Wildlife Festival Pictures from Sept. 17, 2011 continued

**http://www.exploresherburne.org/

Wildlife Festival at Sherburne NWF Sept. 17, 2011

Wildlife Festival pictures from September 17, 2011

**http://www.exploresherburne.org/

Sandhill Crane Tour Number 1 A Success

October 15, 2011, Zimmerman, MN

Refuge headquarters was abuzz as fifty crane aficionados and five group leaders prepared for the 6:30 AM departure to the western edge of the refuge where 4068 sandhill cranes had been counted by refuge staff two days earlier. The cranes roost in the St Francis Pool area at night, then fly out to surrounding farm fields to forage and fatten up for their fall migration to Florida. The viewing and listening are spectacular in the morning as flights of cranes depart and at sundown as they return. The unforgettable calls of the sandhill crane invite us to reflect on it's origin, millions of years ago, as one of the oldest of existing bird species.

Early Morning Crane Watchers

A Flight of Cranes Bound for a Day of Foraging

At 9:00 AM the group returned to headquarters, said farewell to a few members and added some new members for the second part of the tour, a venturing forth to observe cranes in the surrounding farm fields where hundreds of cranes could be seen in one view. Observed crane behavior consisted primarily of standing around and looking like cranes. From time-to-time a couple would break into a bit of bond-reinforcing crane dance.

Sandhill cranes are wary. The size of the large group caused them to avoid flying directly overhead in the morning flights. In the fields they tended to fly further away as the car caravan approached. Cautiously moving individuals or small groups should have even better viewing than this group.

The parking area for crane viewing is to the left of County Road 3 about one-half mile west of County Road 5 and just before the split of County Roads 3 and 70.

phlox

phlox

Mid-June on the Drive

June 21, 2011. On the wildlife drive. The seasonal parade of bloom continues. The lupine flowers that filled the fields with blue-on-blue two weeks ago have become the familiar pea-like seed pods. But new marchers have joined the parade. The cool wet weather has helped extend the bloom times of some and probably suppressed others. Here's what I noticed today.

Hoary puccoon, above, signals the shift from springtime's blue and white color theme to summertime's yellows and reds. This year the blooms are spectacular and seem to be longer lasting than usual. The flowers seem to be lighter yellow, less orange in tone this year.

Prairie rose is another early summer plant that signals a shift in nature's color scheme that changes with the seasons. The roses are just starting to open and should make a gorgeous display in the days ahead.

Another harbinger of summer is the prairie phlox. It brightens the early summer prairie with its outstandingly pink bouquets. Like all the prairie flowers we should enjoy it while it's here for it will soon be only a memory until next year.

The slender penstemon, or beards tongue, is about at its peak. Not the most noticeable of spring bloomers, a close up view of its unique tubular flowers is a joy. As the roses lead us into summer the blooming of the penstemons is one of springs ways of signaling us farewell.

The eastern kingbird, a member of the flycatcher family is one of the most common summer birds on the Wildlife Drive.To me it always seems that the eastern kingbird carries an air of elegance unless - - -

it happens to be a cold, wet, wind-tossed individual like this one.

This killdeer, nesting in the road at the Nelson Pool overlook, escaped the wind. A member of the sandpiper family, killdeers seem to think that any patch of gravel is a good nest site.

It's always fun to look in on the Canada goose families to see how the young ones are coming along. A few weeks ago these little ones were just tiny puffs of yellow. How quickly time must seem to pass if you're a goose.

May 21 on the Refuge

Dancing like a bee was taught to kids to display how the bees communicate the location of food.

Bee hives are in competition for food sources and must find and return food to hive in very short time to ensure health of the entire community. Here two bee hives(kids running to flowers) scurry for food to bring back to hive.

Honey tasting has no problem getting volunteers out of the crowd. Four different honeys from around the world were sampled.

Bees dance for the hive to display location and distance to food supplies. They also use fragrance as means of communication.
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School House Pond from Wildlife Drive. In the bushes below was the Baltimore Oriole found in following picture. Many turtles out on logs, many Tree and Barn Swallows swooping about enjoying the very obvious insect supply.

May 21 saw very changeable weather on the Refuge. The day started with Buzz about Bees held at top of hill from Old School House parking lot. The tents were set up and taken down in the rain, but for the most part the presentations from 10 to 12 A.M. were given under dry skies. The speakers brought out in very illustrative and engaging fashion the very different social characteristics of bees, the new very real challenges to bee survival, the importance of pollinators in general, and the many devices and clothing needed to keep bees and harvest honey. Several games for kids to learn about bee communication and behaviors were played. Great tasting session at end for all to enjoy honeys from around the world.

