Two Timing Texas Tour Starts!

April 5, 2018Year 5Bike Tours, Texasrichardhoeg@gmail.com

We’ve started. Yesterday was a shake down ride and today was actual touring. Between the two rides we have 60 miles under our belt … 45 today. While we had planned to head to East Texas first, the blooming wildflowers demanded a route change … before we had even started. Thus, we are off to the Hill Country. We biked back roads from Paluxy over to De Leon, starting tomorrow we work our way down Texas 16 to the Hill Country.

My daily bike diary is on the Crazy Guy on a Bike Portal, but on my own blog I will focus with occasional posts about the experience. Thus, our last two days on my Bill and Philllis’s farm were fantastic. I would bird at sunrise by walking the farm followed by a training ride and R&R. Here some of the results.

The Farm!

Cedar Waxwings at Dawn

Turkey Vulture

Ruby-Throated Hummingbird

Red-Bellied Woodpecker Love.

Snow Storm Birding

March 31, 2018Year 5MN South: Northwood Parkrichardhoeg@gmail.com

My final training ride for our Texas bike tour was snowed out over night. Depending upon one’s location in Minnesota, new snow totaled between 3 and 11 inches of snow. Combine the white stuff with a 25 mph wind, temperatures falling through the 20’s into the teens, and biking was a bust. Thus, I went birding!

If one finds the open water, one finds the birds. I birded a small steam with accompanying wetlands. It was a bird bonanza. Basset Creek as it flows out of Northwood Park in New Hope, Minnesota was full of birds. This morning I saw lots of juncos, redpolls, grackles, blackbirds, mallards, geese, hooded mergansers, wood ducks, great blue herons, and even a woodcock!

All these birds also attracted the attention of this juvenile red-tailed hawk which had vision of duck for breakfast. I was surprised that even when the hawk swooped down towards the stream, then ducks ignored the raptor.

Juvenile Red Tailed Hawk Hunting Ducks

Mr. and Mrs. Hooded Merganser

Goose Fight

Skies eventually cleared … Red Bellied Woodpecker

Wood Ducks a Courting! Videos!

March 28, 2018Year 5MN South: Medicine Lakerichardhoeg@gmail.com

Duluth is still locked in winter, but 175 miles to the south as one exits the Boreal Forest, there are hints of spring. Although lakes are still ice over in the Minneapolis area, the streams that enter and exit lakes have open water and the early arriving ducks are aware of that fact. This morning at sunrise I found a flock of 21 Wood Ducks in a small area of open water. The ratios of drakes to hens made for interesting mating competition. I counted 18 drakes, and 3 hens. When I determined that one hen was already paired off with a drake, you really only had two female birds to be fought over by 17 guys!

Here are a few of my photos. The courting competion allowed me to get much closer than is normally possible with wood ducks. I was a non entity when love was a possibility! In addition you will find two videos … the same sequence both at full speed and slowed down by a factor of two. The slow motion allows one to better see what is happening!

Community Courting