I hope you all have a good weekend and a chance to get outdoors and enjoy spring now that it's finally arrived.

Killdeer!

I went on a couple of birding hikes this past weekend and have some stories and pictures for you, but I'm still trying to get those organized. Our weatherman is predicting rain for the next couple of days, so hopefully I can get caught up on my blogging activities soon. But for now, I have this quick post and pictures to share.

It was a nice warm afternoon, so I walked over to visit my neighbor Matt and see how his big garden is coming along. Matt and his wife have 5 kids and raise almost all of their own produce and I'm amazed with his huge and well-organized garden. They're also going to be acquiring some chickens soon and I'm looking forward to buying fresh eggs from them.

I also found out last week that one of their little boys (Shawn) is an avid birder. That was exciting news for me and I gave Shawn one of my rarely used field guides and the Stokes Guide to Bluebirds that has been sitting unused on my bookshelf for several years. He was pretty thrilled and so was I knowing that I can help get this guy turned on to birds and birding at the young and impressionable age of 9!

While I was over there, Matt told me that they had recently found a killdeer nest in their backyard......would I like to see it? I could hardly contain my excitement and asked if he would mind if I ran back home for my camera to come and take a couple pictures. Here's the nest containing 4 eggs.
Their lot is 5 acres just like mine, but they only have a fraction of the number of trees in the backyard that we do, so the open habitat is perfect for killdeer. The nest was made in the wood chip mulch covering a little landscaped flower garden in the middle of their backyard. Aren't those eggs just the cutest thing?

As I knelt down at the edge of the landscaped area to photograph the nest, the parent killdeer got really agitated and came rushing across the lawn to perform the "injured bird" display. I stayed only long enough to snap these couple of photos.

If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you can see that his/her beak is open (scolding me!)

After about 20 seconds, Shawn and I hurried away from this nest to avoid stressing this poor bird any more. I was glad for the opportunity to take these pictures and to share the experience with Shawn too.

BTW, these pictures were all taken with my new little Canon PowerShot A1000, and I'm pretty happy with the results.

Trail Camera

Mr. Johnson pulled the trail cameras out of storage for me last night. The weather has finally warmed up enough that the cold won't drain the batteries, so it's a good time to get those cameras set up and begin monitoring our nocturnal backyard visitors again.

You always want to do a test shot first to make sure everything's working correctly......

So here's our first visitor at 1:53 AM (I can see that I'll have to make an adjustment to the camera's time clock though). This little doe looks slightly moth-eaten as she begins to shed her gray-brown winter coat.

We usually don't see single deer in the backyard and this visit was no exception. These two are probably sisters and were born last spring.

This camera doesn't make any noise when it takes a picture, but the flash is blindingly bright!

I'd say the deer were a little annoyed by this and they didn't stay around for very long. I got one more picture on the other camera and I'm pretty sure it was probably the other deer that walked away from this feeder. Their visits have become a little more sporadic now with the arrival of spring and other readily available sources of food. Sometimes 2 or 3 days will go by before all the corn is cleaned out of these tray feeders.

I'll keep these cameras out in the backyard until we have to move them for deer hunting scouting, so stay tuned for future updates on nocturnal visitors to my backyard. I'm still hoping for pictures of fox and/or possums with their little ones.

Master Naturalist Class #6

Now that I've got my new little pocket camera, there will be no reason not to post dorky pictures like this from my Master Naturalist class.......
Last night's class was about water in the landscape: ponds, streams, lakes and rivers. Part of the class was dedicated to learning about the different tests and indicators of pond health. In the photo above I'm holding on to a "thermometer on a stick" (no, you won't find that as a new food vendor item at next summer's state fair!) in an effort to determine whether the temperature of this pond is different at the surface vs. a depth of 60 centimeters (it wasn't, if you're curious).

As of last night, we have completed 6 Master Naturalist classes and have 3 more to go, plus the last class which includes graduation. May will be quite a busy class month as we have our regular Wednesday night sessions, plus 2 all-day Saturday field trips, and the Master Naturalist conference weekend event. AND, I still need to find some time in between Master Naturalist activities and working to get out and spot migrating warblers (finding a Cerulean Warbler is tops on my list this spring).

I wonder, what's the minimum number of hours of sleep I will need per night to still remain functional and do all the outdoor things I want to each day.......I think I'll be finding out in May!

Transplants, Sprouts & A New Camera

My veggie seeds are doing well since I transplanted them into their individual "pots" last Friday. Here I have 3 different kinds of tomatoes and some broccoli. I put them out on the deck a couple hours yesterday afternoon for a little fresh air and sunshine.

