Crex Meadows

My father and I drove up to Crex Meadows this past Friday on a bit of a whim. It's a pretty slow time of year for birds right now, but we wanted to get out. Well it ended up not amounting to much, I never even took a photo. We did see 3 Northern Shrikes, and 4 Rough-legged Hawks. The part that was so strange to me (and my father) was that there was a so little wildlife activity. We never saw a Chickadee, no deer, not even a squirrel. It was just weird. Anyway, it was nice to get out, even though we didn't get to see much. I hope you have all had good holidays.

Carlos Avery Continued . . .

There were a lot of Common Redpolls flitting about yesterday, but I never really got a good shot of an individual bird. So here is a flock shot that I thought was probably the best shot of these birds for the day. Next time, hopefully I'll be in a better position to take a nicer shot.

Common Redpolls:

This Morning at Carlos Avery WMA

Well, I finally got out to do a little birding this morning. My Father and I headed up to Carlos Avery for a couple of hours and had a pretty good day. We spotted a Great Horned Owl (no photos though), a Pileated Woodpecker, a number of Pheasant, a flock of about 35 Common Redpolls, and 2 Northern Shrike. Overall, I would say it was a pretty good day for only a couple of hours looking.

Here's the Northern Shrike:


... and a shot of his wing ...


I'll post a picture or two of the Redpolls in the next couple of days, once I get through all the photos. Hope you enjoy!

Filling the feeders . . .

The last few times that I have filled my bird feeders I have had the Chickadees fly in so close to me it has actually surprised me. In fact, last week while filling my largest feeder, a Chickadee came in and landed on the feeder (about 6 inches from my hand) as I was lifting it back up to hang it. So this week I brought out a point-and-shoot camera to snap a picture of the birds while I was filling the feeders. The 2 birds are about 2-3 feet from me when I took this shot. Not a terribly great shot, but still fun!

Black-capped Chickadees:

Winter Snow

We've had a bit of snow over the last week or so and the birds have been really active at the feeders. We are consistently getting about 12-14 Goldfinch, 1 Red-breasted Nuthatch, 2 White-breasted Nuthatch, and a number of woodpeckers. We've also had a number of Juncos move in as well. I've taken some photos, but with the conditions being what they are I haven't really had much success. Here you can see the blowing snow:

Goldfinches in Winter Plumage: