WINGIN’ IT By Kate Crowley Feeder Watch


I have been getting mixed reports this month on the number of birds people are seeing at their feeders.  Laura Erickson, birder extraordinaire up in Duluth reports far fewer birds than in year’s past.  Others have echoed her reports.  Here in Willow River we have had plentiful blue jays and chickadees, while just north of us near Barnum Ruth Pfaller reports almost no blue jays.  Joyce in Askov reports good numbers of woodpeckers and cardinals, the latter of which is not on our list of visitors.  We have not seen a single purple finch, pine siskin, or common redpoll.  One can’t help wondering “Where are these birds?” 
In an exceptionally cold winter, such as this one, we would expect to see an irruption of species from the far north. It has already pushed the snowy owls south in what is considered to be one of the biggest invasion in decades. Apparently the lemming population was so large this past summer that the owls were super productive and many of the birds that have come south are this year’s young and they were not starving when they arrived.  My Facebook page each day has photos by some great Minnesota photographers of these gorgeous white birds. There is a new research effort that has coalesced because of this unusually large invasion.  It’s called Project SNOWstorm and I encourage you to go to their website of the same name to learn more about what is happening.  They have captured some of the birds and attached GPS transmitters thereby letting the scientists and the interested public get a chance to follow their movements.  We still haven’t seen one in person, but winter is far from over, so we will keep our hopes up.   
But where are those other songbirds?  The Pine County Christmas Bird Count which was held on December 27th had some interesting results.  We were not able to participate, but our friend Ruth Pfaller did and sent us the data. They did not see one pine grosbeak or common redpoll, whereas last year they counted 214 and 630 respectively! We know birds move around depending on season and food supply and like the owls and lemmings, maybe it was also a bumper crop year for the seeds the finches and redpolls depend upon.  The Count also showed significantly lower numbers of rock pigeons, European starlings and house sparrows – all non-native species that have often displace our native species. 

We are participating in FeederWatch and every week we count and report on the birds that come to our feeders over 2 days.  I wish more people participated in this Citizen Science project from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, but there is another opportunity coming up in February to add a bit more data to the overall understanding of our bird populations. It’s called the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) and it happens from February 14th  through the 17th.  All over the world people will record the birds they see, not only in their backyards, but wherever they choose to count – this could be in nearby parks or along country roads. The important thing is to record where, what species and how many were seen to the GBBC website and the world will have a better understanding of what is happening with birds this winter.  It only requires as little as 15 minutes of your time, or longer if you wish to count each of the four days. And it’s free.  The GBBC website (http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/) has lots of interesting information about last year’s count which should inspire you to add  your own observations.  I hope you will consider participating.  I will remind you again two weeks from now.

In the meantime keep your eyes open for those flashes of movement and color outside your windows.  You just never know for sure what you might see.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Munger Trail - Willow River to Moose Lake

Image
The Willard Munger Trail - named for one of the environmental heroes of MN is our neighborhood bike trail and the place I get my biking exercise and conditioning.  I thought it would be good to share some of its highlights and pleasures.  So here is a look at the trail and what I enjoy. The small towns that prospered during the days when the trail was a railroad track and the country moved by Steam Engine are just a shadow of what they used to be, but that shadow is filled with surprises and fun places to explore if you give yourself the time to engage in the setting, as well as the peddling.  Willow River is our little home town and the Mercantile is over 100 years old and still meets many of our needs.  It is a place for refreshments and Peggy Sue's is a local restaurant that makes a great lunch or dinner stop. There is also a local park that provides you with a sense of the RR past. The trail is very straight like most RR grades and lacks hills except between Rutledg
Read more

Sense of Place

Image
GOING NATURE’S WAY By Kate Crowley I am intrigued by the idea of Sense of Place; to feel completely ‘at home’ in one particular place.  I have read that people who grow up on the Great Plains feel claustrophobic when they are in forested environments and in reverse,  people who have grown up surrounded by forest find the openness of the plains unnerving, with nothing to break the view to the horizon. I grew up in the city, but the Minnehaha Creek and Parkway were just two blocks away and I spent countless hours playing and exploring there.  The city lakes were within biking distance. The Mississippi River was just blocks away from the apartment where I lived the first four years of my life.  When I was 36 I married Mike and moved to our current home and it was perfect.  When my dad first visited us in our new home, he said, “Kate must think she’s died and gone to heaven”.  This is where I am supposed to be.  Scientists who have studied the evolution of humanity have proposed
Read more

Rain threatens birds

Image
WINGIN’ IT By Kate Crowley As the floodwaters recede, a stunned and relieved populace can finally stop holding their collective breath. Throughout southern Carlton County and all of Pine County there is a sense of disbelief that only four years after a major flood event, it has happened again.  At our home we measured over 8” of rain in less than 24 hours. This is what the word deluge was meant to describe. Others said it felt like they were in the middle of a monsoon. Thankfully there was no loss of life in our region, but property damage and loss was significant for people who have in some cases finally recovered and remodeled after the flood of 2012, which was said to be a once in 100 years flood when 8 to 10 inches of rain were spread over three days. Here in Willow River, there was fear that the small dam holding back the waters of the river would fail, with catastrophic results. Roads throughout the two counties (and into Wisconsin) were hard hit and the cost to repair
Read more