Penny sez, "I approve of these sprouts being grown for my noms!"

Here are some radishes just beginning to sprout in my garden. I checked when I got home from work today and there are some tiny lettuce sprouts just beginning to make their appearance also.

A few weeks ago, after reading Jennifer's post about her new camera and seeing the wonderful pictures it took, I decided to take the plunge and purchase one for myself.
I've been wanting a smaller, more portable and less expensive camera than my big Canon PowerShot and this seems to be the perfect little camera. In fact, the first 3 photos on this post were taken by my new camera. Now I have a nice little pocket-sized camera to carry along on walks, to my naturalist classes, in my bag to work, or wherever there's a chance I might have that perfect photo opportunity (as long as I don't forget it!)

Post #470 -- Purple Martins

When I logged in to Blogger this morning, it showed me that I have done 469 posts so far. Wow, I can't believe this is post #470 since my first appearance with the Nature Knitter blog on March 6, 2007. I have learned plenty of new things about Blogger and made some definite progress with my posts since then.

Yesterday, we had a little preview of summer here in southeastern Minnesota. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we reached a record high (for the day and the month!) of 92 degrees. It was a perfect day to get some more spring chores done outside and so I decided to get my purple martin gourds "furnished" and hung up on the gourd rack. The purple martins have arrived back in Minnesota and once again, I begin another season (Year 4!) of what is turning out to be the eternal quest to establish a purple martin colony in my backyard.

I have 12 gourds -- half are giant natural gourds and half are these plastic "Super Gourds." The plastic gourds are pretty much maintenance-free and will last for years, but I've found that the purple martins who do visit me and move into gourds definitely prefer the natural ones. Inside the bottom of the gourds, I put in a few handfuls of white pine needles that I've raked up from under my trees. This will give the martins a good base layer on which to build their nest and in addition to the drainage holes in the bottom of the gourds, will also help to keep their nests drier in the event of heavy rains.

Here are all the gourds in place. I've plugged the holes in the natural gourds and may have to do that with the plastic ones also if I notice that tree swallows, house sparrows or starlings are trying to take over the gourds before the martins arrive.

I hoisted the gourds to the top and we're all set for purple martins! These are in a nice, open, and very visible part of the yard. Hopefully any martins flying over in the next few weeks will notice these lovely gourds and stop by to take a look.

I really like using gourds for purple martin housing. They are so easy to care for and lightweight. If I was rich and had an established purple martin colony though, I would definitely get one of these Lonestar purple martin houses. They have huge nesting compartments with built-in predator guards inside each "apartment." I've visited a couple purple martin landlords who have these houses and they swear that it's the best martin house out there.

Most of you probably already know that purple martins in the eastern U.S. and Canada now depend entirely on humans to provide their housing. If you think you'd like to establish a purple martin colony in your backyard, or just learn more about purple martins, please visit the Purple Martin Conservation Association website here. There's lots of information at the website and also links to finding martin events and mentors in your area (scroll down the website home page to see all the links on the right side). I would also be more than happy to answer any questions you might have.

Being a purple martin landlord is fun and rewarding (and frustrating and challenging), but once you get "hooked" by these beautiful birds, you will do just about anything to keep them coming back from year to year. I know.......because I do it every year! And I won't stop with my "martin quest" until I get a colony established in my own backyard.

Brown Creeper Boo-Hoo

Well, dear blogging friends and followers, I'm sure you've noticed I've been a poor correspondent for the past couple of weeks. I had a feeling this was going to happen once spring arrived here in southeastern Minnesota and I'm now more eager to spend time outside than sitting inside the house at my computer. Also, my poor old Sophie has developed some "separation anxiety" issues now that I've gone back to work, and my employer has graciously agreed to a schedule change that will enable me to work half-days now in order to spend more time with Sophie. And factor in the Master Naturalist class schedule......well, I think you know where I'm heading here. So anyway, I wanted to let you know that I'm still around, but time for blog posts and commenting has become limited, so I hope you all understand.


Now, to get back to the title of this post.......
This afternoon, I headed down to my sissy's to dig a hole in her front yard so she can get her new purple martin house put up, because they've finally made it back to Minnesota from Brazil! It was fun listening to a few martins flying overhead for distraction while I was trying to dig a 26" deep hole through the limestone buried under her front lawn. While I was digging, my niece was keeping me company outside and she happened to find this little birdie in the flower bed--an apparent casualty of a collision with the front window. As soon as she handed it to me, I knew it was a Brown Creeper.

