Let it SNOW!

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Josh

10 and 2. Eyes straight. I couldn’t be distracted by birds and such on the drive; my focus was on the road and those who patrol it as we hurtled down the highway. With a slightly elevated heart rate for over three hours, I was racing to get home from Duluth and the North Shore to get on the scene of a great bird before sundown. The bird that had been upgraded to the top of the priority list that we were now straining to reach was none other than the Snowy Owl. And with a blizzard that was forecast to dump a lot of snow on us late that night, this was the last easy day to find a white bird.

The day before our sea duck trip a strange set of circumstances occurred. The lesser was that I forgot my phone at home all day. The greater was that my colleague, Mike, nearly sliced his finger off while cutting a squash before baking it. Getting home that night I finally reconnected with my phone and saw a stunning text from Mike: “Snowy Owl just north of my place – 9:30” I couldn’t believe it. The next day I caught up with Mike and asked him about it. He told me that he was driving himself to the doctor after the aforementioned accident when he saw an all-white Snowy Owl 10 yards from the road sitting in a plowed field. I was floored. This is early for Snowies, and this was only the second sighting in the state. Something similar happened last year when Mike found me my lifer. That was late November and the 5th one in the state. Then our region (Kandiyohi and Meeker Counties) became one of the hottest hot beds for Snowy Owl activity in an historic irruption of SNOW. (Check it out on eBird or look in my “Owls” category). Word quickly spread throughout our school, and I was fielding reports from all kinds of staff and students on new sightings of Snowy Owls. It was a fun season to watch so many people, birders and non-birders, get excited about seeing their first Snowy Owl.

So I was slightly disappointed to not be able to investigate Mike’s sighting as I was going on the sea duck trip. Regardless, I put the word out to other birders on the listserv. Jeff Grotte answered the call and came owl hunting. Amazingly he turned one up 5 miles from Mike’s. Surely it was the same bird.

As I drove, I put in a call to birding coworker, Bonnie, who lives just a few miles from this owl. Bonnie went out and got eyes on it. It was perched nicely for her on a telephone pole. I was still two hours out. Meanwhile, other birding coworkers, Brad and Theresa, went to have a look. No owl. Brad would call me when they found it. One hour out.

I arrived at the scene with no positive updates from Brad or Bonnie. But finally getting here I was now calm and confident. There was no snow. A Snowy Owl would stick out anywhere and likely wouldn’t have traveled far. I started from ground-zero and surveyed the landscape.

Evan

I’ve had the good fortune of getting a lot of practice looking for these things. Eyes started scanning every pole top, every rooftop, basically any low perch out in the open. I’ve learned to look for slight anomalies on distant irrigators, fences, or transmission line support structures. Go back and look at the first photo – did you see the slight bump on the upper right of the tower? It was even more imperceptible from where I saw it and took the picture of Evan above, but that bump was not replicated on any of the other towers. Thankfully the zoom on the camera could confirm my suspicion.

Snowy Owl

The Snowy Owl! It never gets old to see SNOW. I was shocked to see how HIGH this bird was perched. I estimate this tower to be 60-70 feet high. Normally Snowy Owls perch very low off the ground or even on the ground itself if they can find a suitable knob of land that sticks up.

Just as shocking as the owl’s height was its coloration. Mike saw an all-white Snowy at 10 yards just 5 miles away a few days ago. This was definitely a second Snowy Owl. Are we in for an echo year of another big irruption? As of this writing, according to the sources Jeff Grotte has pulled together, there have now been 10 Snowies in Minnesota already! Jeff has put together a great Facebook group called “Owl About Minnesota” with lots of great photos and intel.

I would have to be satisfied with my distant looks and add more distant, grainy pics to my Snowy Owl photo collection. Maybe soon I’ll be able to get some phenomenal photo crushes like Jeff did in the coming days. Meanwhile, check out those heavy clouds on the horizon in the photo below. They were carrying a raging snowstorm and one lost, little bird from the Pacific Northwest. Check out the stunning vagrant in the next post.

Serendipity in the Swamp

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Josh

Alright, dear readers, as promised in the post before the Brainerd trip, I have a story to tell. And it’s a good one. I really should have learned by now to expect the unexpected. But I haven’t, and that’s why this hobby can be so exciting and why this story is so good. I had one of those unexpexted moments in the swamp back home. Sadly, though, I did not get my guest photos to enhance the story. Nevertheless a good story is a good story and needs to be told. But because we live in an increasingly visual society (i.e. fast food menu boards), I have included some gratuitous bird photos from the archives.

The story starts when I got up at an unwholesome early time bound and determined to brave the mosquito thicket to try to see a Winter Wren at my parents’ place. As I walked to the location, getting soaked from the dew-laden, tall grass, I was struck by the absence of the Winter Wren’s song. It was strange since I had heard it the past couple days. Since I wasn’t hearing it, I scrapped my plans to go bushwhacking. But I was awake and in the land of birds, so I had to do something.

I settled on driving the roads in the area to look and listen for birds. The audio birding was fun as I heard another Black-billed Cuckoo, Sedge Wren, and a collection of warblers. I even got to see a Red Fox soaked from dew of the morning, standing on the road for a momentary reprieve from the wetness.

I didn’t quite know what to do with myself – it’s frustrating to be up for some birding but have no focus, no plan of attack. I finally decided I would drive the swamp road. Maybe I’d get lucky and catch a Spruce Grouse on the road gathering grit for his crop. After all, I saw one in that spot about a decade ago.

The road through the swamp is part of the route between my parents’ house and Melissa’s parents’ house. Both sets of parents actually live on the same road about 10 miles apart. No, Melissa and I did not grow up this close to each other, but my parents moved to this area when they retired. Though the parents live on the same road, you cannot get from one place to the other without taking some other roads. Let me explain and use your mind’s eye to picture this. From Melissa’s parents’ you head east for a mile, north for two miles, east again for five miles, back south for two miles, and then east again for a mile. It’s like you are driving the outline of a short top hat. Though they live on the same road, the reason for this large hat-like bump of a detour is that there is a huge spruce bog separating our families where both house-building and road-building would be nearly impossible.