After this event I waited for the best 2 hours of weather the day would offer between 3 and 5 PM and made my way around the Wildlife Drive. Found many animals out sunning and feeding (see the 4 turtles in a row above) also taking advantage of sunny skies and temperatures in the mid 60's. Just a great day to spend at the refuge.

RoverView1

http://www.exploresherburne.org/

May 14 International Migratory Bird Day Outing

May 14 saw gray skies with windy, cool temperatures in the 50's. The occasional mist dampened the spirits of many birders as there were only 9 attendees to the 7:00 A.M. bird tour and fewer than that at 8:30 A.M. outing. The winds made bird sightings and listening difficult and after 4 hours there were only 74 species counted. This is down at least 10 % from prior years. Thanks to Jay Hammernick and Doug Stucki for guiding this tour. Highlights included spotting a resting Nighthawk on a branch right over Blue Hill hiking path, Warblers including Chestnut-sided, Yellow, Yellow-rumped, Black and White, Blackpoll and Palm and American Redstart . Also identified were Eastern Towhee and White Pelicans. Others noted on Friends website under WILDLIFE OBSERVATIONS/BIRD SIGHTINGS.

Posted by RoverView1

**http://www.exploresherburne.org/

May 7 Bird Tour at Blue Hill Trail

May 7th was the 2nd of many Bird Tours at the Refuge this Spring and Summer. 41 people attended this tour led by Doug Stucki and Barb Kull. The weather was beautiful as 54 species were identified including Ruby-crowned and Golden Kinglets, Hermit Thrush, Warblers included Yellow, Chestnut-sided, Black and White, and Yellow-rumped. More complete list on Web Site http://www.exploresherburne.org/ under WILDLIFE OBSERVATIONS/Bird Sightings.

It must be spring!

The Wildlife Drive at Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge opened for the season on Saturday April 23rd. On May 3rd I made my first circuit of the year as a Roving Wildlife Interpreter. The bright sun, blue sky and small clumps of white clouds cast a strange light on the brown remnants of last years vegetation. The long cold winter and our cold spring weather seem to have retarded that welcome first flush of green. Birds were not plentiful. The only advantage in having no green grass in most areas was that the little ground-dwelling birds that normally hid there were fully exposed to view. Good for birders perhaps, but not good for them.

My spirits picked several notches when I came across this woodcock, a member of the sandpiper family. The odd ritualistic mating flights of this bird have provided many evenings of rapt viewing for birders and have made this bird an icon of spring in our part of the birding world. Maybe warmer spring weather is just around the corner.

Woodcock

Here a link to a couple of U-Tube videos. This one shows the mating dance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9deSfyqkEQ&NR=1

This one from my friends at Eagle Optics is on how to locate woodcocks at night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtqxREKfvPM&feature=fvsr

A Midwinter Stand-off

Birding in the subarctic

East Central Minnesota isn't really the subarctic, but our area has had its share of record-breaking snow and low temperatures this year. So I've become more of an arm-chair birder for the present.

Most of the live birds I see are at the feeder on the deck. The crowd is made up of the usual suspects -four species of woodpeckers, dark-eyed juncos, white-breasted nuthatches, chickadees, and an occasional blue jay.

The other day I was surprised to see a northern shrike perching on the roof of the feeder for a fraction of a minute. I guess it was just passing through because I haven't seen it since. But I'm glad it tarried here because it was the first time I saw this species and so I added it to my list.

Now my bookshelf provides a little armchair birding. Most of my bird books are field guides which provide me with a chance to refresh my knowledge for next summer.

The most prolific source of armchair birding experiences is the internet. Here I find pictures of birds by professionals and amateurs. And I find pictures of birds in many poses shot from various angles. And internet birds appear in seasonal plumage the way it really looks. One of the great things about the bird photos on the internet is that many of them deviate widely from the perfectly posed birds in perfectly colored peak plumage that we see in the field guides. That's not a put-down for field guides. The reality is a field guide has to represent a huge amount of information in a very limited space. But the internet is virtually infinite in extent and is populated by hordes of picture-making birders. So the birds of the internet provide me with the challenge of recognizing a species in many guises. It's great exercise for my bird brain.

