New Species – MN Birdwatcher

July 4, 2021

Recapping the Last Two Months- RMNP and the Raptor Center

I haven’t posted in a while, so I thought I’d let you know what I’ve been up to lately. For one, I took a weekend trip to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. The mountains were beautiful, and even though there was rain and thunder every day we were there (I’m not kidding. Every. Single. Day.), we got lots of hiking and some birding in!

The first day, we birded Wild Basin Trail on the southern side of the park, gaining lifers Mountain Chickadee, Green-tailed Towhee, and Red-naped Sapsucker. The second day, we hiked up Deer Mountain, which didn’t produce any lifers (though we did, oddly enough, find three Wild Turkeys), and on the third day, we hit Matthews-Reeser Bird Sanctuary, which is in Estes Park and not far from our motel, and found a ton of Turkey Vultures, a few late warblers, and lifer Violet-green Swallow. Add that to the Western Kingbird, Broad-tailed Hummingbird, Spotted Towhee, and Pygmy Nuthatch that I got shortly after we arrived, and you get a very exciting trip (even though I didn’t find any gorgeous Mountain Bluebirds, which I had been desperately hoping for)! Elk were all over- crossing roads right, left, and sideways- and you could see the mountains from just about everywhere in Estes Park.

My second piece of news is that I made a video in partnership with the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota, all about American Kestrels! I was so excited to do this, because I’ve always had a soft spot for kestrels, and to say the least, I was stoked to meet Sienna, their kestrel ambassador. I’ve filmed a second one as well, which should come out in a few weeks. The video is a recorded Zoom call with me and Henry Cole, an author and illustrator- I’ve linked it at the bottom of this post.

I also attended several bird walks this June, through my local Audubon chapter and the Kestrels birding club. It’s a great way to meet new people and learn new things!

There- that’s everything I’ve done so far this summer. I need to get out more, don’t I?

You can watch my video with Henry Cole and the Raptor Center here: https://www.facebook.com/TheRaptorCenter/videos/vb.42566849655/509987780128762/?type=3&theater

January 24, 2021

Interesting Sightings in My Yard

With COVID restrictions and below-freezing temperatures, I haven’t been going out beyond my own yard much. It can be pretty depressing when your birdwatching is limited to the chickadees out your window! Still, I’ve had a pretty great week. On Tuesday, I reported the Common Grackle that’s been hanging around my feeders all winter to eBird, and it counted as a rarity for this time of year, which was pretty exciting for me. Grackles are normally migratory birds, and all the others flew south last October. This guy, though, stuck around. I was an hour into watching the feeders when he showed up for just a few seconds, but I spent another half-hour waiting for him with the camera until he came back long enough to photograph! It payed off plenty, though, to get those shots.

The very next day, I happened to be looking out the window (not very surprising, do I do anything else?) when something landed in a tree above one of my feeders. All I saw was a flurry of wings, so I thought it was a Pileated Woodpecker, a fairly unusual bird in my yard. I went and got the camera in hopes of getting some pictures of it, but by the time I returned, it had moved onto a different branch where it was much easier to see, and I realized it was a hawk! I absolutely love raptors, so that was better than a Pileated. Within seconds, it was mobbed by the Blue Jays at the feeders and got out of there, but I got good enough photos to identify it as a Cooper’s Hawk. It was covered in brown streaks instead of red barring, so it must’ve been a juvenile. I hope he found something to eat elsewhere!

Both of those were exciting, but neither was a new species for me, so my favorite sighting this week was definitely on Friday, when something unusual turned up during my window-watching. What I thought was a Blue Jay landed at the very top of a big evergreen, a popular spot for jays, but when I fixed my binoculars on it, I realized this was something different. It was grey, with a shorter and slightly rounder bill than Blue Jays, and had black-and-white patches on its wings. I immediately knew this was a Northern Shrike- one for the life list! I love it when a new species turns up right in my own backyard. I grabbed my camera, but it flew away before I could get a picture, and didn’t come back no matter how long I waited. I braved the outdoors to look for it, but though I saw a lovely Ring-necked Pheasant, I just couldn’t find that shrike! I’m still holding out hope that it’s lurking somewhere in the neighborhood, and that it’ll come back to my yard soon, but until then, I’m content with a short sighting of an awesome bird to add to my life list.

January 17, 2021January 18, 2021

New Year, New Birds

2020 was a lot of things- some good, some bad. I saw 37 new species; went to 3 new places; wrote 17 posts; and, of course, launched the blog! Hard to believe. I’ve got so many strange memories to take away from the year. Here’s my top five lifers from the birding scene last year.

#5: Red-breasted Merganser

I saw a flock of these diving ducks right at the end of a canoe trip on my local lake. They were the only North American species of merganser I needed to complete my collection, so finding such a big flock almost in my own backyard was really exciting.

#4: Chestnut-sided Warbler

This gorgeous warbler species, seen only once by John James Audubon himself (despite his best efforts), was a surprise addition to my life list last May, when I looked up at the right moment and was treated to a bird at the top of a tall tree. I kept my eye on it as it hopped from branch to branch until it finally came close enough to ID as a male chestnut-sided! He came lower after that, and I managed some good pictures of him before he flew away.

#3: Carolina Wren

This one came about while I was birding the Wabash Heritage Trail in Indiana this September. Compared to Minnesota, the place is absolutely tropical- it was almost October, but I don’t think it dipped below sixty degrees the entire time we were there! I found Killdeers all over the sandbanks on the river, a great Belted Kingfisher sighting, and lots of warblers (mostly yellow-rumped, but one mourning). Then I heard a wren, and after a minute of aggravating calling without coming into sight, it came out and I saw it was a Carolina Wren, a new species for me!

#2: Peregrine Falcon

This one was less of a surprise, as it was one of the species I’d hoped to find when I made the trip up to Hawk Ridge this October. Still, I was thrilled to see it- I’d left my spot on the rocks to look at the totals for the day, leaving the camera behind but still holding my trusty binoculars, when something streaked through the sky. It was going fast, as falcons usually are, but I’m proud to say I still ID’d it right away. While I didn’t get to see one in its famous, 300 mi/hr stoop, it was amazing to see one in the wild for the first time.

#1: Red-headed Woodpecker

Red-headed Woodpeckers are really getting rare in my area, so I wasn’t expecting anything unusual when I spotted a flash of red in a neighbor’s tree. But when I fixed binoculars on it as it flew, the bright scarlet against the black and white gave me suspicions. Finally, it landed on a tree trunk, I confirmed that it was, indeed, a gorgeous Red-headed Woodpecker. That was such a great experience, seeing a fairly rare bird without even having to drive for miles! I’ve always thought it was such a beautiful bird and was thrilled to finally see one- my favorite sighting of 2020!

There you have it- my favorite new species of 2020! Leave a comment if you think I should do a post on my favorite photos of the year, too!