Spring in March

March of 2012 was one for the records books -- warmest ever! I don't think we even saw a single flake of snow the entire 31 days. As a result, spring arrived about 5-6 weeks earlier than ever before. Now that April's here, we're actually experiencing more March-like weather, so I'm wishing for March weather again and reliving those spring-like days in these photos that I took during March.

I cleaned out my pantry one Saturday morning and found a partial bag of old, dried-up raisins. I dumped them out in the bird tray on the deck thinking that perhaps the robins or house finches might enjoy them. I was very surprised the next morning to find these honeybees feasting on the sweet raisins. Two of my neighbors have beehives, so I'm hoping these bees were some from their hives that survived our mild winter.

A few years ago Mr. Johnson got a deer, but he decided not to mount the antlers. He was just going to throw them away, but I told him I wanted to nail them to a dead tree in the backyard for the birds to perch on. There's a birdfeeder nearby and the birds actually do use the antlers for perching because all the branches have fallen off the dead tree. One afternoon when I was putting out yarn scraps for nesting material, I noticed that these antlers have also been munched on by some hungry little critters.
I've heard that small rodents will chew on antlers in the woods, but I always thought it was strictly when they were laying on the ground. I was surprised and amazed to see that they were even able to find these antlers attached 5 feet up a tree. They've done a pretty good job of chewing up this "bird perch!"

Last September at the Midwest Birding Symposium, I bought one of these alpaca nesting balls from my friend Kimberly who owns All Things Alpaca, LLC. It sat in my dining room all winter just waiting for spring nesting season. With spring birds arriving early this year, I decided it was time to get that nesting ball hung outside where it belonged. A couple days after this photo was taken, I moved the nesting ball to a tree branch in the hopes that maybe the birds would be more likely to notice it there......

In just the last few days, I've notice the nesting ball is looking pretty ratty -- something's been pulling on those alpaca fibers! I know the chickadees are busy in the little nest box in my front yard, so I did a little snooping the other nite..... Sure enough, mixed in with the grass and moss, there's all kinds of soft alpaca fiber! With the cold nites we've been having again lately, I'm sure Mrs. Chickadee really appreciates that cozy little nest she's built (and so will her babies).

My Nanking cherries put on a beautiful display of flowers in the middle of March. I know the birds love these cherries once they're ripe, so I'm hoping the overnite, below freezing temps we've had lately haven't frozen off the developing cherries.

Late last summer, I bought a purple butterfly bush at local garden center. The blossoms were beautiful and even though it was still a small bush, the butterflies found it right away and loved it. I know it's a Zone 5 plant, but luckily we had a Zone 5 winter this year in Minnesota and I was thrilled to see this plant is still alive in my butterfly garden!

A little red squirrel is living underneath the utility shed. She showed up one afternoon to raid the peanut feeder. Seeing her round little tummy makes me think that there will probably be more little red squirrels in my backyard this summer! What do you think?

Spring birds also began arriving earlier than in previous years. On March 26th, a Eurasian Collared Dove showed up in the backyard. It was only here for that one day, but they're becoming quite common in Minnesota, so maybe I'll be seeing them here more frequently too.

A couple male Red-Winged Blackbirds had a little showdown at the birdfeeder one morning. Aren't they handsome? Fortunately, they were more interested in eating than defending their territory, and both of them had to fly away when a Bluejay showed up at the birdfeeder too. I love Red-Winged Blackbirds and feel fortunate that they nest nearby and are regular backyard birdfeeder visitors for at least 6 months of the year.

Hope you're enjoying spring in your backyard too!

Backyard Birdnests

One of the neat things about having so many birds in the backyard is the opportunity to watch their activity -- especially nesting activities. I've found several active bird nests in the backyard and thought you might enjoy seeing some of them too.

Last weekend, I watched a robin picking up the grass mulch from my garden and flying over to a nearby crabapple tree. Sure enough, she was building a nice little nest conveniently at eye-level in that tree. Can you see her on the nest in the photo below?