This five-mile stretch runs through part of the bog with tall Black Spruce trees lining the road creating a corridor through the swamp. The bog used to depress me. You look in the understory and just see utter darkness with occasional patches of light as the dense spruce boughs block the sun. The “ground” is spongy as a bog actually floats on water. Mosquitoes reign supreme. It is no place that a sane person would ever want to traverse. Our family has bombed through the swamp road hundreds of times, often racing to get from one holiday meal to the next without properly digesting the first. I don’t think I had ever taken the gravel road at a speed of less than 50 MPH. Still, I often thought that it looked a lot like the Sax-Zim Bog and that maybe there could be a Great Gray Owl or something else that’s cool. But I thought, ‘Nah, there couldn’t be anything like that this close to home,’ and just continued to drive warp speed.

Anyhow, I was trolling this five-mile stretch with the windows down trying to make sense of all the local variations of warbler songs when I noticed a vehicle a couple miles ahead of me that was stopped. It’s very strange to meet other cars here, let alone at 6:00 in the morning. It couldn’t have been a hunter this time of year, and it seemed too early in the day for a forester to be out cruising timber. Strange. I kept rolling along at 5 MPH listening to the sounds of the swamp but was distracted by this vehicle that wasn’t budging, only occasionally flickering his brake lights to indicate short bursts of movement. What in the world was going on? Finally I caught up with the now parked truck, and I as I passed it I saw it was Minnesota DNR truck and its driver was standing by the tailgate wearing a mosquito net-hat and binoculars. With no coffee in my system, it took a little bit for my brain to process the image. I got about a hundred yards past the guy when it hit me – a state employee wearing binoculars?! You don’t need binoculars to look at trees or plants or really anything without feathers. Holy smokes, I must talk to this guy.

So I whipped around and pulled up to the man. And I saw his two-foot camera with a camouflage lens. Whoa, this is getting better! I asked if he’d seen anything good. Then he dropped a bomb. “Yeah, I just had a Great Gray Owl about a hundred yards back.” WOW! A lot of emotions were going through me. First was a great anxiety to hurry up and see this owl and second was that my hunch of this bog being an owl abode was right! I desperately wanted to part company right away after he told me what was quite literally a stone’s throw away, but he just kept lobbing bombs – a Black-backed Woodpecker about a mile down the road, a Black-throated Blue Warbler near Orr, a Northern Hawk Owl a few miles away, and another Great Gray Owl the day before on – get this – another section of the route we travel back and forth between our parents’ houses. Oh, this was good information but that owl…

Then the dude asked who I was. He said recognized my name from the listserv, so I got up the gumption to ask him his name. Sparky Stensaas was the reply. Unbelievable. That may mean nothing to you, but Sparky’s in the big leagues when it comes to birding. He’s a bird guide, a photographer, and the executive director of the Friends of Sax-Zim Bog. It was fascinating to meet him on my turf far north of his normal range of the Sax-Zim Bog and the Duluth area doing official work. We traded numbers to share any more sightings in the area, and then we split up. Sparky was heading deep into the dark bog on foot, and I was staying on the road and going back to find that GGOW.

I never did see the owl. Perhaps all our conversation scared it away. How I would have loved to see this bird at “home” and in the summer no less. We do have some resident Great Grays, but they are harder to find in the summer months. So I don’t have a fresh picture for you and will instead have to appease you with my best non-winter looking GGOW pic.

Great Gray Owl – archive photo of life bird – March 2013 – Tower, MN

I got a text later that morning from Sparky that the Black-backed Woodpecker had come out to the road! He told me what telephone pole to stand near and listen. This is a tough woodpecker to find. It’s the kind that Iowa birders travel to Sax-Zim to see and strap on snowshoes to follow a guide great distances into the bog on a 20-below day. I’m not making that up. I have never seen one. How cool would it be to get this lifer at home instead of Sax-Zim? I went there about an hour later but had no luck.

Black-backed Woodpecker – Image courtesy of Wikipedia

I’ve been back to this stretch of road several times right at daybreak and have been unsuccessful in my attempts to find either bird. But I have something just about as good – hope. Each time I go home now I have a mission to find these guys. Dad always said the Sax-Zim Bog is like a good fishing hole. Boats attract more boats and more boats until that’s the only place people fish. Same is true with birding the Sax-Zim Bog. As my dad said, those good birds can be anywhere in northern Minnesota. Very true. It only took a Sax-Zim guy to prove it.

A Consolation Prize that Trumped the Target

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Josh

Sometimes a perfect storm comes along that produces some great birding. No, I’m not talking about Wednesday’s blizzard whose 11 inches of snow and limited visibility thrust us back into the heart of winter. Instead, I’m referring to Melissa having a planned crafting night with some girlfriends and me wanting to go see an easy-pickings Eastern Screech Owl in Hutchinson. The problem with this owl is that it is nesting in a Wood Duck nesting box and only pokes its head out close to dark. Normally that’s not a problem, but when it’s nearly an hour’s drive and the sun sets around 8:00, it gets too late to bring Evan along, especially on a school night. But this was no school night and I was fed up with being housebound by the snow when I should be out doing anything, really.

So I got the van set up with the DVD player, rented Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, and the kids and I set sail for Hutch. They were excited to be in their pajamas watching a movie in the car and going on another one of dad’s owl quests. As we drove I did my best to tally species and count birds for an eBird checklist. Ordinarily that’s easy to do in the winter when we hardly have anything with feathers to look at. Now, though, there are birds everywhere. I quickly gave up counting and only made note of the notable ones – go figure. Mostly the birds were migrating waterfowl. Since we’ve nearly seen all we can see in that department, I did not slow down for the birds. I had to keep focused on the mission of getting to Hutch. I did keep one eye open for American Black Ducks – an uncommon bird here, getting even harder to find with each day of migration that passes by. I imagine that to see them, though, I’ll have to man up and stand in the freezing cold to sort through hundreds of Mallards and thousands of Canada Geese when the only thing creating open water is the incessant paddling of the ducks and geese.