Beyond this internet birding provides an element not found in any book. Live action. That's video of birds doing what birds do best - bird behaviors. Watching behavior is how we get to really know and understand any animal. It's the ultimate familiarity.

So where are some good electronic birding hot spots? Since we're in Minnesota why not start at the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union, moumn.org. Birds.com, wildbirds.com, whatbird.com, and allaboutbirds.org are all excellent sites. Audubon.org is the portal to a whole world of birds and birding. Just put the word "birds" in your browser and you'll have a plethora of leads. If you want to go birding in the wild just go to Flickr.com or any other photo sharing site and enter the name of a bird in the search box. These links can supply you with an entire winter of birding adventure and then some.

I'll wrap up with the video link that started my thinking about this posting. It was sent to me by Betsy Beneke, Visitor Services Manager at Sherburne NWR. I haven't seen the featured bird but when I do I'll already have some familiarity with its behavior.

http://www.youtube.com/labofornithology#p/u/30/1NvU8WG9bg0

Christmas Bird Count 2010

Volunteers gathered at refuge headquarters early Saturday morning December 18 to get this years count underway. The temperature was below zero at the outset, but fortified with coffee, pastries, and maps the group of about two dozen set off in teams to systematically drive all the roads within 15 miles of refuge headquarters. Each team was given a route map and a checklist with the objective to count and record all the birds seen along the way.

Some of the more athletic members of the group covered the Mahnomen and Blue Hill Trails within the refuge on cross country skis.

The event leader collects the results from all the field teams and tallies them. The results are then forwarded to the Minnesota Ornithological Union where they become part of the historical record used to track trends in bird populations. The count at Sherburne is just one small part of an effort that covers the entire country.

Refreshments and talk dispel the effects of early rising

on a cold day and set the mood for the morning.

Betsy Beneke photo

CBC 2010 leader Dean Kleinhans checks the route

assignments while Ken Brennen checks the master map.

Betsy Beneke photo

Dean makes sure the drivers know where to go.

Betsy Beneke photo

Then it's bundle up and out the door for three

or four (or more) hours of driving and counting.

Betsy Beneke photo

Winter Wonderland

The heavy snowfalls of December have turned the Refuge into a winter wonderland.

A fine outing on a day where the visual impressions of your Wildlife Refuge are striking.

Come enjoy the winterscape in all it's wonder.

http://www.exploresherburne.org/

Mahnomen Trail offers XC Sking Thanksgiving Day

Just barely enough snow covering the trail for reasonable XC Ski outing. But it was fun and fast enough to keep us warm as we skied along, occasionally stopping to review an animal track or pick up a downed branch on the trail.

http://www.exploresherburne.org/

Snow Buntings !

October 31, 2010
Zimmerman, MN

In an earlier entry for today entitled "Serenity" I mentioned that this was a very quiet day on the Wildlife Drive. In the chill of this frosty morning even the usual small winter birds were hiding somewhere. I thought the water fowl and a few raptors would fill out the mornings birding.

But as has been said so often about the natural world, "You never know what's around the next bend." Today it was a wonderful surprise: snow buntings. . I felt the thrill of discovery. These birds are not even included in the "Uncommon" column of the Sherburne Refuge bird list even though my field guide says they are common in this area.

A group of these small sparrow-like birds was pecking in the gravel road just beyond the Big Bluestem Pool. In my four years in the Zimmerman area I have seen only one solitary snow bunting. That in itself was unusual because, like juncos, they usually travel as a flock. Now at last I was seeing a small flock.

Snow Buntings Through The Windshield

As I tried to slowly drive closer to them to have a better view and take a picture they would burst into flight, then settle back into business as usual further down the road. Finally I took my foot completely off the accelerator and idled very slowly toward them at a snails pace. This time they ignored my approach until I was reasonably close.

What handsome birds they are with their buffy cheeks, white breasts and contrasting brown and black wings. This first impression would probably fade into familiarity if flocks of snow buntings were common here. But they would still be handsome.

Snow Bunting, Side View

Snow Bunting, Front View

Snow Bunting, Rear View

I pulled off to the side then sat and watched these buntings doing nothing more than hopping around and pecking at the gravel. It was a very relaxing fifteen minutes until a car came by at full speed (twenty per) and scattered them into the distance. The people in that car were probably not aware of what they were missing as they hurried on. But once more I found joy in the small stuff.