Eclectic travelers

Going Nature’s Way By Kate Crowley With the ridiculously warm weather we had last week, the migration of birds returning north accelerated, only this year rather than seeing robins and red-winged blackbirds what I’ve been seeing are lots and lots of Bald Eagles.  It really has been spectacular. It began three weeks ago when we went to Bayfield and took the ferry over to Madeline Island.  There was ice on either side of the boat as we crossed the Bay, but the sun was warm and the sky was blue.  On the way back to Bayfield I noticed a couple large dark birds performing an aerial ballet, with twists and turns and I knew immediately it was a pair of Bald Eagles engaged in courtship display.  Then I looked ahead and to the left of the boat and standing on the ice floes were at least six dark bird shapes.  More eagles! The boat had left an open channel of water and some were standing near the edge, hoping I guess, for a fish to appear.  As we approached...

WINGIN’ IT By Kate  Crowley As we began a hike with our Brazilian friends, Deise and Ricardo, I told them about the birds known as Ruffed Grouse that live in our woods and scare the daylights out of me every time I’m skiing our trails and they suddenly erupt into flight. I call them ‘heart-attack’ birds. It’s hard to communicate that level of surprise, if you’ve never experienced it.  And it doesn’t matter how often it happens; from year to year, it always catches me off-guard. This winter, when I have been able to ski, I have only had a couple of grouse make themselves known in this shocking manner.  Ruffed Grouse, sometimes (mistakenly) called partridge are the most popular game bird in our state.  Annual hunter harvest averages more than 500,000 birds, but that is an average because these birds, like some other animals, have a cyclic population dynamic.  About every ten years their population will reach a peak in numbers and then gradually drop to ...

GOING NATURE’S WAY By Kate Crowley We are entering the month when people are getting tired of winter and Saturday with the temperature reaching into the 50’s didn’t make matters any easier. As expected, the temperatures dropped on Sunday and we got snow, typical for this month of transition. If you are beginning to experience the winter ‘blahs’, Mike and I can recommend a guaranteed cure that does not involve flying off to some tropical climes, even though that may sound pretty darn good.  No, what we recommend is importing some friends from the Southern Hemisphere.  These should be people who are not afraid of real winter weather; people like Deise Nizzola and Ricardo Alves. We have known Deise since 1995 when she came to the Audubon Center as an international intern.  She and Ricardo live at the very southern end of Brazil, so they do have seasons, including winter.  They might occasionally get a little snow, but it is short lived and mostly winter is a co...

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...