Why I'm a Birder: Loving the Places They've Brought Me

I've finally been reading The Big Year by Mark Obmascik. It's the story of three obsessive birders and their race to see the most species in North America in a year. The book inspired the Steve Martin/Jack Black/Owen Wilson film of the same name.

Early in the book the author describes one of the competitors, wealthy businessman Al Levantin, who kicks off his Big Year spotting mountain birds from skis in his home base of Aspen:

"That was the thing with Levantin: he loved the birds, but he really loved the places they brought him. When you spend your career in the confines of a gray suit, the pipits at dawn above timberline are even more wondrous. He lived to be in the field."

That rang so true for me that it practically leapt from the page, shimmering in gold.

~~~ He loved the birds, but he really loved the places they brought him. ~~~

I don't mean exotic new locations, though maybe someday birding will take me to some of those. I mean that my growing interest in birds has gently led me into the natural world, as well as into places that might also be described as states of mind: the wondrousness of the pipits at dawn.

What are some places birding has taken me?

Outdoors.
Woods. Prairie. Trails. Ponds. Riverbanks.

The frozen Missisippi in winter, looking for bald eagles.
The first ice-free pond that hosts migrating ducks in the spring.
The Christmas Bird Count, spent driving slowly along rural roads looking for every single bird we can spot.

Barely leafed-out woods in May, looking and listening for warblers.
A driving trip up the Northern California coast: oystercatchers and thousands of marbled godwits.
A hilly hike in a Bay Area wilderness area, in search of golden eagles.
Sewage ponds. Yes, sewage ponds.

REI.
Good hiking shoes. Caps that shade the eyes. Quick-dry trousers with zip-off legs.
The idea that it's okay to invest modestly in some gear for what makes you happy.
Tentative experimentation with snowshoes.

Photography.
A better camera.
A huge proportion of this blog.

The Carleton Arboretum and River Bend Nature Center in all seasons.
The Minnesota Master Naturalist Class.
The Pothole and Prairie Birding Festival in North Dakota.
Plans to witness the sandhill crane migration in Nebraska this spring.

Listening. Looking. Scanning the sky or a body of water. Intently gazing into trees or shrubs.
And, at last, a new comfort being alone in a natural area. A sense of freedom and empowerment.

   

Let me say more about that last thing, because it's one of the biggies.

I lived mostly in large cities until moving to Northfield almost 25 years ago. I knew people who went hiking and backpacking and camping, and in fact my high school was quite into such things, but I didn't ever get much experience with those activities outside of organized groups, and though I admired people who did them, they didn't really call to me.

Also, in the city or outside it, I was always aware that danger might lurk in the bushes. And, terribly, there were reports of murdered hikers reinforcing the point.

Even when I got to this safe small town, my city instincts followed me. Maybe I didn't still carry my keys pointing out between my fingers when walking to my car at night, but a woman (especially a small, not particularly athletic woman) alone in a park or the woods or on a hiking trail was vulnerable. You didn't put yourself into that situation. At least, that's how it continued to feel to me.

Until I had enough reason to want to. And that's what the birds gave me.

It's taken me a long time to realize what I'd missed -- that sense of freedom and empowerment that I mentioned above -- and birding is what finally got me there. But it's not all about the birds anymore. Being out in the natural world has become intrinsically rewarding in a way it really wasn't for me, before.

I still don't feel called to feats of solo distance hiking like Cheryl Strayed, or my sister-in-law Bethany who hiked the John Muir Trail solo in 2012. One of the things I've always said I like about birding is it gets you outside without having to be too strenuous about it.

But an early morning hour or so wandering by myself in the Arb, River Bend, or other natural areas nearby, entirely at my own pace, choosing my route, camera and binoculars ready for whatever I may discover ... bliss.

Thank you, birds.

Amazing Nature Photos

Some amazing photos -- winners of the 2011 National Wildlife Photo Competition. Enjoy!

Gasping -- and Feeling Lucky (Still)

Mourning Cloak: photo by Richard of "At the Water"

A post about the mourning cloak butterfly on my friend Richard's At the Water blog today reminded me of one I'd written just about four years ago, in the early days of Penelopedia. It still sums up my views on noticing and appreciating the natural world around us, and my great pleasure that my 11-year-old son seems to share some of this appreciation, so I am re-posting it today (thanks, Richard!).

