Loggerhead Shrike!

For some of you--especially in the southern half of the U.S.--the Loggerhead Shrike may be a bird you see regularly, but for me it was definitely a first on my Minnesota List! (not a lifer though, I actually saw my lifer Loggerhead Shrike in California just a few short months ago).

Here's a bit of information from the Minnesota DNR's Nongame Wildlife website regarding the Loggerhead Shrike:

"They were once found in grasslands around the state, except in the Arrowhead region. Recent surveys have found fewer than 30 nests in southern and western Minnesota, with a small concentration in Dakota, Rice, and Goodhue counties. Population loss is likely due to many factors--loss of grassland habitats to cropland and housing, forest encroachment into grasslands, increased use of pesticides, and changes in farming practices with larger fields and fewer trees, shrubs, and fences."

On last Sunday's birding field trip, John Hockema mentioned that a pair of Loggerhead Shrikes had been seen regularly behind Lowe's. "You mean the Lowe's out by 48th Street?" I asked, because I couldn't believe they were this close to where I live. John confirmed that was the place and told me specifically that the birds had been seen less than 1/2 mile east of Lowe's on County 101. (Of course, I knew exactly where that was because that road is sometimes my shortcut home from Quarry Hill Nature Center.)

So on Monday afternoon, I left home a little bit early to pick up Mr. Johnson from work in the hopes that I might be lucky enough to spot this shrike. I had gone no more than a quarter mile onto County 101 and there it was--up on the utility line. Holy Crap!! A Loggerhead Shrike!! (do you ever do that--talk to yourself while you're driving around and looking at birds? I need one of those "birder" bumper stickers so people who pass me on the road know I'm a birder and not just some kooky old woman driving slow and talking to herself!)
I pulled out my little Canon Power Shot and started snapping away because I was sure the bird would fly as the car rolled closer.

Amazingly enough, the bird just stayed right there on the line and I was able to drive right up in front of it!

"Whatchoo lookin' at?"

Gosh, what a handsome bird!

Finally, as I was turning the car around, the bird flew across the road to some trees. I couldn't resist stopping to take one more picture.

With the rate of development arount Rochester, I'm not sure how much longer this habitat will be available for this bird. This area is prime for residential or commercial development and I think it's only a matter of time before the fences are pulled, the trees are cut down and more prime bird and wildlife habitat is gone forever.

Sunday Morning Birding Field Trip

This past Sunday morning I accompanied several other members of The Church of Our Benevolent Mother Nature to a special service that was held at Forestville State Park.
This service was just a portion of a special all-day birding event being held in Fillmore County (in the far southeastern-most corner of Minnesota).

Our little congregation was led by one of Minnesota's premier birding experts: John Hockema. In the photo below (from L. to R.) you will see Troutbirder (yes, I finally got to meet this blogging friend who lives only about 23 miles from me!), Chris Hockema (John's brother) and John.

John had only recently gotten back from leading birding trips at Boreal Birding and Northern Landscapes Festival in Grand Marais, Minnesota. He mentioned that North House Folk School was planning another birding festival coming up Labor Day Weekend that he was going to be leading field trips for also, but I couldn't find the event listed on the North House home page (if I find out more information--I will post it in the 2009 Birding Festivals & Events section on my sidebar).

It was a great experience to have John as a trip leader. I knew this was going to be a great trip when we got out of the car and he came over and asked us if there were any special birds we were particularly interested in seeing this morning. I immediately asked for the Cerulean Warbler and one of the other folks asked for the Louisiana Waterthrush. John said he would do his best to find those birds for us and we headed down the trail.

I've birded many times in Forestville State Park, but we walked a trail I didn't even know existed and it was a fantastically birdy area right along the creek. We never did find the Cerulean Warbler or Louisiana Waterthrush, but we saw and heard lots of other great birds including the Yellow-Billed Cuckoo and Blue-Winged Warbler, plus we got really good looks at a Scarlet Tanager who flew down to find that "other" Scarlet Tanager that had invaded his territory via my birdJam!

Because we were in the "Lowland Hardwood and Floodplain Community" of southern Minnesota's Deciduous Forest biome, there were plenty of other interesting nature sightings along the way. Look at all the insects flocking to the blossoms of this wild Cow Parsnip plant. These huge plants (most around 6 feet tall!) were blooming everywhere in the woods.