Anyhow, as we cruised through Cosmos and were traveling by a good-sized slough, I saw a small, white water-bird of some sort constantly flying over the water and touching down every now and then. It was quite small with a black head. What the? Was it a tern of some sort back already? In any case, I had to pull over and see what this was. I knew already that it had a black head and was a white bird, but the binoculars revealed a most impressive clue as to what it was. That clue, or clues rather, where the white triangles on the outer parts of the wings – a field mark that clinched this as our lifer Bonaparte’s Gull!

Bonaparte’s Gull lifer!

I’ve never gotten into gulls, but this might very well be the turning point. When I first got into birding I wrote off sparrows and gulls as drab, boring birds that all looked alike. Well, I’ve come to really enjoy the sparrows the more I’ve seen, so now maybe gulls will follow suit. This was a crisp-looking gull whose petite size and rapid flight made it fascinating to watch.

The rapid flight also made it a bugger to photograph. The bird was often flying far away but when it was close, it was zipping by too fast. It gave me a great example for the next time I teach related rates in calculus – as the bird’s distance to me decreased, the speed at which the angle from me to the bird increased, reaching its fastest point when it was directly in front of me and slowing down again the further away the bird flew. The translation here is that I basically got lots and lots of blurry shots for the split second it was right by me or lots and lots of clear shots when it was far away. Finally, though, I was able to put calculus (and the bird) on my side to get some photos I could live with. Adding to the difficulty of photographing this bird was that I was standing along the very busy Hwy. 7 – I am sure that I will be asked a hundred times next week in school about what I was doing.

Me -1 Calculus – 0

I only saw this gull land twice. I couldn’t get over how small it was. Here it dabbled with some dabblers, the Blue-winged Teal.

Bonaparte’s Gull with a pair of Blue-winged Teal

My meatballs endured this lengthy photo shoot since they were engrossed in their movie. Evan did pause long enough look at his new life bird. He’s all about the ticks – his interest in birding spikes, albeit briefly, when there’s a new bird on the line.

We continued on to Hutchinson and drove around for a bit before staking out the yard with the Eastern Screech Owl. I was hoping to find our beloved state bird, the Common Loon, simply known as the “loon.” I heard several of them have been back already. We didn’t have any luck on the loon but did find an environmental learning center where corn had been set out for ducks and geese. It was pretty neat to see wild Snow Geese up close, but the chain-link fence made for difficult photography.

Snow Geese – “Blues”

We finally got to our stake-out. The truth is that I didn’t want to stay long as I was a bit uncomfortable parking in front of someone’s house and watching their front yard. More than once I have felt like a creep in the name of birding. Anyway, we watched for the owl, or I watched anyway, while the kids started their second movie.

Alas, there was no owl. A new and local birder, Kristine, who had put me onto this owl and who discovered the incredible McLeod County record Northern Hawk Owl told me that the owners of the Wood Duck box have a video camera inside the box. The Screech now had 5 eggs and wasn’t as regular in her game of peek-a-boo anymore.

Finally darkness arrived, and it was time to head home. But, as is protocol on our bigger birding trips, we stopped off for a fast-food snack before hitting the road. And now my birding eyes switched to deer mode while I drove home in the darkness listening to two kids laughing simultaneously at the antics of Tom and Jerry. We didn’t see what we came to see, but that’s okay. It was a fun outing with an unexpected life bird. Seeing the Screech would have just been the icing on the cake.

Birding with Butler – Exploring the Sonoran Desert in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Josh

Every now and then my virtual birding world intersects with our actual birding activities. More than once I have found myself in the company of another birder trying to see a rare bird only to find out that person is some birding legend whose reports I have read. The Arizona trip would be put us in the company of just such a birder – but not by chance. Through my venture with Birding Across America, I have met many great birders who have contributed pictures and blog posts to my site. One regular contributor who graciously shares his phenomenal photos of those amazing Arizona avian creatures is Laurence Butler. Reading Laurence’s blog quickly shows that this guy can get the birds. When we planned our trip, I reached out to Laurence asking for tips on locations for target birds. Not only did he provide such information, but he even asked if we would be interested in going out birding together. Umm, yes please.

Prior to the trip, Laurence and I had settled on birding the Phoenix Mountain Preserve – a large park in Phoenix where the Sonoran Desert is allowed to run wild. I couldn’t wait. Our trip thus far had failed to produce those classic, deserty birds. This would be the chance. Laurence promised us our fill of the desert classics and even mentioned we’d have a shot at seeing a Long-eared Owl. I took the former with a grain of salt because I know what a tough species that owl is to find, even in Minnesota. The truth is, I didn’t care what we would find because I knew it would all be new.

Last Tuesday my dad, Evan, and I were headed to the preserve to meet Laurence after his work day. Being out-of-towners we were unfamiliar with how long it took to get to the preserve, so we were running late. It didn’t matter – Laurence was already at work finding feathered treasures for us. He called me saying he had a Harris’s Hawk pinned down in a tree along the street leading to the parking area. This guy didn’t waste any time. Our first in-person meeting was hastily executed in the middle of a street while dealing with the distractions of getting a view of the life bird while not getting flattened by a motorist.

Harris’s Hawk

As we walked to get a closer and arguably safer view of the hawk, Laurence pointed out a female Costa’s Hummingbird lifer for us. But after nabbing a couple shots of the hawk, we were back in the vehicles to drive the remaining few blocks to the preserve. There were a lot more birds to find and no time to lose. In fact, on that short drive Laurence stuck an arm out the window of his car pointing out yet another lifer for us – the Curve-billed Thrasher.

Curve-billed Thrasher

Once we got to the preserve’s parking lot, the towering Butler led us on the rocky path into a bustling desert full of human and bird activity – mountain bikers, hikers, runners, and birds were everywhere. I don’t think we knew which way to look or what to listen to first. Never mind that we were somewhat preoccupied that we might step on a rattlesnake, get sunburned in the 80+ degree sunshine, or trip onto any of Arizona’s inhospitable plants. Finally my attention settled on something familiar – a Gambel’s Quail that was just sluggishly lounging on a branch. Mostly these birds seem so high-strung and dart away, but it’s almost as this one looked at us and said, “Meh.”

