Wonderful White Bird

Yesterday, my sister, my mom, and I went looking for snowy owls. There have been a number of sightings in and around the Twin Cities this winter, so about a month ago, I decided to go "hunting" since some of the birds were seen not too far from my home. The first two times I went looking, I got to see a snowy owl, but it was quite a distant away, sitting on top of one of the powerline transmission towers. My pictures were less than stellar.

But yesterday I won the gold medal - I got to see a snowy owl up close. Not so close that I disturbed it, but close enough to see details. The bird had brown stripes on its brilliant white body. It was eating something, but kept looking up to watch what was going on around it. What a beautiful bird.

The posting from the other day showed a pattern in the snow and asked you to guess what it was. Here is what caused the pattern. Nature is amazing... 

It's time for the Great Backyard Bird Count!

This weekend, bird-watchers across the world will be counting birds as part of a citizen science project looking at bird populations. All you need to do is watch for birds for at least 15 minutes each day or only one day. You count how many birds of each species you saw. Then log into www.birdcount.org and share your data. The count runs from February 14th through the 17th. It's fun - get the family involved! And you are helping scientists determine what is happening to birds. Get watching now!

What is it?

Yesterday, one of the Dodge naturalists was walking in the woods and spotted an unusual pattern on the snow. She brought a group of us out to the site to see if we could explain what made the pattern. Can you figure out how these circles were made? Leave a comment with your guess! Good luck!

Hunting for Hedwig

I consider myself a bird watcher. I have multiple feeders in my backyard and am able to recognize many birds. When I'm outside, it's usually birds that catch my attention. But I'm not one of those "must travel to the ends of the earth to add a bird to my life list" birders. I don't have a life list.

Today, that changed a little. I'd seen a couple of reports that snowy owls have been spotted around the state. Looking up where they've been seen, I noticed a lot of reports from here - in Dakota County. With them being this close, I wanted to go hunting for a snowy owl. My sister, brother-in-law, niece and I headed south on Highway 52. For the next couple of hours, we looked for owls and tried to locate geocaches in the area, too.

Near the intersection of 180th St. E. and Emery Avenue, we saw a car pulled to the side of the road. A man got out with a spotting scope so we pulled over, too and asked if he'd spotted "one." He knew exactly what I was asking about and sure enough, there in the middle of a cornfield was a snowy owl. There was no way I'd have known what it was without looking through the spotting scope. Their camouflage is amazing - they look just like a blob of snow. So in a snowfield, they are unrecognizable. Thank goodness for spotting scopes.

The gentleman with the scope was very generous. After he let all of us look at the owl, he told us where there was another owl. Birders are nice people.

It was easy to know where to stop for the second bird - there were about six cars lined up along the road. The owl was perched on top of a transmission tower. As we watched, it flew from that tower to the next tower over. How exciting to not just see a snowy owl, but to also get to see one fly.

I tried to take pictures, but 1) need a much bigger telephoto lens, and 2) need to improve my technique of photographing a white bird against white clouds and/or snow. (Let's just say my pictures didn't turn out.) Oh well, maybe that means I need to go back and look for more snowy owls...

Merlin Bird ID: Great Birding App

Normally in this blog I talk about the things I see around me in the natural world. Observation is a skill I'm always working at improving. One way to get better at recognizing what I see is through the use of field guides and 21st century tools, like apps. Cornell's Lab of Ornithology recently released the new app they've created for identifying birds. From their website:

"Information overload is the bane of the beginning bird watcher—as anyone knows who has ever flipped through 40 species of sparrows in a field guide. What if an app could quickly tell you which birds are most likely based on your location, date, and a brief description? Not just which birds theoretically could occur near you, but which birds are actually reported most often by other birders. That’s what Merlin Bird ID does. And it's free—because we want to make bird watching easier for everyone.

Merlin Bird ID covers 285 of the most common birds of North America (with more on the way). In addition to help with ID, it contains expert tips, more than 1,400 gorgeous photos, and sounds for each species. It’s available now for iPhone and other iOS7 devices, and it's coming soon for Android."