We're starting to see more butterflies now that the weather's finally warming up here. This Mourning Cloak was taking advantage of some horse poop left behind on the trail. (The next time I go down to Forestville, I'll have to remember a big baggie to pick up a few "road apples" so I can set up the butterfly feeding station again in my backyard.)

On our way back, Chris happened to notice a male Baltimore Oriole hanging around what appeared to be a nest in a tree right over the trail. I had to check this out and sure enough, there was the nest! I believe this is the only time I've ever spotted an active oriole nest during the nesting season.

I also found my first active Red-Winged Blackird nest in a roadside ditch. I could see Mrs. RW Blackbird sitting on the nest and as I approached she flew away--revealing the eggs in her nest. (I know they're nesting in the lower part of my backyard, but the grass and weeds are just too thick for me to ever locate a nest). I was surprised to find this nest built so low--it wasn't more than 14 inches above the ground--making this nest an easy target for predators and over-zealous highway departments who feel the need to mow every road ditch to the ground.

The field trip for Troutbirder and me ended at 11:30 because we both had previous commitments for Sunday afternoon. The rest of the group was continuing their trip deeper into Fillmore County where spotting Henslow's Sparrows was planned for the afternoon. John told me of a couple of places where Henslow's Sparrows have regularly been seen, so I've got that on my agenda for another birding trip this summer. John also told me about a pair of Loggerhead Shrikes (possibly nesting!) less than 3 miles from my house in Olmsted County......watch for pictures of this fabulous sighting in my next post!!

I Am Cured!

My computer is up and running again thanks to Shane Lindberg of Bright-Eyed Computer right here in Rochester.


I called yesterday morning when I got home from work and made an appointment for a technician to come out to my house (yes, that's right -- I didn't have to unhook everything and lug the whole tower back into town). A reasonable estimate was quoted over the phone and he arrived shortly after 2:30. I found out after he got here that Shane was the business owner and he normally doesn't do service calls, but lucky for me he likes doing virus removal! Shane was courteous, efficient and very knowledgable -- answered all my dopey questions and gave me some good recommendations to keep this from happening again.

I was so happy to get my computer back with no lost files and for way less than $100! Fortunately for Shane, he also answered "yes" to my "do you like rhubarb?" question and I sent him back to work with a plate full of freshly baked rhubarb bars and coffee cake.

So for any of my readers in the Rochester, MN area......if you're having computer problems, please consider giving Bright-Eyed Computer a call. I think you'll be very pleased with their service.

I have a virus!

I guess I've been lucky over the years, however, my luck ran out yesterday and my computer system here at home has become infected with a virus, so don't expect to hear much from me for the next week or so. Thanks.

Right on Schedule

Here's what I found in the chickadee nestbox this morning at 7:30 -- two newly hatched chicks!
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the last 3 eggs will hatch too. We're supposed to have nice, sunny weather for the next 3 days -- just what these little babies will need to get a good start on their life.

I'm going to leave the nest alone now for a few days......

UPDATE - JUNE 16, 2009:
There are 4 baby chickadees in the nest box now (one of the eggs didn't hatch). The parents are busy flying in and out taking care of them.

New Arrivals

Remember this picture from the other day?? Well guess what?

The babies are here!!

Looks like they just hatched this morning.

I can count 5 for sure. It was fun watching the parents while I was out mowing lawn today--as soon as one flew up to the house, the other one burst out the entrance of the house so the arriving parent could bring food to these little ones and the departing parent could go find more. If all 6 hatched, those parents are going to be really busy for the next couple weeks!

P.S. Still no chickadee babies yet. This is day 13 of their incubation, so I'm hoping maybe tomorrow morning.....

A Backyard Walk With Sophie

Finally we saw the sun for a few short hours this morning (first time since last Friday!) Here's where working part-time is great because Sophie and I got to take advantage of a nice morning and go for a little hike in the backyard. Come on along and I'll show you some of the things we saw.......

In spite of being almost 12 years old, a heart murmur and hind feet with no feeling in them, Sophie still loves to get out and run in the backyard. I don't take her for long walks anymore and she spent the rest of the afternoon napping after this adventure, but I think you can see how much she's enjoying being out here!

There's nothing wrong with Sophie's "sniffer" though. I bet she was smelling a bunneh under this tree.

When we were exploring at the farthest end of our yard, I noticed this fresh deposit of deer droppings.

