Dragonfly at McKnight Prairie - Summer

How about a little respite from winter? I just found this draft post, which I'd started last summer. I was fascinated by the clear wings on this dragonfly that we spotted at the McKnight Prairie, and I spent time trying to identify it but never arrived at an answer. The dragonfly identification site I found didn't give an option for a clear-winged insect with a brown, tan or reddish abdomen, so I was at a loss. All ye odonata enthusiasts, feel free to chime in!

Into the Polar Vortex - and Out the Other Side

Wowee, what a ride it's been -- barely edging above zero the last two days after a low in Northfield of -23 F. Monday morning. It was warm last Friday, and then we went down, down, down, dropping 54 degrees in 48 hours according to this line graph, courtesy of the Carleton College weather database. That horizontal blue line is the zero point, and the top of the graph is 32 degrees -- the freezing point. The National Weather Service announced on Sunday that "historic and life-threatening cold air" had arrived, and I heard a TV host quoted as pointing out that at the coldest point it could be 50 degrees warmer and water would still freeze!

We topped off all our feeders on Saturday to help the birds get easy fuel to keep their inner furnaces burning through these frigid days and nights. It's hard to fathom how such tiny creatures survive such conditions, but it appears that many or most of our usual visitors are still with us.

To follow up my New Year's photo of a house finch in snow, here is another, enjoying the sun before it got so very cold. Welcome back, warmth!

Happy New Year!

Wishing you beautiful sights and great adventures in 2014.

Red-bellied Woodpecker at Suet Feeder

A red-bellied woodpecker, always one of my favorite sights, visited our suet log feeder last weekend. You can tell this one is a male because the red cap extends all the way down to its bill in front. You can see a glimpse of his long tongue in the second photo. This feeder is popular with woodpeckers and chickadees.

CBC - Tree Sparrows and Horned Larks

For the fifth year in a row, I participated in the Christmas Bird Count last Saturday. Light falling snow seemed to reduce the number of birds that were out and about. For example, we saw very few crows in the air, which is certainly unusual. My route, which I shared with Dan Kahl (the naturalist at Mount Olivet Retreat Center in Farmington), took us down the rural roads south and east of Northfield as well as around the southeast quadrant in town.

My favorite sightings of the day were a bald eagle in flight on the far eastern edge of our area, 12 horned larks in a snow-covered cornfield, and 7 American tree sparrows in the tall dried grasses at the west edge of the Sibley Elementary School's nature preserve. Other highlights were large flocks (50+) of house finches and mallards.

Tree sparrows, which breed in northern Canada and Alaska, are only seen here in the winter. Their rusty caps are similar to those of the chipping sparrow, but in the winter we don't see chipping sparrows, which migrate to the far southern U.S. and Mexico. The tree sparrow has a bicolored bill, which you can see better if you click on the second photo below.

American Tree Sparrow

American Tree Sparrow

Horned larks are here year-round, but I don't often see them. We only spotted this group by seeing their movements against the snow, though we were looking pretty hard at most fields we passed, hoping to see either horned larks or snow buntings (which we did not see at all this time). The horned larks were spread out enough that I couldn't get a decent photo of several at once. I enjoy their striking markings.

Horned Lark

Horned Lark

As always, I thank Gene Bauer for organizing the bird count for our region, Gene and his wife Susan for their hospitality for the pre-count breakfast and post-count lunch, and the other enthusiastic birders who showed up and helped make it a fun day of citizen science.