Gambel’s Quail

He was no lifer, but it took only seconds for the first of a long-procession of lifers to make its appearance – the very handsome Black-throated Sparrow. I think this is the king of all the sparrows. It almost belies its namesake since it’s not just some drab, brown, well, sparrow.

Black-throated Sparrow

This was a cool sighting. It’s a bird I easily overlooked in the field guides. Only after seeing it come to life on Laurence’s blog did I realize that this was a bird I needed to see.

Not long after the sparrow, we got to see Arizona’s state bird – the loud and boisterous Cactus Wren.

Cactus Wren – Arizona’s state bird

We got to see this bird a couple times. It always obliged us by posing atop a cactus, even on top of the Saguaro Cactus, whose bloom is the Arizona state flower.

Birding with Butler is fast and intense. Well, maybe that’s because us short-legged northerners, one of whom was 69 and the other 7, weren’t used to the fast and furious birding and walking. And Evan was busy cataloguing every bird and plant species we saw in his notebook, an excruciatingly slow but cute task. With Laurence leading the way when we went off the path, I followed close behind, and Evan and Dad picked up the rear. Our movements probably resembled those of an inch-worm, where the head quickly goes out, waits, and lets the tail catch up. On such occasions I got a chance to enjoy the scenery.

Going off-roading as we did, we Minnesotans were probably watching the ground more than the birds. Our scout alerted us whenever something cool was around, like a running Greater Roadrunner with a lizard dangling from its beak. But we were too slow and too dull eyed to see what Laurence saw. Bummer. But we did see this male Phainopepla that Laurence pointed out. It probably helped that it was black and didn’t move.

Male Phainopepla

Laurence taught us that Phainopepla is a Greek word meaning “silky robe.” I’m pretty sure Evan wrote that down too. Like many of the other birds, this one was a great ambassador for this desert state as it posed nicely in front of a Saguaro.

Our next life bird that we stumbled onto was the Black-tailed Gnatcatcher.

Black-tailed Gnatcatcher

After viewing the gnatcatcher, we rested for a bit in the shade. The heat was taking its toll on Evan. I took the opportunity to snap some photos of our surroundings.

Our fearless guide kept watch for the next lifer.
The next bird wasn’t a lifer nor a good photo op, but it’s a nice bird in my book, so it deserves a photo post – the Loggerhead Shrike.

Loggerhead Shrike

We did get another lifer but no decent photo when we found the Gilded Flicker. We did, however, get some good looks at the Gila Woodpecker, which was a lifer for me the other day and a lifer for Evan on this day.

Gila Woodpecker

Laurence’s plan was to hike to the top of this mountain wash and then loop back by coming down a narrow gully that would take us most of the way back to the car. It was in this tree-choked gully where Laurence hoped we would see a roosting Long-eared Owl that only stops by this area during a two-week window during migration. Before we got to the gully, though, Evan and Dad had enough hiking and decided they would head back to the car and let the two of us carry on. According to my dad, once they headed back to the van, Evan had a lot more pep in his step. Where he was once dragging and complaining, he was now chipper and bounding through the desert toward the car.

It’s too bad they split off from us because we got to the gully not long afterward and embarked on a most memorable bird hunt. Laurence led our single-file procession down the rocky stream bed through the tangle of trees in the gully that was roughly 8-10 feet deep. When walking down the gully and looking ahead, it appeared that there was so much vegetation that we would not be able to proceed. However, the rocky stream-bed was a perfectly cleared path the whole way down.

Laurence had said a birder he knows has come face-to-face with the Long-eareds in this very gully without flushing them. The idea of coming upon this bird in such a manner was an exciting prospect, and one we took seriously by walking quietly. But the more we walked, the more we dropped our vigilance. Hushed whispers of conversation morphed into decibel-levels that would rival bar-room talk. Maybe we both thought the chance of seeing a Long-eared was a long shot, maybe we were relaxed after some already successful birding, or maybe we just wanted to yak about birds. A covey of Gambel’s quail brought us to our senses if only for awhile. But a short time later an explosion of wings barreled out of one of the trees. I’ve flushed many a game bird in my hunting days, but none of them could compare to thrill of what we both instantly recognized as the very bird we were after, the Long-eared Owl!

The owl only went a short distance down the gully. We knew exactly what tree it was in, but we could not see the doggone thing. We carefully tiptoed and snuck our way to a better vantage point. We strained to discern this owl from the tangled tree it was in. No luck. Eventually we made the owl nervous, and it flushed back upstream a short ways. Not only were we fighting the owl’s uncanny ability to blend into anything, but it was also getting dark fast. I used my camera to look into the general area it flew, and I could see his face and yellow eyes! The next ten minutes or so, Laurence and I were crawling along the gully walls for a better vantage point to take photos. The owl was found in the small, dark spot in the center of the picture below, right along the streambed just past the rocky outcropping on the left. Laurence and I used the outcropping to crawl closer to the owl.

Of the many photos I took through the tangles in the low-light conditions, I managed to pull out one usable shot of this super-cool lifer.

Long-eared Owl!

The owl tolerated us for a time but eventually got tired of us and flushed upstream again. We decided it was time to let it be, so we made our way back to the parking lot. It was a successful operation that went exactly according to Laurence’s plan. I absolutely love when a plan like that comes together and an objective like that is achieved. I think the feeling was mutual as we found ourselves celebrating the moment with a much-deserved high five. The only thing better would have been if Evan and Dad could have seen it too.

The only thing left to do after leaving the owl was to enjoy the desert in the setting sun and freely talk about birds, birders, and birding at bar-room decibel levels again. I got to enjoy my last looks at desert birds and picked up final lifer for the day – the Abert’s Towhee.

This birding outing with Butler could not have gone any better. We enjoyed some outstanding views of some real desert beauties. It was a pleasure to meet Laurence in person and go on an adventure with him. I’m sure, over time, that we will join forces again whether that be in the Sax-Zim Bog or on subsequent trips to the Phoenix area.

There is one final post about our birding in Arizona. Check back again to see what more we found before we went home to Minnesota.

