Bird Lists
May. 28th, 2003 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanI'm hoping to do a more extended account later (hope springing eternal and all that), but I wanted to list the birds before I forgot some.
On Saturday, May 24, Eric and I went over to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden in the late afternoon. The little marshy area between Wirth Lake and the path up to the back gate of the garden is fantastically rich in birds for a place in the middle of a city park where you can hear traffic and airplanes constantly. It's where we saw the ruby-crowned kinglet a few weeks ago.
Birds new to me:
Eastern kingbird
Wood duck, with three well-grown offspring
Indigo bunting (seen only through binoculars; identified by its color, lack of bluejay or bluebird characteristics, and its habit, according to Sibley, of singing from high places)
Other birds:
chimney swifts
swallows
red-winged blackbirds
grackles
female mallard, with seven very small fuzzy offspring
cardinals
On Sunday, we went to Nerstrand Big Woods State Park. Despite an initial disappointment when Hidden Falls Trail proved to be crammed with picnickers and screaming children and truly demented people splashing in the stream with the fecal coliform bacteria, we had a splendid and perfect time.
Birds new to me:
American redstart
Scarlet tanager
Eastern bluebird (female -- looking, that is, like a male dipped in flour. This puzzled Eric, who had seen male bluebirds in Afton the weekend before; but the bird book set us straight at once)
warblers with yellow on
Others:
Northern cardinal
American robin
Mourning dove
And finally, a bird new to Eric altogether, and heard by me on hikes with Raphael but never seen before. It was almost dark, and we were walking across Hickory Bridge on our way back to the car.
I saw a large, powerful form fly low through the woods in the middle distance. A few birds yelled and squawked. We stopped and looked and listened. I hoped it was an owl, but decided after a lot of silence that it might just have been a crow.
As we were about to move on, we heard a whooping in the woods that Eric at first thought was a person carrying on and I first thought was a dog barking. But when it repeated itself, I realized that it was a barred owl. Who cooks for you, who cooks for you two?
We stood and waited, but there was dead silence. Again, we were about to move on, when a big broad dark bird with a round head burst out of the trees above us and flew across the road, pursued by a much smaller bird. Silence fell again. We exclaimed in awe and then laughed as the comical aspect of the spectacle asserted itself.
The redstarts were utterly charming, like hummingbird aspirants that had decided a larger form and the need to flutter less furiously at the tips of branches were actually advantageous.
Pamela
On Saturday, May 24, Eric and I went over to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden in the late afternoon. The little marshy area between Wirth Lake and the path up to the back gate of the garden is fantastically rich in birds for a place in the middle of a city park where you can hear traffic and airplanes constantly. It's where we saw the ruby-crowned kinglet a few weeks ago.
Birds new to me:
Eastern kingbird
Wood duck, with three well-grown offspring
Indigo bunting (seen only through binoculars; identified by its color, lack of bluejay or bluebird characteristics, and its habit, according to Sibley, of singing from high places)
Other birds:
chimney swifts
swallows
red-winged blackbirds
grackles
female mallard, with seven very small fuzzy offspring
cardinals
On Sunday, we went to Nerstrand Big Woods State Park. Despite an initial disappointment when Hidden Falls Trail proved to be crammed with picnickers and screaming children and truly demented people splashing in the stream with the fecal coliform bacteria, we had a splendid and perfect time.
Birds new to me:
American redstart
Scarlet tanager
Eastern bluebird (female -- looking, that is, like a male dipped in flour. This puzzled Eric, who had seen male bluebirds in Afton the weekend before; but the bird book set us straight at once)
warblers with yellow on
Others:
Northern cardinal
American robin
Mourning dove
And finally, a bird new to Eric altogether, and heard by me on hikes with Raphael but never seen before. It was almost dark, and we were walking across Hickory Bridge on our way back to the car.
I saw a large, powerful form fly low through the woods in the middle distance. A few birds yelled and squawked. We stopped and looked and listened. I hoped it was an owl, but decided after a lot of silence that it might just have been a crow.
As we were about to move on, we heard a whooping in the woods that Eric at first thought was a person carrying on and I first thought was a dog barking. But when it repeated itself, I realized that it was a barred owl. Who cooks for you, who cooks for you two?
We stood and waited, but there was dead silence. Again, we were about to move on, when a big broad dark bird with a round head burst out of the trees above us and flew across the road, pursued by a much smaller bird. Silence fell again. We exclaimed in awe and then laughed as the comical aspect of the spectacle asserted itself.
The redstarts were utterly charming, like hummingbird aspirants that had decided a larger form and the need to flutter less furiously at the tips of branches were actually advantageous.
Pamela
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2003-05-28 11:19 am (UTC)MKK
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Date: 2003-05-28 11:38 am (UTC)Pamela
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Date: 2003-05-28 11:24 am (UTC)oh, cool; a time travel story.
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Date: 2003-05-28 11:38 am (UTC)I am trying to plan some events in June, and got my mind stuck there.
Pamela
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Date: 2003-05-28 12:01 pm (UTC)My big 'ooh' for the weekend was seeing a Deer(!) in Powderhorn Park.
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Date: 2003-05-28 01:13 pm (UTC)I would be fairly startled by a deer in Powderhorn Park. I don't recall Powderhorn as having a lot of cover. I knew deer were common in the inner suburbs, but wow.
Pamela
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Date: 2003-05-28 01:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-28 05:57 pm (UTC)The next time I release an owl into the wild, I'll invite you over to watch.
B
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Date: 2003-05-29 11:41 am (UTC)Pamela