Monthly Archives: December 2012

Bird On

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Like everyone across the country, I am deeply saddened by the shootings in Connecticut. It is simply unimaginable. Sadly, many of us have gotten used to these public rampages, but this one was different. Kindergartners. Lots of them. This one hit especially close to home as my wife and I are both teachers, and Evan, the Captain of our birding team, is in Kindergarten. I cannot imagine the hell those parents are living or how those remaining teachers will pick up the pieces.

I didn’t hear the news until late in the school day, and so I walked out of school with a heavy heart. As I got near my vehicle in the parking lot, I was startled by a Bald Eagle that was flying low about 30 yards from me! Wow. They are amazing birds but even more so up close. It was an unexpected encounter, and I tried to fumble for my phone to snap a pic. But I was too slow and all thumbs, and the moment was gone before I knew it. Regardless, I found myself wanting to get home just a little bit quicker to share this news with my birding buddy. My five-year-old was at home – safe. That was treasure enough on this day. This news that I was about to bring him was just the icing on the cake. It was a reminder that life moves forward and that we need to spend our time cherishing our loved ones and doing the things that make them tick.

I finally arrived home and was gathering my things out of the car when out of my peripheral vision I noticed something flying. Looking up I saw a Trumpeter Swan flying low and alone over our cul-de-sac! What?! We just had a blizzard last weekend dumping nearly 18 in. of snow, and the temps have been below zero over night. Once again I couldn’t get my phone out fast enough. Now I really couldn’t wait to get in the house to tell Evan about my sightings. As I came into the house he was in the entryway, and I told him I had two pieces of exciting news. Before I could share my news, he replied, “Dad! Dad! Me too! I just saw a Trumpeter Swan flying!” To be able to share a moment like that on any day would be special, but on this day it was a moment to remember.

Life is fragile, but it’s beautiful and worth living. So hug your kids extra tight today and bird on.

Movie Night!

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This weekend is Evan’s Christmas program at church, and my parents are coming down to take it in. Since Evan and I will be around Grandpa Rick, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to have a birding movie night. What do birders watch on movie night? The Big Year.

Maybe you’ve never heard of it. After all, it is full of lesser-known actors such as Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson. But if you have heard of it, you know why the three of us need to watch this together. The Big Year is a story about three different birders who are trying to complete a “big year” and become Birder of the Year. In the birding world, a “big year” is where you try to sight as many bird species as you can in a single calendar year. The movie portrays this sub-culture as quite competitive as these birders race the clock traversing the country trying to get the most birds on their lists. This along with all the footage of bird species makes it a compelling movie for us to watch, but the human story is just as intriguing. Steve Martin plays a corporate executive who breaks free from that world to do his big year. Owen Wilson’s character is basically a professional birder who is trying to defend his title of Birder of the Year. Jack Black plays an office worker who is going nowhere in life but has a passion for birding. As all three embark on this quest to become Birder of the Year, their paths often intertwine and their interactions become cutthroat. By the end of the movie, however, deep friendships emerge that trump the competition. Evan may miss the lessons of the movie, but he no doubt will be thrilled to see these the beautiful landscapes and the many images of birds.

More Than Just a Name

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So, how did I come up with the name for this blog? The answer goes beyond having a catchy title, though that was important to me so that people’s curiosity might be peaked and so that it would be easily remembered when they wanted to check it out.  While that’s true, there are two main reasons how the title came about.

First, in the cover photo of the blog, Evan is literally screaming, “Great blue heron!” as he was excited to see one standing on the shores of Pelican Lake near Orr, MN.  That photo captures Evan  perfectly.  His excitement is palpable.  Long before this blog came to be, that photo was seared into my memory because it captures his love of birds so perfectly.

The second, and most interesting reason, how the title came to be has to do with a bird discovery Evan made all on his own.  Because of Evan’s interest in birds, we started faithfully feeding the birds at our house.  One species of birds that was a regular visitor was the mourning dove.  Often we’d have over a dozen bopping around the yard and feeder.  Evan spent a lot of time watching all the birds out the window.  When he wasn’t doing that, he was flipping through his Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America, page by page, over and over.  

One day Evan opened his bird book and excitedly claimed that we had one of these other species of doves that was listed in his field guide.  He said it didn’t have spots like the mourning doves.  Since he is not yet a reader, he had to ask us the name of any bird he didn’t know in his book.  The bird that Evan claimed to see was the Eurasian Collared Dove.  In a reversal of “The boy who cried ‘wolf’,” I didn’t believe him at first.  I thought he was mistaken.  I had never even heard of this dove, let alone seen one. The colored range map in the book did not show Minnesota in its range.

One day when I was outside, I saw a monster-sized dove in the driveway.  It was far bigger than all the other doves ambling about.  I sneaked inside to grab the binoculars to get a closer look.  Sure enough, it was paler in color than the rest and it had the signature black bar on its neck of the Collared Dove.  It matched the book’s description perfectly of the Eurasian Collared Dove. I started looking at the range map a little more closely and noticed a dotted line that ran through Minnesota, and the description contained these words, “Native to Old Word.  Became established in Florida in the 1980s.  Now rapidly expanding range to west and north; has reached Arizona, Montana, New York; likely to colonize much of the continent.”  Huh. That dotted line I had taken for granted on first glance had meant they were becoming permanent residents of the great state of Minnesota.  Evan was right!  I couldn’t believe his attention-to-detail as a five-year-old (see for yourself in the pics below for the difference between a Mourning Dove and a Eurasian Collared Dove).  I never would have noticed this dove if it weren’t for Evan.  My confidence in his birding ability went way up.  From now on, I will trust him when he makes a birding claim.  So the title of the blog alludes to the story of the boy who cried “wolf.”  But unlike that story where trust was given blindly and then revoked, Evan started with the disadvantage of mistrust and earned my respect and trust as a birder in his own right.

