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My Trip To Frontenac State Park

This past Saturday was the Big Day of birding, as I mentioned in my previous post, and this provided the perfect excuse to get out of the house and go birding! I decided to kill two birds with one stone (figuratively speaking, of course), by participating in the Big Day and going to a place I’d been hoping to visit this spring – Frontenac State Park. It’s known as the Warbler Capital of Minnesota, and is the ideal place to hit during migration season, featuring prairie, forest, and shoreline habitat as well as a wildlife observation blind. A few family members and I drove several hours to spend the day there!

First, we hit the Prairie Loop Trail, which is 2.8 miles long (I’m not the best hiker, so we didn’t want to go for the 6-mile loop!). There weren’t many birds there, though I did see a Rose-breasted Grosbeak, some Brown-headed Cowbirds, a Turkey Vulture, a Gray Catbird, and lots of Tree Swallows.

The female Rose-breasted Grosbeak is beautiful, though she doesn’t have the bright red marking of the male.

About halfway along the trail, we came to the wildlife observation blind, which is on the shore of the Pheasant Valley Lakelet. There, we spotted a pair of Canada Geese with eight goslings, a napping Wood Duck, a Sandhill Crane, and two new species of sandpiper for my life list – Solitary Sandpiper and Greater Yellowlegs.

Canada Goose goslings going for a field trip!
Solitary Sandpiper – a new species for me.

I even saw a tree not far away with an adult and juvenile Bald Eagle perched in it, which was awesome:

This Bald Eagle’s juvenile plumage looks nothing like the adult’s!

Then we moved on, with a ‘fun little adventure’ to recover my notebook (with a list of all the birds I’d seen on the trip so far) when I realized I’d dropped it somewhere on the trail; and a blister in my shoe. It was worth it, though, when I saw my third new species of the day – a Field Sparrow, one of the few sparrow species I can readily identify. I’m terrible with sparrows!

I spied this Field Sparrow sporting his lovely pink bill.

Then we went on the 1.4 mile Sand Point Trail, which had no new species on it, and though we’d planned on doing one more trail before heading home, we were all so tired from the events of the day that we cut it a little short. I didn’t see any new warblers, like I’d expected, but it was well worth it anyway!

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The Blackbirds Are Back!

There are many different indications that the spring is coming, from first blooming flower, to first leaf bud, to first spring rain. For birdwatchers, though, spring’s approach is announced almost entirely by the arrival of migratory birds.

As I wrote last week, most consider the first robin of the year to mean spring has sprung, but another of the first birds to arrive in spring is the Red-Winged Blackbird, one of my personal favorites! Once they’re here, they stay all spring and summer, and their loud, familiar song is a frequent sound in the marsh. Naturally, living in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, I see them constantly during the warm months, but during the winter, I can only wait, and wait, and wait until they return, brightening even the most dreary March day.

A young Red-Winged Blackbird, the herald of spring.

And that’s what happened this Tuesday, when I spotted one at my feeder (where they occasionally stop to refuel on sunflower seeds). By the next day, they’d set up in the nearest marsh, their cheerful ‘Ok-la-REE!’ sounding totally out of place in the still-snowy landscape! As always, only the males came, and will have sorted out breeding territories in the cattails by the time the females arrive.

The first Red-Winged Blackbird of the year eating seeds below my feeder.

With these lovely birds came another, less-anticipated blackbird, the Common Grackle. There isn’t a lot of good things to be said about grackles – they have a slightly terrifying stare with their yellow eyes, their song sounds like a rusty gate, they’re one of the biggest avian crop thieves among farmers. and they sometimes kill and eat smaller birds (they’ve even been observed drowning them in birdbaths)! No, last summer, surrounded by VERY loud grackles, I was certain I wouldn’t miss them. Still, when I spotted one with some Red-Winged Blackbirds, I was glad to have them back. They do, after all, have some good traits – they have beautiful, iridescent blue heads, they look vaguely like a fighter plane when in flight (think about it next time you see a grackle, you’ll see it too!), and of course, they’re another sign of spring.

