Tag Archives: MN North: Canosia Wildlife Area

Day 169: Attack of the Kingbirds at the Heron Rookery

July 10, 2014Year 1MN North: Canosia Wildlife Arearichardhoeg@gmail.com

My goal today was to hike into the forest and through a swamp to a great blue heron rookery. I have wanted to visit this rookery again, but the bugs have been horrible and have forced me to give up the hike multiple times. However, arriving around 8 am this morning I limited the number of mosquitoes and flies, and survived the hike w/o too many hundreds of bites. It was well worth the effort. The surprise was that in addition to the great blue herons I was privileged to watch to eastern kingbirds attack a mother osprey on her nest. This attack surprised me. I expected blackbirds or jays to attack the osprey, but not kingbirds.

View this project’s Flickr photo stream. (click upon images to view at full size)

Hiking into the Rookery

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The path was very wet, perfect for wild purple irises

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The Great Blue Herons at the Rookery

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Attack of the Eastern Kingbirds on the Osprey

Day 111: Blue Jay Day

May 13, 2014Year 1MN North: Amity, MN North: Canosia Wildlife Arearichardhoeg@gmail.com

Throughout this entire project, whether I have been home in northern Minnesota, helping my Dad in central Florida, or volunteering in the Colorado Rockies, a common bird theme has been the ability to watch blue jays. Yet during this entire time to date, I never posted a photo of a single blue jay. However, with the Spring migration in force, even though some blue jays spend the winter in the Duluth area, southern jays are now migrating into and through the area. Over the past few days I’ve often seen flocks of well over one hundred blue jays. In fact, down on Minnesota Point two days ago I watched as a falcon attacked a flock of over 50 jays and had them completely terrified.

However, today is finally “Blue Jay Day”. The proper photographic conditions arrived for me to show off their deep, gorgeous blue. I’ve also included two photos which did not make the cut for my “bird of the day”.

View this project’s Flickr photo stream. (click upon image to view at full size)

Bird of the Day: Blue Jay

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Bad Hair Day Osprey

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Broad-Winged Hawk

Day 100: Great Blue Heron Rookery Photo Shoot!

May 2, 2014Year 1MN North: Canosia Wildlife Arearichardhoeg@gmail.com

What a great way to spend the 100th day of my year long bird photography project. After six days straight of rain, snow, sleet and high winds, the sun came out for a short while in northern Minnesota. This was all the incentive I needed to hike into a Great Blue Heron rookery which I had been meaning to visit. The snow had finally melted on most of the trail, and after a decent very, very wet and mushy hike I arrived at the rookery.

I hope you enjoy just a few of the photographs I took this morning. It was so much fun to watch and photograph these majestic and glorious birds. In total I spent almost two hours on location including my hike from the trail head. Upon reaching the rookery I spent fifteen minutes slowly moving close enough for decent photographs. I did not want to spook the assembled multitudes, and thankfully effort that was successfully rewarded.

Finally, the entire time I was photographing the herons, a red-shafted flicker was serenading me. I’ve included two photos at the end of the post. The flicker found a mate!