Gray Jay

Gray Jays also fed on the peanut butter plastered about the Admiral Road bird feeders in the Sax-Zim Bog. These jays thrive in the bitter cold of Northern Minnesota. They are known as Camp Robbers, because of their fearless raids on anything edible. They hoard food under tree bark, gluing it in place with their sticky saliva. Gray Jays breed in late winter. Eggs are incubated at temperatures as low as -30 degrees. Second broods are not attempted in warmer weather. Gray Jays may be declining at the southern edge of their range as a result of global warming (Strickland and Ouellet 2011).

Red-breasted Nuthatch

We raced up to Duluth on 2 January on our successsful quest for the Ivory Gull and Great Grey Owl. We saw few other birds. In my post on the gull, I mentioned that birders fed the bird salmon filets. I wondered if this was different from attracting passerines at a bird-feeder.  Duluth birders have established a few feeders throughout the Sax-Zim bog. The feeders attracted most of the birds we listed.

We were a bit taken aback by the dozen cars of birders parked at a feeder on Admiral Road. The esthetics of the situation were further marred by the birders’ standing around the feeder and outside of their cars. A few birds ignored the birders—Black-capped Chickadees, Gray Jays, and this Red-breasted Nuthatch. A woman spread peanut butter on every available surface—on tree trunks, branches, and even on weeds.  The nuthatch did not seem to mind. The bird took the peanut butter directly from her out-stretched hand.

American Coot

Along with the Lyman Lake New Year’s Day Hooded Merganser, I found this American Coot. Coots are North America’s most abundant and widely distributed rail. This species enjoys a wide range of habitat—“including freshwater lakes, ponds, marshes, roadside ditches, and industrial-waste impoundments, as well as in coastal marine” areas (Brisbin et al. 2002). In the winter, they are often found in large flocks. Coots are herbivores. This coot was pulling up and eating aquatic vegetation. They usually forage under water, but also eat grains, grasses and crops on land.

I am surprised at this coot’s color. I usually think of these birds as being black or flat-gray. This individual is practically iridescent.

Hooded Merganser

My 2016 bird list began with this male Hooded Merganser in Carleton College’s Lyman Lake. It swam among hundreds of geese and mallards. With the advent of minus zero temperatures, the waterfall have disappeared and the lake is frozen over.

Hooded Mergansers is our smallest merganser. They are also our only merganser found only in the New World. Unlike other mergansers, the Hooded has a diverse diet—not just fish, but also aquatic insects and crustaceans (Dugger et al. 2009). Behaviorally and taxonomically, Hooded Mergansers are intermediate between the other mergansers and goldeneyes.

Eastern Forktail

On 31 May 2015, I drove over to nearby Circle Lake. My goal was Eastern Forktails. Despite these damselflies’ being abundant in Rice County, I lacked decent photographs. I discovered my quarry. Forktails were thick along the roadsides. Beatonwrites that all ages of Eastern Forktails perch low on vegetation around the edges of ponds and lakes. This first photo shows what I assumed to be a male Eastern Forktail. Note the double, azure notches along the edge of the end of its abdomen. Note also the green sides of thorax. 

This damselfly acted oddly. It raised its abdomen and then curled it below its wings. This behavior is described by Paulsonfor female Eastern Forktails’ attempting to discourage males after the females have mated. Most females mate only once, after which they repel all other dragonflies. What I presumed to be a male may be an andromorph female. 

On the other hand, these photos may show some sort of maintenance behavior, allowing the damsel to clean his wings and abdomen. The sides of the thorax seem to be too bright for an andromorph. Usually andromorphs show pale, greenish-blue thorax sides (Lam). Scott King assures me this is, in fact, a male Eastern Forktail transferring sperm from his abdomen tip. Males store their sperm in a pouch under their thorax. Later, females attach to the pouch to fertilize their eggs.

Among the male forktails, I found a few reddish, immature females. These forms are harder to identify than the males. Note the thin black thoracic stripe and the black abdomen tip. Finally I encountered a few adult females. These damsels become quite pruinose (the blueish color covering its body). Identification marks include the complete blue thoracic stripes and the dark color on the upper half of the eye. Females are more likely than males to feed on other damselflies (Paulson).

Lazuli Bunting

The last bird of our July adventure was this Lazuli Bunting at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We found this western edition of the eastern Indigo Bunting by following its call. This species calls throughout the breeding season. At first, young males copy the songs of their neighbors. After a while, the males may come up with new syllables, either completely novel, or combinations of several other birds. Occasionally they steal complete songs of an older male. The result is often “song neighborhoods,” in which the songs of local males are similar (Greene et al. 2014).