Maricopa’s Avian Gems

Posted on March 30, 2014 by Josh

On the second evening of our trip, Dad, Evan, and I went for a little drive around Maricopa where my folks have their house. We were going to see what we could see, but first we had to check on the spot in town where they had seen the Burrowing Owls. Earlier in the day, I had bumped into a fellow taking pictures of birds on the pond where we found the Cinnamon Teal. He asked if I knew about the Burrowers and then gave me the exact intersection to find them. He also described where their favorite wall perch was and told me where to find their burrow. Sweet!

Sure enough, we drove by that evening and both Burrowers were right where they were described.

The neighborhood Burrowing Owls

It was awesome to see them in the golden evening light. Dad pulled up the car so they were on my side just 10 feet away allowing me to nab some stellar shots.

After snapping a couple photos, we rolled along. Dad was going to drop Evan and me off at Pacana Park to do a little water birding while he ran an errand. On the way to Pacana we found another pair of Burrowing Owls on a wall in town! That made for 12 Burrowing Owls for the trip.

There wasn’t a whole lot for us at Pacana Park as the park was mostly athletic fields with lots of sports camps going on. Of course it’s always fun to see American Wigeon, though.

American Wigeon

Evan enjoyed trying to trick a pair of Mallards into thinking he had food in his hand.

Mallards

After Dad picked us up, we continued to poke around Maricopa with no pressing birding objectives.

Grandpa and Evan

It was a relaxing evening with some good sightings. All that was left to do was to enjoy another great Arizona sunset.

Having Burrowing Owls so close made it so easy and tempting to just go see them one more time. I even goaded Melissa and Evan into taking our morning walk in that direction. Of course our little friends were out and about.

It was a lot of fun to show Evan and Melissa this pair’s burrow right under the sidewalk.

Being so close, I checked up on these guys a few times. It’s hard to not photograph a Burrowing Owl. One time I even got the shot, albeit a blurry one, that I wanted – the owl in its sidewalk burrow.

That same morning that Evan, Melissa, and I were out walking, we were passing by a park along a beautiful winding sidewalk through the deserty edge of the subdivision when we all saw a flash of red fly out of a tree. “What was that?” Melissa exclaimed. I knew instantly. It was the Vermilion Flycatcher! I had given up on seeing this bird on this trip to Arizona because I had no plans to go near the ideal habitat. Lucky us. We were in the right place at the right time. My initial photos weren’t great, so I went back a couple times to get some better ones. This was a stunning find and my last major target bird for the trip. This is one bird that I don’t think I’d get tired of seeing.

Vermilion Flycatcher

So all three major targets – Burowing Owl, Cinnamon Teal, and Vermilion Flycatcher – were all found within a few blocks of each other right in town and less than a mile from my parents’ house. These avian treasures were fun to have so close because we could see them whenever we wanted.

Burrowing Owl Bonanza

Posted on March 29, 2014 by Josh

I was still itching to see a Burrowing Owl on that first day. After all, it was the one bird I just had to see on this trip. Even though I had already seen a good number of lifers on the first day, this was the itch I had to scratch. And it was only more aggravated by spending a very frustrating three hours in an urgent care clinic in Maricopa to try to get some answers regarding our sick daughter.

I think the Burrowing Owl was so alluring to me because I was first introduced to it by my non-birding wife. Yes, it’s true! Melissa has taught the novel Hoot in her seventh-grade Communications class for a number of years. This fictional tale is about a group of teens in Florida who stand up to protect a pair of Burrowing Owls whose habitat is threatened by the development of a vacant lot for a new restaurant. In 2006 the novel was made into a movie with some big-name actors. So, our whole family has seen this movie and been enthralled with these cute little owls. Imagine my excitement when my dad told me he saw one last winter, and then I find out they are fairly common in the Phoenix area.

We finally made it back to the house after that long doctor visit and sat down to eat supper. Every minute that ticked by was one less minute to look for the owl. My rational brain told me that we had several days to make it happen, but my bird brain said we had to go now. So after supper was over, all six of us piled into the van and went for a drive. I thought we might go to the location where my dad had seen a pair of Burrowing Owls just the night before, but he had other plans. He wanted to just drive in the country to see what we could see. I wanted to see more new birds, too, but I really wanted to get the Burrower out of the way. Then I could settle in for the trip.

As we drove along and didn’t find anything, I suggested that we just head back to the neighborhood to look for the one they had already found. Dad replied that we could do that in the morning real easily. Yes, but…

We kept driving along seeing neither a Burrower nor any other lifers. It was excruciating to watch the sun slip down, knowing that the big goal would not be achieved today. But just as my heart was sinking with the sun, I was jolted back to life when Melissa hollered, “Wait! What’s that?!!” It was the the Burrowing Owl!!!

I had given up all hope of seeing one that I wasn’t even looking like a birder should. Way to go, Melissa! Regular readers may recall that she alone found all five Great Gray Owls on that epic December day on Aitkin Co. Rd. 18. She modestly replies that she was given the job of looking for an owl and that she was just doing her task.

Burrowing Owl Lifer!

It was an intense sighting. With spirits buoyed, we strolled along these gravel roads through agricultural fields and cattle lots. And not much later, Melissa was hollering from the back seat again! She found not one more, but three more!

We think there may have been more than these three. It was hard to tell with the birds moving around. I couldn’t believe it – four burrowing owls. Now it didn’t matter what we saw or didn’t see. The night was already made four times over. My disappointment of not seeing a Burrower quickly changed to being bummed that I hadn’t spotted one by myself yet. Don’t get me wrong; I was thrilled, but I wanted to find my own owl. It’s funny how the dynamics of a birding outing can change so suddenly sending you on a roller-coaster of emotions. Call it birder mood swings. And as the saying goes, when it rains it pours because I spotted our next lifer – the very cool Black-necked Stilt! I did not expect to get this bird this trip.

Black-necked Stilt

What a fantastic-looking creature. And there were two of them. In addition to the stilts, we enjoyed the chorus of thousands of migrating Red-winged Blackbirds. For a prairie birder, that has got to be one of the best sounds of spring. You can see some of these birds in the background below.

It’s pretty hard to top the night we had, but I managed to do just that by spotting my own pair of Burrowing Owls! Then my mom spotted one herself too! All told, there were four Burrowing Owls in this new location. Unbelievable. Eight Burrowing Owls for the drive. I hadn’t even seen an eBird report listing that many.