Gasping -- and Feeling Lucky

My quote of the week [I used to include a quote in my sidebar each week] is an excerpt from Barbara Kingsolver's 1995 collection of essays, High Tide in Tucson. Here it is:

Someone in my childhood gave me the impression that fiddleheads [a type of fern] and mourning cloaks [a type of butterfly] were rare and precious. Now I realize they are fairly ordinary members of eastern woodland fauna and flora, but I still feel lucky and even virtuous -- a gifted observer -- when I see them. For that matter, they probably are rare, in the scope of human experience. A great many people will live out their days without ever seeing such sights, or if they do, never gasping. My parents taught me this -- to gasp, and feel lucky. They gave me the gift of making mountains out of nature's exquisite molehills. ... My heart stops for a second, even now..., as Camille and I wait for the butterfly to light and fold its purple, gold-bordered wings. "That's a mourning cloak," I tell her. "It's very rare."

The gift Kingsolver was given and gives to her daughter in turn is one that I was also given by my mother. Not, perhaps, the gift exactly of gasping, but of being on the lookout -- noticing and appreciating the beauty and importance of a hawk circling high overhead, a heron at the edge of a pond, a purple Siberian iris, a pair of squirrels in a backyard tree. It was she who, after I'd had an unnerving encounter with bats in my first Northfield basement, said, "But Pen, bats are interesting!" It was she who, having lived for several years where I was born, near a game reserve outside Nairobi, Kenya, agonized over the threats to the survival of the great wild animals of Africa and the prospect that one day they might be no more.

It is because of my mother that I scan the sky for raptors, pay attention to birds while I'm supposed to be paying attention to my tennis game, and at least now and then take my son (and my daughters in their day) to look for turtles and hawk feathers and creeks and footprints and berries in the woods. I hope, even though they may seem baffled by some of these passions (and perhaps more than a bit alarmed by my propensity for bird-watching at 70 mph on the interstate), I have planted seeds in them that will send down deepening roots and grow throughout their lives, enabling them to marvel at the beauties and complexities of nature and know that, no matter how seemingly commonplace their manifestations, they are very rare indeed.

Squirrel-proof Feeder? Hah.

This supposedly squirrel-proof set-up is far from that when there is more than a foot of snow on the ground. I missed getting a shot of this squirrel moments earlier, straddling the gap with one hind foot on the cone and one on the bottom of the tube feeder.

Intrepid Squirrel

A brave squirrel came face-to-face with our cats today, albeit with a pane of glass between them. He spent several minutes looking through our front window, in between athletic feats that enabled him to snack for a while at both of our birdfeeders.

What had been a supposedly squirrel-proof feeder set-up proved no match for Stalwart Squirrel, now that we have more than a foot of snow on the ground and a handy ornamental deer for a launching pad. We had some amusing sights of him sliding down the pole and slipping off the squirrel-cone, but I expect it was no laughing matter for a hungry squirrel. I certainly don't mind sharing the bird food under these conditions.

Prairie and Sky

Here are more photos from the St. Olaf college natural lands taken Saturday morning. The St. Olaf wind turbine dominates the landscape if you're looking anywhere in its general direction. The two wind turbines in Northfield, one here at St. Olaf and the other owned by Carleton College but standing on land slightly east of town, have come to be iconic symbols of this small city.

The tall prairie grasses (I believe Big Bluestem is what we're seeing here) bent and swayed in the breeze.

Light purple wildflowers in the aster family and goldenrod were common, as well as plenty of other plants I can't identify, like the greenish spikes below.

Can anyone tell me what these huge spikes are? They must have been close to ten feet tall. I have seen similar things on a much smaller scale, but have no idea what they might be.

Birding Bloggers' Outing

On Saturday a group of birding and nature bloggers got together for a day of relaxed birdwatching and socializing. Wearing buttons that said "Birders who Blog, Tweet and Chirp," we spent the morning in the vicinity of Lowry Nature Center at Carver Park Reserve in Victoria, MN; lunched at Victoria House; spent the afternoon at Hyland Park Reserve in Bloomington; then met up with some other regular birding socializers for Birds and Beers at Merlin's Rest on E. Lake Street in Minneapolis.

The outing was inspired by the fact that Dawn and Jeff of Dawn's Bloggy Blog were traveling through the area. Dawn had been in on a couple of earlier "BwBTC" outings on the east coast, and our local bloggers were delighted to have an excuse to do the same. Lynne of Hasty Brook (in the foreground of the second photo) organized the day's schedule and locations, and brought coffee and treats to our morning rendezvous spot.

Other participants besides my husband Dave included Richard of At the Water, Mike and Lizette of Mike and Lizette's Travels and Thoughts, Virginia of Bees in the City (who tweeted the outing with hashtag #bbtc throughout the day), Ruthie of Nature Knitter, Sharon of Hellziggy (the bearer of the most massive camera lens I have ever seen), and birding-mentor-to-many Hap of New Hope (as he signs his insightful comments to our blogs). I've linked to these folks' blogs; several of them are also on Twitter and/or Chirptracker (a Twitter-like mini-blogging service for birdwatchers). This was the first time most of us had ever met in person.

