Penelopedia: This & That in Northfield

Around this time last year, when we were deep in snow, I wrote twice about the female cardinal / the beauty of the female cardinal and once about a pair of cardinals at our feeder.

Female cardinal, February 2011
This year, of course, we have had such a mild, dry winter that unless we get some big storms we're likely to be completely snow-free within a few weeks (one good warm day would probably do it, around where we live). But the cardinals are still here and still beautiful, even if they don't look quite so stunning without a blanket of white behind them.

Male and female cardinals, January 2011 I noted last year that the male is not friendly to the female until the spring breeding season arrives, at which point he stops chasing her away and starts offering her food. In the photo above, taken last January, it's unclear whether he was tolerating her or whether the divided feeding area kept him from being aware she was so close.

The same day I was collecting brief video clips of the birds at the feeders, I also took some stills in rapid-fire mode to see what I might capture. Here is a sequence of house finches at the tube feeder. I love the house finch in flight below. Click on any of the photos to see them larger.

Incoming!


Caught them both with their mouths full

Here is a little video I made of some of the action at our feeders this morning, with a blue jay, a downy woodpecker and some house finches.

My life owl score:

• May 1959 to December 2011: no owls seen in the wild. Not a one, as far as I am aware.
• January 2012: Three owls (individuals and species) seen so far.

Go figure.

One trick is: go where the owls are, when the owls are. Hmmmm. Very smart.

Three weekends ago we went to the airport in search of a snowy owl that had been reported there. And there it was, with a group of birders with binoculars and spotting scopes all pointing at it. (I forgot to take my camera. Rats.)

Two weekends ago on one of those nice mild days, we went for a walk near the pine plantation in the Carleton arboretum, hoping to see a great horned owl that a couple of people had spotted there in the day or two previously, and one flew out of the trees right over our heads. (I had my camera, but didn't have time to do anything with it as the owl suddenly appeared.)

This evening, an "owl hearing walk" led by two of the arboretum student naturalists was publicized, and about 22 people showed up for it, mostly students. They told us they couldn't promise any owls, but they would take us to some likely areas. Before setting off they played sound clips of the calls of the owls we had some chance of hearing, and we were shown photos of the owls as well.


 Well, off we marched, in two straight lines just like the little girls in the book Madeline, because we were staying clear of the groomed cross-country ski trails down the the middle of the path.


Our guides took us to the floodplain alongside the Cannon River, where some of the larger and older trees in the arb are found. And there, before long, we came abruptly to a halt, because there was a barred owl 20 or 30 feet off the ground in a tree right next to the trail.


 Back at the orientation talk before we set out, we learned that a quick way to tell whether you are looking at a barred owl is to look for very dark eyes (it's the only owl around here with dark eyes) and a yellowish beak. Yep, a barred owl is what it was.


And there you have it. Owl species #3 for the month, and the year, and my life. And the very first owl I have photographed. It posed nicely, didn't it?

After a short time it flew to a tree a few dozen yards further from the trail, and we stood and watched it as best we could for a while. We didn't see or hear any other owls on the walk, but that one great sighting was well worth the rather vigorous outing -- except for that one long pause and a couple of brief ones, we walked very briskly indeed over variable terrain in increasing darkness for considerably more than an hour. Thanks to Carleton senior Emma, who kept me company as I straggled at the end of the line for the last 20 minutes or so of the walk.

Then I went home and fixed myself some nice hot mulled wine.

Thanks, Jared and Owen, for leading the outing and teaching us some things about owls. Here is some more good information about looking for owls in this area, from the Carleton naturalists.

Just east of Northfield, returning from a walk in the northern leg of the Arb (where we had hoped with luck to spot a great horned owl, and in fact one flew over our heads without warning), we saw a large, swirling flock of birds over a field. They proved to be mallards. They landed in the corn stubble, but soon took to the air again. Soon afterward, skein after skein of geese flew eastward away from a stunning sunset behind them. Who knew there were so many geese and ducks spending the winter here?


Mallards over fields at sunset
Mallards - close to 150 in this crop alone Carleton College Chapel with geese Carleton College at sunset

The colder temperatures lately have increased the activity at some of our feeders, and yesterday as light snow fell I was happy to see this red-breasted nuthatch make a number of visits to the peanut and sunflower seed feeders. I haven't seen one too often this winter. So cute.

I wrote three posts about nuthatches (red-breasted and white-breasted) at around this time last year: January 2, January 18, and January 23.