I really love these next photos as I captured a pair of Burrowers in their burrow. The one just peeking out is classic. We got to observe these owls walk backward into their burrow at the sight of an approaching hawk. The poopy whitewash you see shows that these owls regularly perch at their burrows.

This night couldn’t have been any better. As my dad said, finding our own Burrowers was a lot more fun than just following up on other birders’ reports. To top it all off, we picked up our Swainson’s Hawk lifer on the way home bringing our lifer total to 11 for the first day! And my top two targets of Burrowing Owl and Cinnamon teal were already found. Now I could actually enjoy the sinking sun instead of lamenting its passing.

There was still a lot more owl action to be had on this trip, so check back to see what else we dug up!

The Cathartic Effect of Owling with my Boy

Posted on March 13, 2014 by Josh

Early this morning, I do what many of us do when our phone alarm wakes us – I check email and text messages. This morning I woke up to a text message from school: report to work 15 minutes early for a staff meeting – make every effort possible to be there at that time. That could only mean one thing. Tragedy. I scrambled to get myself and Marin out the door. In the mean time I traded texts with colleagues and quickly found out what I had expected – one of our seniors lost his life as the result of an avalanche while snowmobiling in Montana. I was stunned and confused. It didn’t make sense to me. Just the day before I visited at length with a young man who had returned early from that trip because he and several others were rattled by a close-call with a different avalanche. It wasn’t until later that I learned a few of them remained in Montana to continue snowmobiling after the others left.

Even though I’ve been through this in my career before, there are no words to describe what a sickening feeling it is. Death is always hard to take, but it is even worse when it happens to someone so young. It just isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. In a small school like ours the devastation ripples through the entire school community. Somehow as staff and students we would have to muddle our way through the confusion and sadness of what was to be a very long school day. There is no protocol for such an event. The day started with our scripted announcement in class. To my shock, most students had no idea. I wrongly assumed in this day of social media that they knew what I knew. Students wept, they sobbed, they huddled, they moved from room to room. The collective grief was palpable in the hallways. They didn’t know what to do and neither did we. Older students were affected more than younger students, so as I went through my day I had to play to both sides – allowing the older ones to do whatever they needed and having the younger students do learning activities that weren’t too taxing yet kept their minds and bodies busy by doing something productive. Somehow we made it to the end of the day.

Though I’ve been around student deaths before, this was the first time something like this has happened since I became a dad. It takes on a whole new weight. I can’t imagine the parents’ pain. That spark in their life was snuffed out so unexpectedly. Simple things like tousling a kid’s hair or hearing him laugh are gone. I get to go home and do those things. It’s just unfair.

Evan and I did have plans to go look for another Eastern Screech Owl this evening at one of my student’s houses. I figured it wouldn’t be wise for a teacher to go after such a selfish pursuit at student’s property on this day, so I canceled. But today the owls found me and the owling would be unavoidable. When I finally walked out those school doors today, I was savoring the fresh air and mental renewal it triggered when a text came in from Randy. His Great Horned Owl was in his yard. Randy knew I’ve been wanting to photograph one. It was just the break I needed after this day. The grief counselors told us we needed to find something fun, something exciting to do in the next couple days. This was it for me. I never feel more fully alive than when it’s go time for a good bird.

I picked up Marin from daycare and gave her a big hug right away. Then we got home and got her ready for dance class while we waited for Melissa to come home and bring her to class. While we waited, Marin wanted to play a new board game she got for her birthday. After today, I couldn’t just brush her off. Even though she and I both had to be somewhere shortly, we played the game for a bit. She absolutely loves interactive games and puzzles. While we played, I got a phone call from Jeremy, a fellow teacher – his Barred Owl showed up in his yard this evening back in Grove City! Wow! With daylight savings time last weekend, we now had the daylight to go after both owls! I spoke with Melissa while she was en route home and filled her in with what I was planning. She said that was good news because Evan was disappointed about not going after the screech owl. This surprised me a little because Evan has become somewhat apathetic towards birds he’s seen before.

Melissa came home, and Evan and I were off to Randy’s. It took forever to find his Great Horned Owl. He finally relocated it for us, but it was obscured by branches and quite far off. As we searched, it was fun to watch Evan have fun by playing with Randy’s pet bird and laughing at Randy’s teasings. They were moments to cherish. Despite Randy’s best efforts to lure the owl close to the window for some pictures, it wasn’t budging. Finally I went outside to get some photos, and it flushed to a different perch. The perch was far away, but it wasn’t as obscured as before. Nevertheless, I was able to get what I wanted.

Randy’s Great Horned Owl

This was a real treat. They are common owls, but I rarely have seen them in the daytime. They are absolutely fascinating to look at. And this one was so different than the nearly all-white one I had seen a couple months ago.

While at Randy’s I was in communication with Jeremy who lived 20 miles away. He assured me the Barred Owl was still there. I invited Steve along because he still needed a Barred Owl for the year. We got to Jeremy’s house, and I found the Barred Owl immediately in his tree when I caught its silhouette against the sky. Looking at it straight on made it much harder to find – check out how well it blends in.

Jeremy’s Barred Owl

Barred Owls are fantastic birds with a real unique look. I love the gentle expression of their face with the soft, black eyes. Most owls have the yellow eyes that seem to pierce your soul.

An owl always puts a bright spot on a normal day. Seeing two species with my kid on such a gloomy day was just what I needed. I don’t know how long Evan will enjoy looking at birds with me. It will probably ebb and flow. I’m okay with that. He got me into this hobby, so who knows what else I’ll pursue because of him or Marin. What I do know is that I intend to spend as much time as possible with both of them doing things that make them tick.

Owl About the Family

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Josh

I have a great wife. Yesterday I received a message in the early afternoon from a fellow birder in Otsego that his Eastern Screech Owl was in his Wood Duck house for the day. I checked in with Steve to find out if he wanted to make the two-hour trip. When Steve said he wasn’t able to go, I gave up on making the long trek. But then, without me asking, Melissa said she would be up for a drive and a little adventure. Yes!