Lark Sparrow

Lark Sparrows are another common bird in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. In a previous post, I described the odd, turkey-like strutting by male Lark Sparrows. I did not mention their odd behavior of passing a twig from the male to the female during copulation. Pairs often use other species’ abandoned nests (Martin and Parrish 2000). This sparrow is common in most parts of their western North American range. They barely reach southern Canada and they winter in Mexico and in the Southwest. They thrive in disturbed areas, like in heavily grazed or fallow fields. We saw it in North Dakota last July.

Great Gray Owl

Since moving to Minnesota ten years ago, Erika and I made annual, unsuccessful searches in the Sax-Zim Bog about 40 miles northwest of Duluth. This year’s quest, on our way home from Duluth, appeared to be no exception. We saw few birds and the roads were surrealistically crowded with slow-driving birders. Then, on Owl Ave., a quarter-mile ahead of us, we watched a car make a U-turn and park in the middle of the road. We pulled in behind, and, voila, there sat a Great Gray Owl!

Great Gray Owls inhabit boreal forests and bogs across Canada and south through the Rocky Mountains. They are also found in similar habitats across the Old World. Northern Minnesota is one of the few places in the eastern United States where they breed. In some winters, when prey is scarce, these owls wander further south.

Great Grays look massive, but are mostly feathers, which help during our bitterly cold winters. They are 15% smaller than Great Horned Owls (Bull and Duncan 1993). Great Gray Owls have exceptional hearing. They use their facial disks as parabolic reflectors and can locate voles beneath the snow. One way to know owls are present is to watch for “snow angels” left as the owl crashes through the snow. Notice the exposed ears behind the flying owl’s facial disk

Ivory Gull

On New Year’s Day, an Ivory Gull was reported from Duluth’s Canal Park. Ivory Gulls are circumpolar, almost never seen away from arctic pack ice. Their breeding colonies are widely scattered around the globe. Even in winter this bird rarely ventures south of the Bering Sea or waters off Greenland. This bird’s genus, Pagophila, means “frost-lover.” Erika and I drove the 180 miles to Duluth and spent the next two days looking at the gull and continuing our ten-year search for a Great Gray Owl. We did not have to search for the gull. About 50 birders stood on the ice-covered shore of Canal Park peering at a distant Ivory Gull.

This sighting was fairly unimpressive until the gull flew over and circled the birders. The bird was easily recognized by its small size and buoyant flight. An adult Ivory Gull is pure white. This individual’s black spots and black face indicate that it is a first-winter bird.  

The next morning (2 January) we returned to Canal Park. Almost immediately the Ivory Gull flew in and landed a few feet in front of us. By this time, birders were leaving salmon fillets to attract the bird. (I suppose leaving salmon is not fundamentally different from feeding bird seed to songbirds.) Ivory Gulls are aggressive scavengers. Our bird had no trouble competing with other, larger gulls vying for the salmon.

Ivory Gulls breed in scattered arctic breeding colonies. The total population is estimated to be between 16,000 and 28,000 individuals (Caddy on MOU listerv). Caddy also reports that Canadian populations are rapidly declining. This species, with its almost complete reliance on arctic ice,  is undoubtedly threatened by global warming.

2015 Banding

I felt that 2015 was a poor banding year. Several factors contributed to this conclusion. Erika and I made two extended trips away from Minnesota. Bird populations at my Dundas banding site appeared to be way down. Many days I caught nothing. On the other hand, the fall saw large numbers of Tennessee and Nashville warblers

I banded 894 individuals comprising 62 species. In Northfield, I banded 710 birds. Near Dundas I ringed 160 individuals. I caught 24 other birds at either River Bend Nature Center or Big Woods State Park. I added no new species to the birds-banded list.

My top ten species banded were:

111 Yellow-rumped Warbler 

106 American Robin

90 Tennessee Warbler

71 American Goldfinch

69 Nashville Warbler

47 Hermit Thrush

41 Swainson’s Thrush

39 Black-capped Chickadee

32 Pine Siskin

28 White-throated Sparrow

Species with only one capture were Brown Thrasher, Cooper’s Hawk, Eastern Bluebird, Field Sparrow, House Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Northern Parula, Purple Finch, Red-eyed Vireo, and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. 

The photograph on this post is of a first-year American Goldfinch.