Very close to where I found these droppings, we have an area of the yard that we've never mowed or done anything else with -- in fact, it's where we dump tree trimmings and other yard waste. It's grown up into a pretty dense thicket, but as you can see below, there's a little path going into this thicket......

and when I followed the path into there, I spotted this fresh deer hoofprint also.

Sophie was checking out all the good scents in there too, but I didn't let her snoop around too much because I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a doe hasn't hidden a fawn or two in that area! Wouldn't that be a real treat to see someday? I'll definitely be keeping a closer watch on this part of the yard now.

I've got quite a few cavity-nesting birds occupying some space in the backyard also. There are three active Tree Swallow nests. This little female Tree Swallow was reluctant to vacate her house, but I wanted to see if her eggs had hatched yet.

Not yet! Just 6 pretty little white eggs in a lovely bed of feathers. I'm always amazed at the variety of feathers the Tree Swallows can find to line their nests. Does anyone know if that stripey feather right down in front is from a hawk? (click on the photo to enlarge it)

I also have Tree Swallows nesting in two of these plastic super gourds, but they place their nests against the back wall of the gourds, so it's impossible to see how many eggs there are and whether they've hatched or not. But I know the nests are still active because I see the swallows going in and out.

Mrs. Chickadee is still sitting on her 5 eggs in this front yard nest box. According to my incubation calculations, there should be baby chickadees hatching by this weekend and I'll keep you posted on any new developments.

I have bluebirds in a nestbox in the backyard too. There was an unsuccessful nesting attempt earlier in the season and I'm not sure what happened, but that nest had been abandoned. Now a new nest with 5 eggs is being tended by the bluebird pair. Another neat thing about this is that I've finally found a nest that incorporates some of the yarn scraps that I put out in the backyard every spring!

Here's a nice shot of Mrs. Bluebird waiting for me and Sophie to get the heck out of her territory!

A quick check on the vegetable garden revealed these broccoli sprouts from the seeds I planted a couple weeks ago.

The garbage can potatoes are doing pretty good too.

Remember the scenes of the wildflower garden that I burned on April 13th?

Here's what it's looking like today. No buds or blossoms yet, but everything has grown back very nicely. With all the rain that we've had recently, once it gets sunny and warms up again, these flowers are really going to take off.

The wild grape vine has really taken over the dead tree in my front yard. Right now it looks there's going to be a good crop of grapes later this summer and the dead tree isn't quite so unsightly now that it's covered with green leaves again.

The house sparrows finally took over the nesting cavity that I showed you in this tree earlier this spring. I wasn't real happy about that, but a windstorm a couple weeks ago blew the top part of the tree off right at that nesting cavity, so the sparrows lost their home anyway. (I'm so glad the bluebirds weren't nesting there when that happened!)

I've got a bumper crop of common milkweed growing next to my driveway this year. I have only seen 1 monarch butterfly in my yard so far this spring, but hopefully when they come back, they'll find this milkweed patch along with several others that are growing in different spots in the yard.

And finally, a couple weeks ago I cleaned out some dead plants and replanted some new perennials in my hummingbird and butterfly garden. One of my new plants is this Foxglove. It's the only one blooming so far, but isn't it pretty?

Thanks for coming along with Sophie and me on this walk.....we had a good time and hope you did too.

Tagged!

Some of you may have gotten an e-mail from me today saying that I had some pictures to show you and you needed to log into "Tagged" to see them. I received a note from someone I knew yesterday with this same message, so I went ahead and logged in, created a profile, and when it came to the part about adding my e-mail addresses (it actually showed me a list of all the names in my e-mail address book!), I unselected everyone's names because I know you value your e-mail privacy as much as I do. Now it seems that people may be receiving e-mail messages from me saying I have pictures to show them, but Tagged says you have to log in first to see those pictures. NOTE: I have not posted any pictures in Tagged for people to look at -- if you log in, the pictures that you will see were not taken by me!

If you have received such an e-mail, please accept my sincere apologies and delete the note! I did not authorize them to use my address book, but it seems that was done anyway. I have gone back into Tagged and cancelled my account, so please don't log in expecting to see any pictures from me.

Uh-Oh, I Was Wrong!

Remember this picture from my post the other day and I thought it was a multiflora rose?
Well, I found out tonight that I was so wrong! It's a red raspberry!