Let me give you a little background on this species and this particular owl itself. Obviously because I was willing to travel that far, it was a life bird. Eastern Screech Owls are fairly common, but because they are strictly nocturnal and small (8 in), they are rarely seen. Occasionally people see them in the winter when the owls poke their heads out of Wood Duck houses or tree cavities. To put an emphasis on how seldom they are found, the bird we were going to see is the only recorded sighting in Minnesota on eBird this winter. This particular owl had been seen off and on for the past couple months. Because it usually pokes its head out just before dark and because it’s not in the box every day, a trip up to Otsego on any other day would be a gamble and a potentially a waste of a trip. However, when the owl is in the box for the day, it stays. The property owner said that if, on the rare occasion, it showed itself early in the day, he would let me know so I’d have time to react and get up there. Yesterday was just such a day.

Complicating the decision to travel yesterday was that a student at my school had showed me pictures of an Eastern Screech Owl that had been occupying his Wood Duck house in recent days. So I’ve been waiting for a call from him too. But like they say, “A bird in the hand…” Plus, the Otsego screech owl was a gray phase. The one at my student’s house is a red phase. I want to see both.

So it was go time. Though Melissa had changed into her hangout clothes for the afternoon and the kids were finishing a playdate with the neighbor girl, we hustled to get the car loaded for the little trip. After a busy musical season followed by two kids’ birthdays, Melissa was ready for the kind of nap that only a long car ride can give. In fact, she decided she wasn’t changing out of her flannel pajama shirt that had birds all over it – something I tease her about by calling it her bird smock. Because it is the center of some ribbing she decided that though she was going on this chase, she wouldn’t change out of it just to be playfully spiteful. I told her it didn’t bother me, but it was definitely making the blog. Notice, though, that there are no pictures. I’m not that dumb. After all, I’ve got a girl who volunteers to go on bird trips. How great is that? Plus I value my life.

The trip up was uneventful. Notable bird sightings included 9 Ring-necked Pheasants (7 hens – a promising sign for the following year), 3 American Robins (Yes – spring!), a Bald Eagle, and a pair of Trumpeter Swans. We found the house without trouble and were invited in to his house to view the owl since it can only be observed out his backyard patio door. Both kids wanted to see the owl, so they came in with me. And it was sticking its head out right away – do you see it?

Do you see the Eastern Screech Owl?

Here’s a better shot. While I photographed the owl, the kids had more fun looking at this birder’s pet fish and caged birds.It was fun to finally see this owl, even if it didn’t do anything but sleep the whole time.

Sleeping Eastern Screech Owl – Gray Phase

You are seeing most all of the Eastern Screech Owl as its feet are on the lip of the hole.

Since the owl wasn’t doing much and I had gotten the best pictures I could muster, it was time to leave this generous birder who shared his home and owl with us. It was fun to chat birds a bit and match a name with a face. The friendliness of many fellow birders never ceases to amaze me.

Being in Otsego, we were just a 10 minute drive from the state’s most famous Snowy Owl, named Ramsey for the town it was discovered in. This owl has had throngs of people visit it and walk right underneath it while it perches on poles or rooftops. It has been on the nightly news and is even one of about a dozen Snowy Owls across the country that has been captured and outfitted with a GPS tracker to study the movements of these owls during this historic invasion. This huge research initiative, called Project Snowstorm, sprang up rapidly in response to this Snowy Owl phenomenon this winter. You can follow these owls’ movements on interactive maps at http://www.projectsnowstorm.org. There are actually two Snowy Owls at Ramsey’s location, and we ended up finding Cellie, named for being discovered on a nearby cell tower. Do you see Cellie?

Cellie – one of two Snowy Owls in Ramsey by US Hwy 10

It was finally an opportunity to get some good Snowy Owl pictures. Though I have now seen 9 Snowy Owls this season, I’m not completely satisfied with my pictures. I still wish the sky would have been blue for these, but I’m pretty happy with them.

Finally it was time to go. We grabbed a bite to eat at Denny’s and then got home to put kids to bed. It was another fun, impromptu bird trip full of owls. All of these owls have taken some of the sting out of this wretched winter and given our family some fun adventures. To some extent I will mourn the end of this epic owl season. Who knows, given the weather and the abundance of Snowies, there may still be more owls to find long into spring.

Birds Battling the Blizzard

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Josh

Today was one of those days that we knew ahead of time we’d be coming home early from school. A blizzard warning was forecast to begin at 11 AM. Interestingly the skies were crystal clear today, but the 40 MPH winds created a ground blizzard with white-outs and drifting across rural roads. As soon as I was released from school I took a drive out to the house of one of my coworkers who excitedly called me this morning to report she had a Snowy Owl along her 1/2 mile-long driveway. I went to check it out, but the bird was long gone.

So I then picked up Marin and the two of us went on to pick up Evan from school. I walked into school and found a beaming Evan who excitedly dug in his back-pack to pull out the special envelope from the school nurse that contained the tooth he lost that day! It was definitely an exciting moment and fun to listen to the slight change in speech in Evan who now has two holes in his face.

Since we were already in town, I decided we would head out to the city airport because Randy had found a Snowy Owl out there the previous evening. We simply had to check it out. We found the owl no problem as it was right where Randy described it – on top of small knoll by a smashed grain bin out past the runways. The great distance from the road and the blowing snow made it tough to even verify we were looking at a Snowy, but I was able to capture the Snowy’s essence in the photo below.

Snowy Owl at Willmar Municipal Airport

And since we were at the airport, we had to drive by the F-15 that is on display. Evan also had to tell us about the different buildings he toured here with his Cub Scout den a few months ago.

U.S. Navy F-15 at Willmar Municipal Airport

You can see from the flags above just how windy it was today. On the way home we spotted a rooster pheasant right near our home that was fighting this wind with all his might just to find something to eat by the road.

