Arizona Video

Finally went through recordings from this summer's Arizona trip to throw this little video together.

Music is "White Light" by You'll Never Get to Heaven

Fall into Winter

With work weighing heavier on my winter schedule, I don't often have as many opportunities to bird watch as I would like. Last year I made a more concentrated effort to bird on any free days I had, mostly to local parks and nearby eBird hotspots. This year, however, I'm hoping to do a lot more birdwatching from home and made the decision to hop aboard Project Feederwatch. With the 2021-2022 season having kicked off, I've spent the past two weekends stalking my westward windows, both weekends resulting in interesting observations. The first weekend saw the first (or at least the first I've seen) cardinal at my feeders, and this second weekend, a pair of northern flickers appeared on Saturday and a gorgeous pileated alighted on my suet feeders both days.

This nuthatch (photographed before the PFW season) has grown quite comfortable with me, feeding within feet of me with little worry on more than one occasion.

Another fan of the backyard feeders, this sharp-shinned hawk has been hanging out in the hedges the past two weekends.

Duluth 2021!

I gave myself a few options for this year's fall migration trip: go west to hit McKenzie's Slough and Long Lake NWR; go south to bird Pierre; head up north to Grand Forks; go further north to the Winnipeg area; or, the last-second winner, head up and over for another weekend in Duluth. There, I made my first visits to Park Point (after waiting half an hour for the draw bridge to excuse a single ship) and Wisconsin Point over in Superior. It was a fun and rewarding couple of days, and on the way home, I made stops at Jay Cooke and the Rice Lake NWR.

A pack of sanderlings strolling the beach of Wisconsin Point (accompanied by a sole semipalmated plover) provided my only "lifer" bird species of the weekend. Boy, was it nice to see shorebirds up close. I'm too used to seeing pipers and plovers across sizable stretches of water. A pair of these sanderlings scurried just feet from me.

Jay Cooke provided a lifer of another variety--my very first red foxes! When strolling a picnic area of the park, two red foxes darted into the open and went bounding across the trail right in front of me. I was so surprised and excited that I barely thought to raise my camera and grabbed only this photo for evidence.

Rice Lake NWR was my last stop (discounting a couple quick pullovers on the drive home), and it was a great way to go out.

And lastly, a little montage to highlight some other birds of Park Point!

Labor Day Weekend

Kicked the long weekend off with a drive up to Fargo to check Trollwood and the sewage lagoons.

Then enjoyed some lazy birdwatching at Chahinkapa and out the back window.

Rainy Day at the Park

August 2021 Birding

An adult-immature pair of pileated woodpeckers has been making stops at the hanging suet feeder

Made another stop at the Old Cedar Ave. Bridge in the Twin Cities--an awesome spot with a great variety of nesting species.

One of three ruby-throated hummingbirds buzzing about the flowers at the local archery range.

2021 July Cleanup

Now that I've finally gone through the 6,000+ photos taken over the trip to Arizona, I can get to some of the slightly more recent birding ventures and observations. To be quite honest, birding every single day at 5:30am in Arizona took a toll on my motivation to wake up and travel early. Most of my birding since has been local and well past the ideal hours, so my eBird lists are looking a little barren, but there have still been some exciting spottings.

I had a lot of fun watching the cute little house wrens zipping in and out of the tiny backyard home which they moved into for the summer. They've since left, but I'm hoping they'll migrate back this way next year!

Checking out some Twin Cities wildlife over the 4th of July weekend.