Also, Roger of Minnesota Birdnerd (speaking at the center of the photo at left) was with us on and off throughout the day; he was doing bird banding at the Lowry Nature Center in the morning, told us great stories about banding and bird migration, popped in at lunch, and turned up again at Birds and Beers, where we had a interesting conversation about chimney swifts. The Birds and Beers group ended up splitting into two tables because of the size of the group, so we didn't get to interact too much with some of the regulars from that bunch.

These people were so nice! One of the best moments of the day was sitting around a picnic table before heading off to Birds and Beers, laughing about how nice it is to be with other people who get it - who don't bat an eye if you break off in the middle of a sentence because you just spotted something interesting; who find nature endlessly fascinating.

I didn't get any photos I'd consider really outstanding, but the bird photo on the left was a surprise. A volunteer from the Lowry Nature Center was holding a merlin outside under some trees. The lighting wasn't very good, but I tried taking some shots through the spotting scope. I forgot to turn off the flash (we were too far away for it to do any good), so the camera misgauged the lighting required and the initial photo was nearly black. I adjusted the fill light in Picasa and up came this extraordinary merlin head. It's not how you would expect a photo taken in daylight to look, but it's a keeper, in my book.

We spent about an hour along the edge of the pond shown in the photo with everyone on the dock. We saw families of wood ducks, hooded mergansers, and painted turtles, as well as a green heron, belted kingfishers, barn swallows, goldfinches in the thistles, a tiger swallowtail butterfly, black and white dragonflies (or something dragonfly-related), discarded dragonfly larvae exoskeletons, and more.

Further along a wooded trail, we saw a tiny green tree frog, which Virginia had no squeamishness about picking up. We noticed it seemed to have no right eye - there wasn't even a bulge there.

Click on any of the photos for a larger view, and visit my Picasa album for more photos of the day. I hope my photos aren't too out of alignment here; since there were so many I left-aligned them and tried to keep text running to the right, but my "preview" mode doesn't always match the final view on various browsers, so let me know if anything looks really out of whack.

It was great to meet everyone, and we agreed that this should become a regular event in our region. Let me know if you'd like to join us next time!

Tall Grasses on a Perfect Evening

Tuesday night was a perfect evening here in southern Minnesota. We were walking around some local ponds looking for the green herons we'd photographed a couple of days earlier in dimmer light, hoping for a shot at some better pictures. The sun shone low and golden on the wildflowers and tall grasses. It was pleasantly warm, with a light breeze. Barn swallows were skimming the surface of the water and darting over the nearby rooftops. Goldfinches were flying here and there in their undulating way and pausing to snack in an area of tall thistles. An occasional killdeer was standing or running along the mudflats at the edge of the drought-lowered ponds. We saw what we think were a mother and juvenile wood duck in a grassy channel through a sea of cattails. A green heron flew into the cattails, but none made themselves available to photograph. Butterflies flitted. We heard the shouts and laughter of children playing. There were no mosquitoes. It was, simply, perfect.

To see more skies from around the world, visit Skywatch Friday.

Cannon River Wilderness Area

We made a quick outing to the west branch of the Cannon River Wilderness Area late this afternoon. I love this old bridge that arches high over the Cannon.

It is almost literally a bridge to nowhere. There is a lone camping site on the far side, and the established trail seems to peter out into, at best, thin paths through the greenery to who knows where. I guess this is why they call it a wilderness area.

The view above is from the bridge looking upstream (southwest-ish at this point, I believe). Last time we were here, probably 2-3 years ago, we saw a magnificent great blue heron fishing from the right side of the river here. Today we were on the lookout for herons and kingfishers, but saw neither. (On the wooded path away from the river, we did see and hear an eastern wood-pewee and a white-breasted nuthatch, and near the parking area we saw a great crested flycatcher, with its yellow belly and rusty tail, flitting about.)

This is the more closed-in view facing downstream. It was very quiet and peaceful as we stood and leaned on the wooden railing. We heard an occasional crow cawing or insect buzzing, but very little else.

Looking straight down, the water was light brown but clear, and we were commenting on the lack of visible fish when this quite large (10-14"?) specimen swam into view, traveling downstream. I've enhanced the contrast on this photo and am quite pleased with the effect. I don't know what kind of fish it was, but it had a noticeably reddish tail.

Raspberry Season

It seemed everyone was blogging or Facebooking about all the black raspberries they'd picked in the Arb this weekend, so this evening Dave and I went for a stroll to see if there were any left for us. There were! In a leisurely 30 minutes in the lower Arb we picked this small bowlful of beautiful, sturdy black berries (there are a few here that probably shouldn't be, as they are still red). They are much smaller than the commercial raspberries from Silkey Farms I bought at the co-op yesterday, and much less fragile. We will eat them with ice cream. Yum.

By the way, this photo is pretty cool if you click on it to see the large version. The close-up view of the dark, shiny berries and the white bowl is striking.

