This was not an intensive bird watching day. This was a day driving to the cabin, sitting in the cabin writing, looking out the window, driving to run an errand, going to town for dinner, sitting in the cabin looking out the window some more, etc.
But the birds insisted on performing. So I thought I'd give you a list.,
En route north from the Twin Cities:
- Two probable trumpeter swans heading west.
- A flock of about 45 cormorants heading north. Leech Lake look out!
- Near Fort Ripley: Rough Legged Hawk?
- Blue Jay
- Nisswa, overlookng Round Lake: Bald Eagle in tree
- Lesser Scaup (small flock)
At the Cabin (Woman Lake):
- Bald Eagle 1 (or two) of our nesting pair. Bald Eagle 3 (yearling).
- Loons 1 and 2 feeding.
- Loons 1 and 2 feeding with otter.
- Loons 1 and 2 getting harassed by BE 3
- Loons 1 and 2 joined by interloping male Loon 3, displays, much ado for a while, Loon 3 leaves (unlike three years ago, when one of the two males died in the ensuing fight)
- White throated sparrow
- Hooded mergansers (2 males breeding plus 1 female)
- Red breasted nuthatch
- White breated nuthatch
- Phoebes
- BC Chickadees
- Various woodpeckers (sound only)
- Common Goldeneye (sitting on edge of ice in the lake)
Longville:
- RW Blackbirds
- Loon
South of Longville
- Bald Eagle sitting alone in the forest.
The above does not count numerous LBB's unidentified.
More like this
Continued...
For this final installation of How the Loon Terns, I'd like to very briefly address four different items of "common knowledge."
I've been thinking about loons lately. This is not hard do do because every time I turn around there is a loon either watching me fish, yodeling off in the distance, flying overhead, or feeding its babies just off to my right as I sit here writing stuff.
And now, for another installment in our series: How The Loon Terns, an exercise in skeptical thinking using Loons as a waterbird touchstone. (In case you missed it, the previous installment was here.)
Loons are the fish eating canaries of secluded northern lakes.
Another reason that it's a god day for birds:
The latest flu outbreak is being blamed on mammals for a change.
Sounds wonderful...in central California, the only birds I saw today were blurs flying away from the camera as soon as I had them in the view finder...sigh.