Hordes of Boxelder Bugs - Oh My! (Updated)

(See update at the end of this post.)

As I drove into the garage after work this evening, some dark areas under the picture window at the front of our house caught my eye. I couldn't think what they could be -- from a distance I wondered if some dark ivy was suddenly growing up the brickwork. When I approached, I could hardly believe what I was seeing: thousands, surely, thousands of boxelder bugs. Take a look.

We routinely do get clusters of boxelder bugs on our south-facing house, especially on sunny fall days following a cold spell. I've taken photos and written about them before: in October 2007 and in October 2009. I've never seen swarms anything like what I saw today, and certainly never such huge swarms in the spring. This is such an odd season -- today, a rainy day in the 50s, would normally be a warm day for the second week of March. Instead, it was a relatively cool day in a string of days in the 60s and projected to reach 70 later this week. No wonder the insects are behaving strangely.  Maybe we'll have frogs and locusts next.

Here's a short video clip of this extraordinary sight.



Update, March 14: At about 10:30 yesterday morning when I stopped at home briefly, the large clusters were still there, looking very much as they did above. However, the sun was shining fully on the bugs in the left-most clump and there was a lot of activity, with bugs crawling over each other predominantly in a downward direction toward the ground. The clusters that were still shaded were completely still. When I returned at around 5:00 the clusters had completely dispersed. There were still some bugs here and there on the front of the house, but there were no longer any clusters.

Swan on Northfield Pond

I stopped by the Superior Drive pond around midday today and was greeted by a fantastic new arrival: a lone swan, surrounded by ring-necked ducks. This was my first sighting of a swan on this pond.

Telling tundra swans from trumpeter swans is tricky, but based on guidance from the Sibley Guides website, I think this is a tundra swan. The narrow line of black connecting the black bill to the eye, and the U-shape of the line connecting one eye to the other, seem to confirm the identification; the connection is thicker and more V-shaped in the trumpeter swan.

I was pretty sure I'd been seeing a large group of lesser scaup at the pond during my previous visits, but certainly today they were ring-neckeds (the tall head with the strong angle at the back, and the very noticeable pale ring near the tip of the bill are key indicators).

Tundra swan with female ring-necked ducks

Ring-necked ducks (male)

We came back less than an hour later and saw the swan still there, but as I was pulling out my phone to alert a friend who lives nearby, it flew away. It's a good reminder that during migration (and really at any time) birds can come and go, so it doesn't hurt to check a good spot more than once a day if you have the chance. You never know what you might see.

Bald Eagle on Ice, 11 Herons and Many Ducks

We've been hearing amazing reports of ducks and geese at open water on Wells Lake, just west of Faribault, for the past week or two. Dave went down there on Thursday while I was at work, and estimates he saw 750 greater white-fronted geese, as well as many different kinds of ducks and some loons. So this morning we drove down there to see what we could see. There was a great deal more open water than there had been just two days earlier, so the waterfowl we saw were far more spread out and for the most part were many dozens of yards away from us.

Canvasbacks, scaup, redheads and pintails (click to see photo larger)

We saw a great variety of ducks, mostly of the diving category, and mostly at a considerable distance. We were able to get some shots through the spotting scope -- at least good enough to show the great variety present. I recommend either clicking on these photos or right-clicking to open them in a new tab in order to see the greatest detail:

• Common mergansers
• Hooded mergansers
• Redheads
• Canvasbacks
• Northern pintails
• Lesser scaup
• Ring-necked ducks
• Mallards
• Gadwall (at least one)
• Northern shovelers
• American coots (not technically ducks)
• Greater white-fronted geese flew overhead
• Canada geese

Scaup and pintails, mostly

American coots

But wait! There's more! Dozens of the ducks suddenly took to the air in apparent alarm, and we saw a bald eagle glide down and land on the ice. It stayed there for an extended time, during which we did not see it do anything other than stand and look around. These shots through the spotting scope turned out pretty well. I just use a point-and-shoot camera, with no manual focus, so getting it to focus properly on distant birds without good contrast to give the automated functions some assistance can be a real challenge. The high contrast of the eagle against the ice, as well as its size, helped these photos turn out about as well as I could have hoped for.

There was a steady wind blowing, and I like how you can see the wind ruffling the eagle's feathers in this next shot.

So that was exciting -- but wait! There's more! While scanning an area of shore where there were quite a few Canada geese, we realized that behind the geese was by far the largest group of great blue herons I've ever seen. We counted 11; I've never seen more than two or three in fairly close proximity before. There are nine in the photo below -- I've added some arrows to help show the three that were particularly well camouflaged; you'll probably need to click on the photo to see them properly. Dan Tallman posted about seeing 27 great blue herons on the ice at the same location on Wednesday, with a great photo of nine of them. Unbelievable.

Most of the lakes in the region are still ice-covered, but the ones that open up first due to a current provide amazing birdwatching in the early spring as migrating ducks pass through on their way to breeding grounds in the far north. Today the temperature reached the mid-60s F. and several more days of most unseasonably warm temperatures are predicted. If you have a body of water near you that's starting to have open water, check it out!

Prairie Partners/Wild Ones - Landscaping for Biodiversity

In the spirit of my recent post about gardening for wildlife, I'd like to share some information a birding friend passed along to me about Wild Ones, a national not-for-profit environmental education and advocacy organization that promotes environmentally sound landscaping practices to preserve biodiversity through the preservation, restoration and establishment of native plant communities. This is such an important endeavor, and one I am happy to help publicize.

The Northfield Prairie Partners chapter holds monthly meetings, typically on the second Thursday of the month, at the Northfield Public Library. There is a meeting tomorrow evening, March 8, at 6:30:

Creating Pollinator Habitats - Danielle Waldschmidt
Danielle is a conservation technician at Rice Soil and Water Conservation District. She has a BS of Environmental Sciences from the University of Minnesota. Bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies and some beetles pollinate more than 70% of flowering plants. Danielle will show us how we can help provide habitat for them in our yards and neighborhoods.

Topics covered in future months include Frogs and Toads, Woodland Wildflowers, and Butterflies and Their Gardens. I am excited to learn of this group's existence, and plan to start attending their events when I can.

In Minnesota there are five other chapters in addition to the Northfield one. There are also chapters in ten other states.

Spring Ducks Arriving

My favorite spring duck-watching pond south of Superior Drive in the southeast corner of Northfield was close to ice-free today, and I spotted at least 42 scaup, probably lesser scaup, there about an hour ago, along with five hooded mergansers and some mallards and Canada geese.

The scaup are a week ahead of last year's first sightings (and last year's sightings felt early in comparison with preceding years). With the mild, dry winter we've had this year, though, it's no surprise to have open water this early. I have been hearing many reports of migrating ducks and white-fronted geese down at Wells Lake in Faribault in the past week or two, including this week's blog post by Dan Tallman. Last year we saw several white-fronted geese on March 19 at the Superior Drive pond.

I wasn't close enough to get decent photos today, but this photo of a lesser scaup (I believe it's a lesser, anyway) is one I took last year. It's a handsome duck, isn't it, with its blue bill, golden eye, and striking sections of black and white?

Today I also saw my first two American robins of the season, and yesterday my son spotted our first two red-winged blackbirds of the season.

Welcome, spring!