I was saddened to know that this poor little bird's life had ended, but at the same time, it was quite amazing to hold this tiny creature in my hand and examine it a bit more closely. They're so well-adapted for survival in the wild. Look at this skinny, curved beak--a perfect tool that enables them to search in deep crevices of tree bark to locate a tasty insect or grub for nourishment.

Look at this bird's incredible feet--especially the huge hind toe claw! Perfect for gripping bark and "creeping" up the trunk of a tree in search of food.

I wish you could have felt how stiff and bristly its tail feather were. These stiff tail feathers also help to hold the brown creeper in place as it finds and extracts its food from tree bark crevices.

Its feathers were quite beautiful--even for a little brown and white bird. Look at the lovely markings on its wing feathers. I've only seen a Brown Creeper flying once and it was so fast I didn't even get a chance to notice its wings.

I was sorry this little bird had to die and I hope you don't think I'm exploiting the situation by showing these pictures in my blog. Even though it was dead, I felt honored to be able to hold such a tiny creature in my hand and be able to see up close the physical adaptations that enable this bird to live in the wild.

R.I.P. Brown Creeper

My other plan for this summer will be to help my sissy get a bird deterrent window screen set-up installed so no more birdies will become a victim of her front window (following the excellent instructions presented by Julie Zickefoose in the March/April 2009 issue of Bird Watcher's Digest).

A Sunday Afternoon Drive

We were finally blessed with some much-needed moisture in the form of rain (not snow!) overnight and most of today. Because it wasn't really nice enough to do anything outside, Mr. Johnson took us for a turkey scouting/birding drive down to Fillmore County this afternoon. Here are some of the sights we experienced.

Because last week was quite nice, many of the farmers around here have started on their field work. We came across this old cemetery located some distance away from the road and in the middle of a cornfield. I don't remember ever seeing this cemetery before and once the corn gets tall, you would never be able to see it from the road.
I would have liked to walk over and look at some of the gravestones, but the ground was too muddy. I tried to find out more information on the internet, but this cemetery wasn't listed as one of the public cemeteries in Fillmore County. It looks very desolate on this dreary day, doesn't it?

(I was also extremely surprised these gravestones hadn't been vandalized and broken, as is so often the case of these old cemeteries in rural areas.)

We came upon an old dead tree that was a perfect roosting spot for some turkey vultures. Naturally they didn't sit still very long after we stopped the car for some pictures.

This was a lucky shot!

Fly away vultures!

We continued heading south and eventually ended up at Goethite WMA. On one of the ponds near the road, we spotted a large number of Blue-Winged Teals.

These pictures aren't the best, but the colors of their breeding plumage makes them easy to identify--especially the males with their large crescent-shaped white patch at the base of their bill.

While we were watching the ducks on this pond, I looked to my right and spotted another large flock of birds flying in the distance.

I quickly got my binocs on them and was thrilled to see it was a huge flock of white pelicans!

These were the first white pelicans I've seen this year. I haven't had a chance to travel down to the Mississippi yet this spring and I thought perhaps I might have missed the opportunity to see pelicans this year.

I love seeing these beautiful birds soaring in the sky. I only wish the skies had been clear today because the sight of these huge white birds with a blue sky in the background is breathtaking.

I like this picture because you can clearly see the "breeding horn" on the top side of their beak.

Did you know their wingspan is 9 feet? Here's the Wikipedia link if you want to read more about the American White Pelican.

Have a good week everyone!

Master Naturalist Class

My Minnesota Naturalist Class is going well. Last night was class #4 (there are a total of 9 classes). I thought I was pretty knowledgable about nature, but I'm finding out in this class that I really don't know very much at all! I felt a little smarter in yesterday's class: Creatures of the Big Woods. We had the opportunity to go outside and make a plaster cast of an animal footprint found along the edge of the pond. Here's how our group's turned out -- do you know what animal made this footprint?

If you guessed "hind foot of a raccoon" you would be correct!

So far we have learned about Minnesota's biomes (we are in the deciduous forest biome), glaciers and geology and what effect they had on the big woods, management and identification of terrestrial plants (trees and shrubs), and last night's class on wildlife. I'm enjoying these classes and especially all the new things I'm learning.

And now to totally change the subject, look at this picture I took yesterday morning......

Those dang starlings! It took them almost 3 months to figure out how to get to the suet log inside this cage. I don't know if it's just this one bird, but when I got home from work this afternoon, there was a starling all the way up inside--with one foot braced on the suet log and one on the cage. I was hoping they'd never figure this out, but this is one smart bird. Now I'm going to have to attach a pie plate to the bottom of the log and cut off that access. The only bad thing about that is the hairy woodpeckers will also lose their access to the suet log. Crap!!