Isn't this a beautiful nest? We've had a fair amount of rain this week, so she was able to build a sturdy mud layer in this nest and then line it with the grass mulch from my garden. Looks there will be only 3 eggs in this nest. I love that beautiful turquoise color!

In the front yard, I have a wren house and a bluebird house. Both of these houses are currently occupied. I love this wren house because one side of the roof opens for easy monitoring. There are six eggs in this nest. This is one of 3 active house wren nests in the yard. I know wrens can sometimes be very territorial and destroy the eggs of other nesting birds, but to the best of my knowledge, my wrens have behaved so far.

The bluebirds have 4 eggs in this house. It's right next to the driveway and they don't take very kindly to my nest checks. These eggs should hatch sometime in the next few days.

There are 5 active Tree Swallow nests in the backyard too. Two pairs of Tree Swallows have made their nests in bluebird houses, so I can easily monitor their progress. Here's one of the nests with 4 eggs in it. I'm always amazed at the variety of feathers they're able to collect to line their nests. Looks like they even found a bluebird feather.

This female Tree Swallow wouldn't leave her nest, even after I opened the door. She moved to the back so I was able to see that she had 5 eggs. I quickly took the picture and closed up the door again so she could get back to incubating her eggs.

Earlier this year, I showed you the first active bluebird nest in the backyard. Unfortunately, I think a raccoon got the eggs from that nest box. A couple weeks ago, another pair of bluebirds decided to nest in the other house at this location. This time I decided to fabricate a raccoon baffle (from a stovepipe) to give my bluebirds the best chance at successfully raising a family. So far, this baffle is working.

Unlike the bluebirds in my front yard, these bluebirds have all-white eggs!

I'm so happy to have 2 nesting pairs of bluebirds in my yard this year. It's been quite a few years since this has happened, since my trees have grown up enough that the backyard isn't really ideal bluebird habitat anymore. I'm hoping this is another positive sign of bluebird population recovery here in Minnesota and that I've been able to contribute to that recovery in a small way.

Springtime Backyard

I mowed the lawn on Monday afternoon, so that gave me a good opportunity to see what kind of "nature" events were occuring in the backyard. First and foremost, I wanted to check on the progress of the bluebirds because there was only 1 egg in this nest when I checked previously on Saturday night. Wow! 4 eggs! That's exciting and hopefully there will be baby bluebirds hatched in this nextbox in about 2 weeks.

There are several pairs of tree swallows in the backyard this year. The thing I really like about tree swallows is they're not shy and will let me get really close for pictures before flying away. Right before I snapped this picture, the female flew out of this nest box, but when I checked it, there wasn't any evidence of nesting materials inside the box yet.

It's a different story in this super gourd though. I always put a layer of white pine needles in the bottom of these plastic gourds and when I checked inside, I could see that the swallows have hollowed out their nesting spot on the back wall of this gourd and started adding more grass. In fact, the orange arrow in this photo points out that Mrs. Swallow had another piece of grass in her beak to add to this nest.

I tried really hard to snap a picture of the swallow in the gourd doorway, but I'm just not fast enough! I thought this shot of her soaring towards the entrance was pretty neat though. I really enjoy watching these swallows flying around in the backyard for a few months each spring and summer. The backyard is definitely a much quieter place once these swallows and their new families depart at the end of July.

In the wild lower part of the backyard, I discovered some wild plums blooming. I didn't remember these from previous years, but the plants were pretty big, so obviously they've been growing here for a while. I just LOVE the scent of these blossoms and can't resist stopping to inhale deeply every time I pass one of these trees. Someday, I know I won't look close enough before sniffing and inhale a bee or bug......

These 13-lined ground squirrels are taking over the backyard. Cheeky little buggers sit right outside their holes and watch me on the lawnmower. They drive Sophie nuts too. They dive right into their holes when they see her coming and she will stand by the hole forever waiting for them to come back out. Of course, they never do..... (Well, sometimes they do, but I won't share any details of that story except that it involves Mr. Johnson and a 5-gallon bucket of water and a not-so-happy ending for the critter, but lots of satisfaction for Sophie and Mr. Johnson.)

