While many of my friends have told me that all their common redpolls and pine siskins have gone back north, our feeders continue to be inundated with all these finches. In addition, American Goldfinches have returned in the past few days. When one combines these three species with an occasional hoary redpoll, Finch Fest 2015 is in progress!
American Goldfinch
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Common Redpoll
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Pine Siskin
My wife and I like to take long self-supported bicycle tours. Over the past few years we have taken bike tours through New England, the Canadian Martimes, the American West and the Northwest Pacific Coast. Our bike tours generally range from one to two months in length. Well, wanderlust has struck again and in a few days we will start working our way south to start the “Spring North Tour”.
Our plan involves driving down to St. Louis where we will leave our car with relatives. At that point we will take AMTRAK down to Dallas where more relatives will pick us up at the train station. The day after Easter from the small town of Granbury, Texas we will get on our bikes. Our plan is to bike south to the Texas Hill Country, followed by a wide northeasterly sweep around Dallas up into the Ozark Mountains. After spending time in Oklahoma and Arkansas, we will move into Missouri to finish our ride along the Katy Trail as it moves along the Big Muddy River (Missouri River). At that point we will pick up our car in St. Louis and drive home to Duluth.
Our hope is to see lots of wildflowers (including Texas Blue Bonnets) and birds during the migration north! Here is our planned initial route of about 1,500 miles. As the road beckons, the route may change!
If you wish to follow our ride, In addition to bird posts on this blog, I will posting a trip diary on the Crazy Guy on a Bike Portal:
I spent 2 hours trying to find a great grey owl at sunset this evening up in Sax-Zim Bog. For about ten minutes I took a break and was watching some chickadees, somewhat zoning out when I suddenly realized one chickadee was not “black capped”, but a “boreal”!