Mushrooms in the Grass

Several years ago we took out a struggling, weak-branched tree that was too closely surrounded by two other large trees. Doing so has certainly created healthier conditions for the trees on either side of it. We recently noticed that the removed tree has left a legacy in the soil: a crop of mushrooms thriving on the decaying root structure after the stump was ground up. As mushrooms frequently seem to do, they sprang up seemingly overnight, disappeared again to all appearances, and reappeared.

Unless these are two different kinds of mushroom, it appears that the tops are almost flat and white with an oyster-like wavy edge when newly emerged and then undergo a separation and furling-up so that the dark brown undersides are exposed in a pattern like flower petals or fat asterisks.

I know very little about identifying fungi, so I'm certainly not going to try to eat these. Here's a visual identification guide to mushrooms, but I understand it can take careful examination to be sure of an identification except in some more obvious cases. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I will have an opinion about what type these are.

Cottonwood Snow, Part II

After the cold spell over the weekend - three days where the thermometer didn't crack 60 degrees, the longest June cold snap in the Twin Cities area since 1951, according to news media - the cottonwoods went back into production with a vengeance the last few days. Above is a birdbath sitting on my deck; below is part of my backyard, all bespeckled with cottonwood seed tufts. One bunch of fluff collected in front of my garage, and when I walked past it it swirled up like a tornado. Quite remarkable!

Cottonwood Snow

It's early June, so 'tis the season when the cottonwood trees release their seeds in cottony tufts that waft around in the air, befuzz your dog's water dish, and in some areas accumulate like an early snowfall on the green grass. This scene is on 9th Street, between Water and Division, earlier today.

The cottonwood (Populus deltoides var. occidentalis) is a large tree of the poplar family that likes sun but also likes moist soil. A cluster of them out in the countryside often signifies a water source nearby.

You can clearly see the individual seeds in the layer of fine white fluff above and, closer-up, below. (Click on the photos for much more detail.)

A Day of May Birding - CRWA and Carleton Arb

Click on the photos to see much more detail.

We took the day off today to seek out migratory songbirds in the eastern reaches of the Cannon River Wilderness Area. Wildflowers were in evidence everywhere, and the trees were alive with the calls and songs of birds we could usually see only for a second or two at a time, if at all, as they flitted among the newly leafy (and luckily some not yet so leafy) branches. We soon realized that American redstarts were all around us. This strikingly colored member of the warbler family is a darkish gray with bright orange patches on the wings and tail. They live in Minnesota year-round.


As we walked through dappled woodland, we either heard or caught quick glimpses of indigo bunting, catbird, blue jay, Nashville warbler, yellow warbler, yellow-rumped warbler, house wren, common yellowthroat, and eastern wood-peewee. Several of these are just migrating through our area on their way to breeding grounds farther north.


The trail leads eventually to a savannah area open to the sky. This is a favorite area of mine, which at the top of the rise has a wide but secluded view and is a great place to watch turkey vultures and hawks ride the thermals over the surrounding hills. We were surprised to find evidence that quite an extensive area had been burned since our last visit. Mature trees did not seem to have been much damaged, but the low growth had clearly been burned out and was experiencing regeneration.


Up in this more open environment, we saw American goldfinches, brownheaded cowbirds, wood thrush, hermit thrush, a couple of ruby-throated hummingbirds, turkey vultures. and another unidentified soaring raptor.


These pink-tinted blossoms covered a small tree along the path. I think it is a kind of crab apple, but it might be a member of the plum family.

After a lunch break and some downtime, we headed over to the Upper Arb at Carleton to see what else we could see. Things were relatively quiet; we were there before the birds got active for their late-afternoon feeding time. The highlight of that visit was a giant oak delightfully populated with quite a flock of cedar waxwings. While I had one in view through the binoculars, another approached it and a moment later they appeared to be kissing. My resident bird expert tells me that this is food presentation by the male to the female, part of the courtship ritual that presumably demonstrates his willingness and ability to provide. Anyway, it was a charming moment and I felt lucky to have had the chance to see it.

We also saw several jewel-like tree swallows, their irridescent wings shining metallic blue in the sunlight, on or near nesting boxes that have been built in some of the young restored savannah areas, and finally we saw the other resident of those boxes we had been watching for: an eastern bluebird, our first of the season. The bluebird is a member of the thrush family; together with the two thrushes we had seen at the CRWA, a Swainson's thrush seen on our neighbor's lawn this morning, and the ever-present American robin, that made it a five-thrush day.


After we'd been back home for an hour or so, we were amused to discover an even larger congregation of the gorgeous cedar waxwings in two large just-leafing-out trees adjacent to our house. The photo above is one of the best I was able to get, since the birds don't stay still long.