Rooster (male) Ring-necked Pheasant

The kids didn’t see the rooster on the first pass, so I had to turn the car around and go back. Now the rooster was on Evan’s side, so he saw it easily. But Marin, on the opposite side and strapped into a car seat, could not see it and was sure to tell us as much. “Where? I can’t seeeee!” So I had to turn the car around again so it was on her side, but that turkey of a rooster came right up by the car and Marin couldn’t see it when she looked out her window. Finally it ran away from the road giving her a view. I had to drive back and forth on the shoulder several times to jockey for position to give the kids a view and to try to take a picture of this bird struggling with the wind.

Evan was much more excited to see this rooster than the Snowy Owl earlier. I think he was in awe of this bird’s splendor as the sun hit its breast when he exclaimed, “Look at that RED chest!” I never get tired of seeing roosters either. They are one of my favorite birds. It was a nice bonus bird for this unplanned birding outing.

Rooster Ring-necked Pheasant

Birding the Sax-Zim Bog with my Dad

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Josh

Though it was a tremendous thrill to get our Northern Hawk Owl lifer on the epic Great Gray Owl outing, it kind of negated the need to go to the Sax-Zim Bog. That is where we were supposed to see this bird. But the Bog is the Bog, and its allure is just as strong even if you’ve seen all the birds in it. And the truth is that we hadn’t. We still needed a Boreal Chickadee, Northern Goshawk, Black-backed Woodpecker, and American Three-toed Woodpecker. None of them felt as urgent as that Northern Hawk Owl, though. Even with our owl sighting, we decided to continue on with our Bog plans. Now, though, the priority shifted to finding the Boreal Chickadee, a reliable find in the past couple weeks at the feeders on Admiral Road. And since we’d seen all the “big-game” birds, Evan wasn’t interested in going along to the Bog. Maybe that had more to do with the fact that he had cousins and a new iPad to play with.

So it was just my dad and me that ventured into the Sax-Zim Bog early one morning. I should say that I dragged him along as he usually accompanies me on these northern birding trips. Unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of time to go birding today because of family holiday plans, but we had enough time to get in some good birding.

Dad and I got down to the Bog before daylight and actually had to wait in the parking lot of the McDavitt Town Hall until it was light enough to see. It felt good to be in the right location knowing that we could start as soon as it was light. It was also nice to visit for a bit. Dad told me all about a non-fiction book he’d been reading on the great Hinckley fire of 1894, a conversation that was triggered by the McDavitt Township sign indicating it was founded in that same year. The details he told me were amazing and made me want to pick up this book myself – maybe when/if the birding ever slows down.

Finally it was daylight, and we crept south along Admiral Road, watching carefully for any Great Gray and Northern Hawk Owls. We got a few miles down the road when I spotted the first owl I had ever seen in the Sax-Zim Bog – a gorgeous Great Gray.

Great Gray Owl on Admiral Road in the Sax-Zim Bog

Here is a wide-angle shot of this bird. My mom should appreciate that as she has always complained that movies rarely show wide-angle views. I’ve started taking at least one picture like this when I find a good bird because I think seeing them in the overall context of their surroundings is just as much fun as a close-up.

This guy was about 20 feet up, and the only reason I was able to get a photograph of it was because he was against the light sky. Down below in the “tunnel” through the trees, it was still quite dark, making photography pointless. You can get a sense of that darkness in the photo above. We watched this owl for a bit and never got out of the car to photograph it. As soon as we got a couple photos we got out of there for two reasons. One, it’s good to leave owls alone so they aren’t disturbed while they are hunting, which is critical in the winter when food is more scarce and they need to conserve energy. Two, there were other birds we wanted to see in our limited two hours of Bog birding.

We didn’t have to travel long to our next stop which was the feeding station on Admiral Road which has been set up and maintained by birding guide, Mike Hendrickson. This is arguably the best place in the country to find the elusive Boreal Chickadee. We’ve been by these feeders before, but we’ve only driven by them slowly. This time I took my friend Steve’s advice to just sit and wait, even for a long time. Eventually they will show. So we did that, and we were treated to 5 noisy Gray Jays and a few of the more common Black-capped Chickadees. But then it happened. Not one, but two Boreal Chickadees showed up! This was a life bird for both my dad and me. How I wish the light conditions were better as I always like to get a nice picture, especially of a life bird. Alas, this shot will have to do.

Boreal Chickadee

We were now down to about an hour left to explore the Bog. We had barely covered much ground. Now it was a matter of deciding what to go after. Dad had never seen a Northern Hawk Owl, so I headed the direction of one that had been seen reliably recently. We got to the site on – get this – Owl Avenue, and we saw a promising scene. There were two parked cars with three men outside. I pulled up and asked what they had seen. They said they hadn’t seen anything but were just waiting in the location of where this owl had been reported. I was inclined to not believe them as birders can be very secretive and protective of their owls. We scanned the trees all around them and couldn’t find anything, so we drove a bit further before turning around to go past them again. This time, though, I saw a big bird at the top of a dead spruce directly across the road from these guys. It was the Northern Hawk Owl! Seeing it again was no less of a thrill than before, and it was cool that my dad got to add this owl to his life list.

Northern Hawk Owl

Even though there was more daylight now, you can see how incredibly foggy it was, making photography impossible.

As I turned the van around to get in position to photograph this bird, I got stuck! It was a terrible feeling. Not only was it embarassing, but the ruckus of trying to get a vehicle free could scare off this bird and ruin things for other birders. The three gentlemen came over right away and pushed. We were out. As I thanked the guys, the one told me the owl flew in just after we left them the first time. Oh, and that owl watched us the whole time, not bothered at all by what was happening below.

By now we’d used up our allotted time in the Bog, and we had to head back. It was a very quick, productive trip with some big highlights. Anytime you can see two northern owls, get a life bird (or two in my dad’s case), and share those experiences with your dad is a good day. I can’t wait for the next time we explore the Bog again together.

A Boy Who Cried Heron

and started a three-generation birding adventure

Category Archives: Owls

Let it SNOW!

Serendipity in the Swamp

A Consolation Prize that Trumped the Target

Birding with Butler – Exploring the Sonoran Desert in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve

Maricopa’s Avian Gems

Burrowing Owl Bonanza

The Cathartic Effect of Owling with my Boy

Owl About the Family

Birds Battling the Blizzard

Birding the Sax-Zim Bog with my Dad

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