Eclectic travelers

WINGIN’ IT By Kate Crowley I am a Minnesotan who likes winter.  I like the beautiful images of snow falling and creating landscape-scale snow globes. I like being able to ski our trails and absorb the silence of the forest.  I like the sense of hibernation too, when our homes become sanctuaries of warmth and peace.  I even enjoy the act of shoveling because it gives me a real sense of accomplishment. I admit that I do not have to face the daily trials of bad driving conditions and cold cars in the  morning, which I believe are the cause of most people’s angst.  So, living through December, January and February is not a hardship for me and it usually isn’t until later in March that I start to get spring fever.  So, it wasn’t wishful thinking on my part when I walked past a townhome on a corner in NE Minneapolis last Saturday and saw two American robins in the yard.  I did a double take, but then stopped to watch as they pecked at the exposed gras...

Going Nature’s Way By Kate Crowley photos by Mike Link In the winter, as I ski through our forest I am able to see the trees so much better.  It is a mixed forest, meaning we have conifers (pines and firs) and hardwoods (maples, oaks, aspen and birch).  I have noticed that certain species tend to be found concentrated in different parts of the forest, which makes sense, since they differ in their specific needs for moisture, sun and shade.  Of all the trees, my two favorites are the Eastern White Pine ( Pinus strobus ) and the Paper Birch ( Betula papyrifera ); also known as White Birch. We have a good number of old growth white pines; trees that are over 100 years old. They stand as memorials to the vast forests of a century ago that covered this part of the state.  And they are the progenitors of the new growth spreading through the forest, something we are very pleased to see.  Efforts to replant white pines in the 20 th Century were mostly uns...

WINGIN’ IT By Kate Crowley The last thing I would expect to happen in the heart of a Minnesota winter is to add a new ‘life’ bird to my list, but that’s just what happened a week ago in Duluth.   Maybe you heard the news reports about the Ivory Gull that appeared on December 30 th along the shipping canal in Duluth. Soon after it was identified, word spread in the ‘birding’ world.  People began to come from all over the country to get a look at it.  Ivory gulls are normally found in winter on the edge of the pack ice of the Arctic Ocean, or at sea between southwest Greenland and Labrador.  Jan Green of Duluth is a well-known birder and according to her an Ivory Gull was last seen in Duluth in 2008, but it was only seen for one day.  This new arrival continued to hang around Canal Park with the other more common ring-billed gulls.  I was hoping it would stay long enough for me to get a look and luck was with me.  On January 5 th , I final...

Going Nature’s Way By Kate Crowley Do you look forward to putting up a new calendar each year, as much as I do?  And do you have special calendars that you buy almost religiously each year?  I do.  Or maybe you are happy to accept the calendars given out by local merchants during the holiday season.  I receive at least five unsolicited calendars each year from Environmental Organizations I support and these I save to give to my grandchildren.  Like the record keeping I do with my birdwatching, there is something refreshing and a bit exciting about putting up a new calendar with the numbers of the New Year for all to see.  So much possibility in those pages, even though I know they can bring sadness as well as joy, I prefer to dwell on the positive, exciting, and creative experiences that lie in wait. For a long time I have had two particular calendars that I MUST get each year.  One is by a favorite artist, Mary Englebreit, whose colorful an...

WINGIN’ IT By Kate Crowley You will probably not be surprised to see that I am writing the first column of 2016 about starting a new list for the year.  I can’t help it.  It’s an exciting time of the year – truly starting with a clean slate (so to speak).  I think anyone who keeps annual lists of the birds they see feels this way.  I’ve said before, that this ‘hobby’ is most like going on a treasure hunt – all year round – and I don’t think that’s something any of us outgrow.  But instead of looking for a pile of gold (or cash if you go to casinos), we are searching for beauty and surprising discoveries.  So on January first, we were at my mom’s house in Iowa City and as soon as it was light enough outside to see the birds, I spotted a gorgeous bright red male cardinal.  For many people this is not such a big deal, but we just don’t see cardinal in our neighborhood and there is nothing more stunning then one of these striking birds surrounded ...

photo Mike Link Christmas Bird Count Throughout our lives we develop new traditions over the Christmas holiday season; some with our families, some with friends, and some for our own pleasure.  I would like to suggest a new tradition that can begin at any age - join a Christmas Bird Count. Begun in 1900 by a group of 27 Audubon Society members, this annual census has gone from a total of 89 species of birds counted that first year to 72,653 observers in 2015, who counted a total of 63 million birds! Like the Feederwatch program which was covered in an earlier blog, this is another important Citizen Science project for anyone interested in birds. The one day counts happen between December 14 th and January 5 th .  You can join as many counting ‘circles’ as you wish.  To find out how to sign up for a count, you should go to the Audubon website.  It will also give you lots more information about all previous counts and summaries.  The counts are done ...

WINGIN’ IT By Kate Crowley It’s hard to be inspired on a rainy day in mid-December in northern Minnesota, but I am finding a bit of a bright spot watching the woodpeckers.  We hung two suet feeders from the branches of the maple right next to our deck, and a third from the overhang near the kitchen window and this fall the action has been non-stop.  We have thought about hanging even more because for some reason this year we have been blessed with an abundance of these black and white birds.  In Minnesota there are nine species of woodpeckers (including the yellow-shafted flicker and yellow-bellied sapsucker).  A couple – the black-backed and three-toed are only found in our far northern coniferous forests.  For the most part, what you can expect to see in the winter are the Downy, Hairy and Pileated Woodpeckers, although some people also see the Red-bellied.    Even though they are not the most colorful of our birds – the male and female...