This year, I also have another lovely crop of dandelions for the honeybees visiting from my neighbor's hives. He always shares a quart of golden, delicious honey with us each year and I'd like to think that the flowers in my backyard have contributed to that bounty.

Lots of wild strawberries blooming again this year too. As usual, I'm sure the brown thrasher and robins foraging on the ground will quickly eat any of these fruits before I have the chance to sample them.

Well, that's about it. It's been pretty dry here with more rain in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow, so hopefully there will be some new flowers blooming the next time I mow the lawn.

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!!

Weekend Update

I had my last Master Naturalist field trip yesterday (Saturday). We went down to the Mississippi near Kellogg, Minnesota. I took only one unremarkable photo of a leopard frog, so I decided not to include that here. Our class is almost done with the last class being held this coming Wednesday. It will be graduation night and we're having a potluck supper for the class. Also at this class, we will be presenting our "capstone projects" to the group. Capstone projects are a special nature-themed project we work on (individually or with other classmates) that's above and beyond any other projects we worked on during class and includes some of the knowledge and/or techniques we've learned since the class began in March. My project will be adding plantings (flowers and shrubs that will attract wildlife, bees, and butterflies) to an existing bird and bee garden at the Quarry Hill Nature Center. The funding for this project is coming from memorials from two individuals who have passed away recently and one of the families will be assisting with the planting on the day before Father's Day. My plant list hasn't been finalized yet, but I hope they will be pleased with the choices and design I come up with.


OK, here's what I found in the chickadee nest box this morning.......Woo-Hoo!! 5 Eggs!

I saw this Pine Siskin and one of its buddies on Friday when I got home from work. I just can't believe they're still hanging around and I was still hearing them this morning while hanging up laundry on the clothesline.

The woodpecker's suet log is a really busy place these days. It takes an entire 11 ounce suet cake to fill each one of the holes and that has been lasting only about 2 days!

I love seeing so many woodpeckers here--especially the hairy's. I hope they continue to stick around and also bring their little ones to this suet log.

I Haz a Happy!

OK, so I know you're looking at the title of this post and then this first picture and thinking to yourself, "well, it's just a birdhouse Ruthie!" So I'll explain......it's not the birdhouse.......

........it's what's in the birdhouse that makes me happy. Do you know who made this nest???

A CHICKADEE!!

I finally have a year-round pair of chickadees in my yard and all the $$$ I spend on those giant, live mealworms I put out for them is paying off with them finally deciding to nest in the little Gilbertson bluebird house right in the front yard. I'm keeping my fingers (and toes) crossed that this nest is successful and I will get to see baby chickadees coming for mealworms with their parents.

LIFE IS GOOD!

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.

Goethite WMA

I decided to take advantage of my part-time work schedule this Friday morning and go on a little birding trip. After reading several of Troutbirder's blog posts about Goethite Wildlife Management area in southern Fillmore County, I felt the need to check the area out for myself. Mr. Johnson and I used to pheasant hunt this area in the late 70's and early 80's, but I've never been down there specifically for birding.

Goethite WMA is south of Spring Valley, Minnesota (about 30 miles from my house). After I turned off the main highway, I traveled past several ponds close to the road, and managed to spot these Greater Yellowlegs at one of the ponds.

A couple more miles down the road brought me to my final destination. I didn't remember this area being so large!

(If you're interested in learning more about this area, Troutbirder did several posts in June of 2008 that you might want to look at. I'm feeling lazy tonight and since he's already done the research and written about it, I didn't see the need to duplicate the information and would rather send you over to his blog -- I hope he doesn't mind!)

Here's the first view I saw after parking and getting out of the car -- a big pond that was an open pit iron ore mine back in the 20th century. No waterfowl on this pond, I guess I must have missed most of the migrating ducks and geese that Troutbirder saw last week when he was down here.

