John Lundy is a failure when it comes to bird-watching. But he tries. Oh, he tries.

A question ... and a request

Posted by: John Lundy on 8/6/2008 at 5:36 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Who am I?

A bird came to my safflower tube feeder today that wasn't a chickadee, which was very exciting.
But I'm not sure what it was. Can you help?
In size, shape and bill, it was very similar to a goldfinch. But its color was drab and almost uniform; I'd call it mud-colored. The wings were just a little darker than the rest of the body, and the bill appeared yellowish, at least in contrast to the rest of the body.
It didn't flit from place to place like a chickadee does. It stayed calmly on a perch for two or three minutes, eating slowly, before flying off into the apple tree.
I heard various cheeps and other bird sounds, but I think all of them were coming from chickadees.
I wondered if it might be a young female cardinal; it was eating safflower, and it acted sort of like a cardinal. But the picture of a young cardinal in the book shows it looking like a smaller adult cardinal, and this bird had nothing of the shape of a cardinal.
I went to the "What Bird" site on the Internet (see the link on my Web sites). Narrowing my search through various categories, I came up with: Lincoln's sparrow.
Wrong. It looked nothing like a Lincoln's sparrow.
By changing the order of the categories, I also came up with a savannah sparrow and a brambling, but neither of them came close in appearance, either.
In my bird book, the closest thing I could come to what I saw was a female indigo bunting. I'd feel a lot more certain about it if I also had seen a male indigo bunting, but this is my best guess so far.
Does anyone have any other ideas?

I ride my bicycle to work most days. With my work schedule, this requires riding home after dark. It's peaceful and pleasant at night; it's cooler on these warm days; there's little traffic; Duluth motorists -- most of them -- are unfailingly courteous; and I'm well-lit, fore and aft.
Still, surprises can come at night. Last night, one of those surprises came in the form of a skunk that emerged from behind a car just as I was about to turn into my alley. Happily, I was going uphill and it was easy to stop. Nonetheless, I missed hitting the skunk by a matter of inches.
I made the sort of sound baseball fans make when the Twins give up 10 runs to the Mariners in one inning. What surprised me was that the skunk made a sound, too, as it tried to run. It was a sort of heavy breathing sound, almost a gasp.
I hope the poor creature didn't have a coronary.

  

Posted by: John Lundy on 8/5/2008 at 11:00 AM | Comments (1) | Permalink

The national bird of Romania?



A friend who lives in Bucharest says the crane is the national bird of Bucharest, and offers this picture as evidence. I don't think a city can have a national bird, so perhaps the crane is the national bird of Romania. In any event, I hope these cranes are stable.

Posted by: John Lundy on 8/3/2008 at 11:55 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Love those redheads


Has anyone seen redheaded woodpeckers in the Northland?
This picture was taken by Jim Williams and provided to Minnesota Public Radio and the Associated Press for a story by MPR's Stephanie Hemphill that was distributed by AP for publication this weekend.
It wasn't taken all that far away. Hemphill's story is about the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, which is run by the University of Minnesota and is north of the Twin Cities. With a landscape of oak savannah and clumps of spreading oaks separated by open areas carpeted with native grasses, shrubs and wildflowers, the Cedar Creek Ecosystem is a perfect environment for redheaded woodpeckers, Hemphill reports.
A birder named Lance Nelson found eight redheaded woodpecker nests there this summer. All told, about 50 redheaded woodpeckers call the 500-acre science reserve home.
Chet Meyers, a retired professor from Metropolitan State University, is spearheading an effort to find more places where redheaded woodpeckers can build nests, Hemphill writes. Meyers' group is studying conditions at Cedar Creek to learn what attracts the woodpeckers. (Acorns for one thing, obviously.)
My understanding is that redheaded woodpeckers aren't often seen as far north as Duluth. Of course, we get the far more spectacular pileated woodpeckers, which are relatively uncommon to the south.
But the redheadeds are no slouches, at about 7 to 9 inches in height and with those brilliant red heads above the black-and-white tuxedo look. I'd be delighted to see my first redheaded woodpecker since moving to Minnesota.
I'm adding the science reserve's Web site to my listings on the right, in case you want to learn more. The Web site also provides a map and directions for getting to Cedar Creek; it lists directions from the south, from the east and from the west. Perhaps it never occurred to them that someone might want to come from the north. As near as I can tell, if you took Interstate 35, then exited at Stacy to the west, and if you could find County Road 76 and continued to the west on it, you'd probably get there.



Posted by: John Lundy on 8/2/2008 at 9:48 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Hawks

I almost hate to bring it up, but the folks at Hawk Ridge already are preparing for the fall hawk migration.
The big weekend, at least for human beings, is Sept. 19-21.
Featured speakers will include Dave Benson, speaking on the subject of his new book, "Owls of the North"; and Christopher J. Farmer, the North American monitoring coordinator at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Kempton, Pa.
Of course, the real stars of the show will be the hawks.
You can get all the information, and even register online, at the Hawk Ridge Web  site.  There's a link to the right of this blog.


Posted by: John Lundy on 8/1/2008 at 11:16 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink