Top Photo: Male catkins of hazel alder are in bloom and spreading their pollen. February is the time for alder to reproduce. The yellow-green male catkins fertilize the red female flowers via airborne pollen. This stand of alder is on the north side of the museum’s wetlands. Most woodpeckers make a living pounding their heads, via their long pointed bills, against wood. The activity is multi functional. They could be excavating a nest hole in spring, a winter roost, drummingRead more
Posts tagged: #woodpecker
Spring Is In The Air
Top Photo: Canada geese are back. It’s not officially spring, but signs of its arrival are peeking through. Canada geese usually show up in February. With them comes the first signs of spring. The geese are here to attempt a nest. This has become a popular place for our state’s non-migratory, local breeding Canada geese. Many local birds were out and about showing off spring behavior, like the downy woodpecker below. This male was drumming on a much too thinRead more
More Quick Pics
Top Photo: Amur maple seeds. It’s a warm day in February, just the weather for strolling around campus. Here’s a mere handful of what you might see while you’re out there this week. There’s much more out there than this small sample of goodies suggests. So what are you waiting for, get out and have a look around!Read more
Frontal Arrivals
Top Photo: Yellow-bellied sapsucker. November 11, was overcast and cool, weather conducive to photography with saturated colors and no harsh light. A front moved through the area bringing in migrating birds. Here are images of just a few of what I saw that day. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers arrived earlier in the month, in fact the previous month, but it seemed additional sapsuckers rode in on the front. Hermit thrushes, like the sapsucker, have been in place here at the museum forRead more
A Dropped Feather
Top Photo: What bird’s feather? I found the feather (above) on the path, not far from the Dinosaur Trail. I knew it was a primary feather, one of the last primaries, furthest out on the wing. The outer primaries tend to be long and narrow in comparison to the inner primaries and secondaries. This feather was about 87 mm long. A primary feather that long would probably belong to a bird about the same size of a robin, or aRead more
It’s All About Procreation
Top Photo: Fledgling eastern phoebes huddle together as they await feeding from parent. Spring keeps chugging along, and with it the lives of many different creatures. Below are photos of some of our local residents rolling with the flow. A nestling blue-gray gnatcatcher waits for one of its parents to deliver protein. The lichen covered nest is in a maple tree on an island in our parking lot. It was spotted by sharp-eyed Ranger Dakota. Unlike gnatcatchers, brown-headed nuthatches nestRead more
How Many Holes Would a Woodpecker Peck
Top Photo: Wood chips expelled from under-construction hole in willow. I first noticed the wood chips scattered about on the ground. I then heard the unmistakable sound of a wood-pecking bird hard at work, rap, tap, tap…rap, tap, tap. Could it be a woodpecker? a nuthatch? At first, I couldn’t see what was rapping and tapping away above me, that is, until the noisemaker stuck its head out of a hole twenty feet up in a willow snag on theRead more
Creepers
Top Photo: Brown creeper from (February 2015). Though they’re members of different families, brown creepers are often depicted in bird field guides on the same page as are the nuthatches. Let’s face it, their behavior is similar. While nuthatches, especially white-breasted nuthatches, work their way down tree limbs and trunks in search of insects and their larvae and eggs, creepers climb up and out on trunks and limbs doing pretty much the same thing. They’re gleaning food from under barkRead more
The Hermit and The Hole
Top Photo: Hermit thrush perches on vine in Explore the Wild. There are three thrushes which regularly spend the winter at the museum, eastern bluebird, American robin, and hermit thrush. All are migratory to some extent, though our local robins and bluebirds stay put. Only one is exclusively a winter visitor. Hermit thrushes arrive in our area late September to October. By the middle of May they’re gone. Mostly insectivorous, they consume many berries during the colder, insect deficient winterRead more