Since I was wearing my boots that were made for walking, I took off down a fairly well traveled trail to see what kinds of birds and other cool stuff I could spot. While watching a pair of Eastern bluebirds, I happened to notice this sweet little goldfinch nest that had survived the winter. Isn't it neat how they can fit their nests into little trees like this?

Oh cool, what's this? It looks like a beaver dam on one of the ponds. You probably can't tell from this picture, but the dam is almost 5 feet high and if you click to enlarge it, you might be able to see just a little bit of the pond on the other side (right in the middle).

I could see that the pond on the other side was right to the top of this beaver dam and I wondered if I could get across this little stream by following the deer trail. That little stream isn't very wide and it doesn't look too deep either, does it? OK, let's try it......it's too wide for me to jump across, but maybe just one quick step through the middle of the stream should be OK.

Shee-it! That water was WAY DEEPER than it looked -- and really COLD too! Oh well, I had my wool socks on, so at least my foot didn't get cold (and my pant leg was just about dry by the time I got home!)

So here's the beaver dam from the other side, with the pond right at the top edge. I didn't see evidence of any recent beaver activity, so I'm not sure if they're still present in this area, but it was nice to see that their sturdy dam is still intact.

I was glad I made the crossing to this area because while I was over there, I had the great fortune to spot two sandhill cranes walking around in the tall grass. I tried to sneak up on them to get some pictures, but had no luck with that. I did however, spot this large raptor (juvenile red-tailed or juvenile bald eagle?) with a red-winged blackbird monitor nearby.

I continued to wander around this area looking for birds and I hoped I was traveling in a big circle and would eventually find my way back to the road. After coming out of a little woods, I was relieved to spot the car right where I had parked it (of course, that huge pink arrow in the sky was a big help too!)

Now that I knew for sure where I was, I could continue with my explorations and not worry about being lost. I watched this Canada goose for awhile....I thought maybe it was injured or something because I've never seen a goose lay its head down in the water like this, have you?

After a few minutes, I walked a little bit closer and the goose finally perked up after seeing me and eventually flew away with no apparent injuries. I breathed a little sigh of relief seeing that.

Because Goethite WMA was once an iron mining area, you can still see chunks of iron ore while walking around here. Some are small, like this piece I found on the trail.....

and some are pretty huge, like this big chunk near the parking area......

(I would love to have this chunk of ore somewhere out in my backyard landscape!)

Here's something I've never seen before in the wild: Pussy willows! There were several large plants around the edge of the pond close to the parking area, so I cut a few sprigs to take home.

Some of the pussy willow shrubs had these really large growths that looked like buds on them. Does anyone know what these are? I tried "googling" pussywillows, but couldn't find any information on these large growths. Some of the plants had them but others didn't. I wondered if they were some sort of indicator of a male vs. female plant?

Update: I sent an e-mail to WinterWoman and she confirmed that this growth on the pussy willow plant is indeed a gall--a Willow Pine Cone Gall (Click here for the link she posted on insect galls to learn more about it). Thanks for your help Jennifer!

Back at the car, I watch a black-capped chickadee checking out a possible new home across the road.

Finally around noon, I decided it was probably time to head for home. I could easily have spent most of the day here at Goethite WMA, and I left knowing that what I didn't explore today will still be there next time I come down for a visit.

Here's a list of all the birds I saw (or heard) this morning:

Tree Swallow

Eastern Meadowlark

Common Merganser

Song Sparrow

Golden Crowned Kinglet

Eastern Bluebird

Bluejay

Black-Capped Chickadee

Eastern Phoebe

Greater Yellowlegs

Belted Kingfisher

Red-Winged Blackbird

Common Grackle

Canada Goose

Mallard

Red-Tailed Hawk

White-Breasted Nuthatch

American Robin

Killdeer

Sharp-Shinned Hawk

Sandhill Crane

Ring-Necked Pheasant

American Goldfinch

American Crow

Eastern Wild Turkey