When I took Sophie for a walk after supper, I saw this flower blooming all over up the street and then I remembered that there are always raspberries along the edge of the woods up there. I guess what threw me off was that the blossoms were so huge--I usually think of raspberry flowers as being much smaller. Anyway, the bad news is that I have to admit I was wrong (publicly!), but the good news is that it looks like there will be a bumper crop of raspberries this summer--as long as I can get to them before the birds!

Master Naturalist Graduation

Wednesday, June 3rd was our final Master Naturalist class and graduation. Because this was a special evening and most likely the last time our entire group would be getting together, we decided to have a potluck supper. There was an abundance of delicious food items. My contribution was hot barbecue venison sandwiches which were a big success (I brought home only enough leftovers to make one more sandwich!)


One of our classmates even had a special graduation cake made for our class! Pretty neat, eh?

Here's the official "diploma" presentation!

And here's a closer look at my certificate (suitable for framing!) and the "official" name tag and a little Minnesota pin indicating my successful completion of the Big Woods, Big River Biome Master Naturalist course.

This was a great class and I'm glad I had the chance to take it. I plan to have one more post with some pictures and other class highlights not previously posted, plus some information on how to find Master Naturalist classes in other states in case any of you might be interested in pursuing this opportunity also.

An Evening Walk to the Pond

I haven't been over to the little pond in the woods near our house yet this spring, so after supper last night, Mr. Johnson and I decided to take a walk over there. No development for the home lots or streets has been started yet, although there are some sewer pipes stacked up and a big John Deere digger that's been sitting there since early spring. I count that as one of the advantages of our current economic situation.

We know the deer have started having their babies and I was hoping to see a fawn, but we didn't. However, Eagle Eyes Johnson spotted these tracks in the dirt on our way home, so we know they've started to arrive on this earth. I just love seeing those teeny, tiny hoofprints (less than 1.5 inches long). You can tell this little one was staying pretty close to mama.

I think there are still quite a few deer in this little woods, judging by the number of tracks we saw. Here are some more from a little buck.

Raccoons are pretty common too.

Eagle Eyes Johnson also spotted these turkey tracks near the pond. He never did see any while he was out turkey hunting a couple weeks ago, though.

But the trip wasn't just about animals tracks, we saw some live creatures too. Here's a tent caterpillar.

How about this pretty dragonfly -- a male Common Whitetail. The dragonflies were hanging out on the sun-facing side of that John Deere digger I mentioned earlier. They must have been enjoying some of the remaining warmth from the sun on the metal of the machine.

We did see a couple of white-tail deer, but this one was the only one who allowed me to photograph her--and only from a distance.

We heard and saw quite a few birds--especially several territorial male Indigo Buntings. On my next trip, I'll see if I can't get a couple shots of those guys. Here's a bird I couldn't identify for sure; I think it's an Olive-Sided Flycatcher. At first I thought maybe a Great-Crested Flycatcher because there are so many of them in this woods, and it was about the same size. But once I got home and looked at this photo, I changed my mind, specifically because of coloration and the dark streaking at the sides of its breast. (A positive ID from any of my readers would be greatly appreciated.)

In addition to fauna, we also saw some flora. These little Johnny-Jump-Ups were growing right in the middle of what will be the main street into this subdivision. (I have half a notion to go back over there tonight and dig them up to replant somewhere in my yard.)

I noticed these roses blooming from the edge of the remaining woods. "So pretty," I thought to myself. "Now where did I just see a picture of these???"

Oh yeah, at Heather's blog......I believe it's the beautiful but invasive Multiflora Rose. Oh well, I guess it will be taken care of once the housing development starts here. I commented to Mr. Johnson on our way back home that if we were ever to win the Powerball, the first thing I would do is purchase this undeveloped subdivision from the realtor and just build one house there way back by the pond -- ours!

There must have been a farm or something here at one time many years ago because we see a lot of glass and sometimes other artifacts where the dirt road was been cleared out. I spotted this tiny little cobalt blue bottle just barely sticking out of the dirt and kicked it loose with the toe of my shoe......intact, very cute and a perfect sized vase for a tiny flower.

I cleaned it up when I got home and picked the perfect tiny flower in my backyard.

Now it resides on my kitchen windowsill as a souvenir of last night's walk.

What's a squirrel to do?

Sorry about the poor picture quality through the kitchen window screen. Now I'd better get outside and throw some corn in the ground feeder trays for this poor, starving squirrel!