Eurasian Collared Dove

 

Mourning Dove

 

 

 


Rooster!

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While Evan and I are beginning birders (those who find excitement in seeing birds ALIVE), I have long been a wing-shooter whose primary pursuits have been the ring-necked pheasant and the ruffed grouse.  The fact that I have chased game birds for two decades played a significant role in my interest in birding.  I will go into that more some other day, but in this post I’d like to share a fun hunting story that Evan and I experienced.

Every time I head out pheasant hunting Evan asks if he can go along.  I have let him accompany me on short grouse hunts at Dad’s property where he can walk on trails, and he has sat with my Dad and me in the deer stand.  However, pheasant hunting is much more difficult.  Either I am walking in waist-high prairie grass or slogging my way through a cattail slough.  Needless to say, it is hard work, and I don’t let him come with me.

This Thanksgiving we did not make the 265 mile trek Up North.  Instead, we decided to stay home, and we were invited over by friends for Thanksgiving dinner.  That meant we woke up Thursday morning with no stress of traveling or making a feast.  That fact combined with beautiful weather of sunny skies and 45 degree temps meant I was going to go out for a quick pheasant hunt before feasting on that most delicious of all birds.  Basically I just wanted to get the dogs a little exercise.  I decided this would be the perfect day to take Evan along on an easy hunt.

I took Evan to a Wildlife Management Area that had a road winding through it.  It would be easy walking for him – we could take the road and let my two yellow labs, Faith and Chance, work the cover on the sides of the road. We parked the SUV at the farthest point that motorized vehicles were permitted and stepped outside to an immediate birding experience.  A hundred yards from us was a large slough (20 acres) that hadn’t froze over yet.  Right away about 50 mallards took flight, and gracefully gliding across the water were four swans!  I am not sure of the species at this point, but I think they were trumpeters.  Three were the brilliant white color, while one was a gray juvenile.  This was a big deal – Evan has been enthralled with Trumpeter Swans ever since we read E.B. White’s The Trumpet of the Swan last spring.  They are definitely cool birds.

Less than five minutes into our walk on the road that ran around this slough, Faith’s tail started wagging ferociously – she was on a bird.  Not long after, Chance’s tail was moving faster than a helicopter rotor.  Both dogs were hot on scent and sprinting ahead.  This meant one thing – it was a pheasant, and it was a rooster at that.  Hens do not run and will sit extremely tight whereas roosters will run loooong ahead of you and may never jump up.  In fact, a couple weeks ago, I felt a hen’s wings beat against my leg as she flushed right next to my foot.  A couple days later, I got into a mess of about 15 hens that all flushed within 10 feet of me.  Because the dogs were on the move, I literally ran to catch up so I could be within gun range of a flushing pheasant.  I didn’t have to run long, thank goodness.  As I was watching my young, inexperienced Chance working I heard the unmistakable cackle and saw the flash of brilliant color burst into the sky right in front of his nose.  It was a left-to-right shot, and I pulled the gun up and shot.  I was surprised to see it drop; I usually miss at least the first shot.  Chance pinned the still lively rooster until I could reach it.

I couldn’t believe it.  I never thought we’d see anything.  Not only did we see a pheasant, but it was a shoot-able one that was flushed by my inexperienced (dumb) dog, shot by me (on the first shot), witnessed by Evan – all in the span of a five minute hunt.  We continued walking to try to find a second rooster to fill out my limit, but it just wasn’t to be.  At one point the dogs got birdy again.  Apparently Evan is a quick learner in his dad’s hunting abilities, or he has learned the art of smack talk.  As I followed the dogs this time, Evan hollered at me, “Be sure to shoot it in one shot!”  So if you’re a fellow
birder, don’t be offended by my hunting hobby – I have a pretty minimal effect on the pheasant population!

 

Let the Bird Stories Begin!

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For some time I have considered starting a blog in which my 5-year-old and I could detail our adventures as beginning birders.  Last night I finally took the plunge and bought a domain name and have begun work on this project.  Evan and I are new to the sport of birding, and I am new to the blogging world, so this will certainly be an adventure for everyone – readers included!

So how did this all come about?

Over the last couple years whenever my wife or I spotted a pretty bird out the window, like a cardinal or an oriole, we always reacted excitedly and pointed it out to our son, Evan, who is now 5.  While our enthusiasm faded over time, his never did.  When gold finches would cover the thistle feeder day after day, they just became part of the background.  Not to Evan.  Each day he saw one was like the very first time – sheer excitement.  As loving parents we would try our best to sound sincere and say, “Wow, would you look at that!”  It was fake at worst and half-hearted at best.

It’s a good thing that grandparents can pick up their kids’ slack when it comes to sharing the joy of a child.  It also helps that one of those grandparents is a former biologist who has a special affinity toward birds.  As we visited my parents one summer, Evan got excited over the birds on my dad’s feeder.  My dad, Rick, got just as excited and before long the two of them were buried in a bird identification guide looking up everything with wings.

As a dad, I admired this special bird connection between my son and my dad, but I did not share their level of interest.  That all changed when I had an encounter one day on my dad’s property in northern MN with a bird I had never seen or heard before – the chestnut-sided warbler.  From that point on, I was hooked on birding. Now the three of us share this hobby, and it is my goal to detail our adventures in this blog.

In a future post I will explain how I chose the title of the blog, but for now, the picture in the header is of Evan screaming, “Blue Heron!” over the noise of the wind and the boat motor as we cruised across Pelican Lake last summer on grandpa’s pontoon.