I downloaded the app to an iPad - it took awhile but the wait is worth it. You provide information about the size and color of the bird and in which habitat you saw it. Then a list of names with pictures comes up. Click on the bird you think you saw and learn more. There's information about the bird - where it lives, what it likes to eat, what it sounds like. I've downloaded several other bird apps (the free versions) and they usually give you a limited number of bird species as a way to get you to pay for the full version. But Merlin Bird ID is thorough and, in my opinion, very useful. Learn more about the app at http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/  Check it out!

Life in the Cold

During the winter, the nature center teaches a class about how animals deal with winter. Life in the Cold helps students understand that all approaches to surviving winter come with challenges. No approach  - migration, hibernation, staying active - is better than any of the others or is a guarantee of survival.

I saw that firsthand today. The overnight low temperature hit -23F. The daytime highs (high? ha!) were about -12F. Winds were gusting around 20 mph so windchills were 30-40 below. Cold, cold, cold. Too cold for schools to be open. Too cold even for animals.

Yesterday, one of the naturalists was at the nature center caring for the raptors. She noticed a young squirrel huddling up against one of the buildings, digging under leaves. She assumed it was trying to get warm, so she put a bucket filled with some fabric and left it in the area hoping that the squirrel would use it for shelter.

If you've read my more recent posts, you know I've been having trouble with squirrels getting into my feeders at home. Squirrels don't rank high on my list of favorite animals. But I don't wish them to suffer or die. Unfortunate for the young squirrel at the nature center, the weather was too much for it. This morning , while caring for the raptors, the other naturalist and I found the young squirrel. Dead. Frozen.

I know that yearling animals aren't likely to survive their first year. It's what I teach the kids during Life in the Cold. With the temperatures that we've been experiencing, I'm sure many animals died or will die as this polar vortex smothers us in bitterly cold temperatures. It's just hard to deal with when you see it firsthand. RIP Mr. Squirrel.

Under Assault

For years, one of the feeders in my backyard was a fortress -virtually squirrel-proof. It sits in the center of the yard, far enough away from the lilacs, the mulberry and maple trees that squirrels aren't able to jump to it. A large baffle keeps the yard varmints from being able to schinny up the pole and into the feeder from the ground. A sanctuary for the mourning doves, chickadees, finches, and juncos who gather daily to feast on sunflower seed, cracked corn, and peanuts. And so, except for the rare occasion in winter when the snow would get deep enough so the squirrels could jump up into the feeder, it was the perfect squirrel-proof feeder. Until last week...

A new generation of squirrels have all the daring of Evil Kenieval and the acrobatic skills of the Wallendas. It took awhile to figure out how they were getting into the feeder, but using my superior observation skills (ha!), I figured it out. Imagine inching yourself out to the tip of a branch no bigger around than your pinkie finger. You begin bouncing up and down slowly, making the branch drop closer to the peak of the feeder. It's still a good five feet between the bobbing branch and the feeder, but you're a daredevil squirrel and with glee, you launch yourself off the branch. You land - SMACK - on the peak and now it's easy-peasy - let the feasting begin. At least until  a crazed human comes charging out the door to chase you from the feeder. 

This cycle of squirrels invading and me yelling went on for a few days. My brother-in-law joined the battle. He brought a pole saw and snip-snip (really more like saw-saw) the duplicitous branch was gone. Problem solved. Or so we thought. Jason wasn't gone a half an hour and - you guessed it - squirrel in the feeder. The next day the mulberry tree got a pruning. The branches closest to feeder were gone. 

You'd think it was the end of the war. For the squirrels, it was just a lost battle - the war wasn't over. These squirrels really want the seed. With the original branch gone, they switched to a higher one. Fewer squirrels are willing to risk the leap, though. Christmas Day the family watched as one squirrel after the other would scamper up the trunk, shimmy out on the branch and then debate how badly it wanted the seed. And in most cases, it would give up. But there are a few who dare. 

The war will continue. There will be days when a squirrel gets in. But not for long - my vigilance will be unending. And maybe come springtime, I'll move the feeder. There's only so many branches you can trim before you're left with a stick.