Arctic Arrivals

Year 7

Each day I feel a tiny bit better, and my family insures they take me out for some “birding by car” with very short hikes. As I noted yesterday, I have been looking for my first Pine Grosbeak of the season, which means checking out pygmy crabapple trees. I struck paydirt this morning and watched one lone female. Not a single pine grosbeak was seen in Minnesota last winter. There was plenty of food north of the border, and they never came south.

Shortly thereafter I had fun watching a few flocks of Snow Buntings followed by an amazing hunting session with my favorite hawk, a Rough Legged Hawk. These hawks are only one of two raptors (other than owls) that have feathers all the way down to their talons. Thus,  Rough Legged Hawks are adapted for their breeding seasons up by the Arctic Ocean. This bird let me get amazingly close. Normally Roughies spook very easily.

It was a great morning. One of my snow buntings (video link for email subscribers)

Rusty Blackbird

Year 7

I went looking for Pine Grosbeaks at some old berry / crabapple farms and found instead one of the birds of the Boreal Forest which is unfortunately experiencing the greatest population drop of any kind of bird in North America. Rusty Blackbirds breed up in the Boreal Forest swamps north of the border in Canada, and we occasionally see them here in northern Minnesota during their southern migration. Their population drop has been estimated at 85 to 99 percent over the past 40 years. Hopefully they are not a “canary in coal mine”.

Amity Creek Sunrise

Year 7,

This morning I watched one of the best sunrises in my life. While there have been more brilliant displays of color, this movement of the colors and clouds through the pre-dawn sky were very awe inspiring to me. The vantage point is my own stairs 25 minutes before actual sunup.

Later in the morning my youngest son took me for a drive up the shore and some birding. I found a small flock of Wilson’s Snipes foraging in Two Harbors.

I am working on the promised bird feeder review. My concentration level is still sub-par. Stay tuned.

Video: Wilson Snipe Foraging (video link for email subscribers)

Video: Hoot Hiding from Crows (video link for email subscribers)
Found this video from late August I had taken and never processed

An update on me … my body hurts and I crave sleep / rest. Food is beginning to taste good again, but I have a long recovery road ahead. My wife took this photo of me just before dinner last night holding my two fingers full glass of Chardonnay (all I am allowed). I was four days post second heart surgery when this pic was taken last night, and nine days post open heart surgery.