Common Grackles are beautiful, from a certain perspective.

So there you have it: the blackbirds are, at least in my yard, back! I hope to spot more spring migrants as spring comes closer (it’ll technically be spring starting on March 19, after all), and definitely see and hear more blackbirds this year!

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First Sign of Spring

This Thursday I was outside for another dull, not-quite-spring birding trip, when I spotted a flash of orange-red above. One of the cardinals who always visit my feeder in the morning? So I thought, but I still raised my binoculars – just in time to see the beautiful orange stomach of the first robin all year! Naturally, I was ecstatic – I’d missed those cheery thrushes brightening my yard. But barely a half-hour later, I witnessed a whole flock of them descending on the crab apple trees! What a beautiful sight, especially during March, when the almost-spring weather makes birdwatchers long for warblers and buntings.

American Robins are associated with the arrival of spring, but if they can find enough of the berries that make up their winter diet, they’ll stay all winter. Last year, I had robins eating hackberries in my backyard at a time when most of their friends were on vacation down south! This year, though, I didn’t see so much as a single robin feather – until now. The flock must’ve been starving from their trip, because they blanketed the little trees, munching on crab apples, until I got the camera in hopes of documenting their appearance and found out they were camera-shy.

American Robin swooping in on a branch full of hackberries.

I’m happy to have my robins back! From now until real spring, I’ll be waiting a little more patiently, glad to be surrounded by these chipper birds’ reminder that it isn’t too far away.

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Spring Has (almost) Sprung! Get Ready for Nesting Birds

March has finally come, and I, for one, am ready for spring! It’s not coming for several weeks still, but with days getting longer and weather warmer, it’s time to get out the birdhouses and prepare your yard for the flocks of nesting birds that will soon be arriving!

Step One: Birdhouses

If you want birds to nest in your birdhouses/nest boxes, you need to get them up ahead of time. Clean them out, adjust them to best suit the species you’re targeting, and mount them in an ideal place. For more info about different species’ needs, visit NestWatch’s Right Bird, Right House page at https://nestwatch.org/learn/all-about-birdhouses/right-bird-right-house/. (Hint – don’t hang birdhouses, as in my experience the only birds that will nest in a hanging house are House Wrens, who are very interesting, charismatic birds but tend to be aggressive to nearby nesters).

Prothonotary Warblers are the only warbler in the eastern US who will nest in birdhouses.

Step Two: Nest Material

I’ve never actually tried this one, but it sounds like a great idea to help out nesters! Just fill a mesh bag or make a pile with twigs, moss, human hair, pet fur, dead leaves, bits of string, grass clippings, spiderwebs, or feathers. Hang the bag from a branch, or if you prefer to leave it in a pile, put it in a visible and accessible location. If even that sounds like too much work, you can always just make a small mud puddle somewhere in your yard – the robins will flock to it, and before you know it there’ll be muddy robin nests popping up all over your yard! Easy for the birds, and even easier on you!

This female House Finch took a bit more nesting material than she could carry!

Step Three: Predators

This one is incredibly important – If you invite birds to nest in your yard, then failing to do everything you can to remove predators is like luring the baby birds into a death trap. True, you can’t just get rid of snakes, raccoons, and other wild predators, but you can install baffles to any birdhouses that are on posts, and keep cats indoors. Also, unless you’re a certified NestWatcher and following their Code of Conduct, avoid visiting the nest. You might enjoy watching the baby birds grow up, but any predators who follow your scent trail right to the nest will enjoy eating them for lunch even more.

Opossums, like this one, are cute to humans but a serious threat to baby birds.

Bonus: Nest Cam

The best way to keep an eye on a nest without leading predators to it is putting a cheap camera inside the birdhouse (make sure to do this before anyone nests there!) Then, you can watch the goings on inside from your own home. Learn all about it at https://nestwatch.org/learn/all-about-birdhouses/installing-a-nest-box-camera/.

Now, armed with these tips, you can easily become the most popular bird landlord in the neighborhood this spring!