Owling During the Last Week of Winter

It's still a bit snowy around here and the lake is still frozen solid this last week of winter. But today it was to be the warmest day of the year so far, near 60 degrees, so I thought it would be a good day to get out and about and do some birding. As I headed out, I noticed a small amount of water along the edge of the ice down at the wetland. Look closely, you can barely see the reflection of the sky in the water where the dock is floating between the ice on the lake and the snow on the beach. I am so excited to see that reflection and my old friend the lake. Oh how I've missed it over the long winter.

Finally the ice is starting to recede!

My plan for the day was to head over to Deer Park to look for evidence of the owls my daughter has been hearing at night behind her apartment. The other night, when I got home after dark, I heard an owl near our house too. After listening to all the owl sounds on my iBird app, I decided that it sounded like a Great Horned Owl. I would love to get some proof of it, but there is still alot of snow around our place. There isn't much snow at all in Deer Park so it's much easier to walk around there. So today I did my owling in the woods behind the apartment complex. The first thing I came upon was this cool fort.

Neat fort with a Home Sweet Home sign inside

Then I stumbled upon another type of home. Wonder what type of woodpecker made these holes?

There was an old fallen down barn in the lot next door. I had fun exploring inside...












Looked like the perfect hangout for barn owls. It was a little spooky...

Vole Tunnels

In the field were tons of tunnels made by voles, also known as field mice, making it a perfect area for owls to hunt.

Entrances to the tunnels

Then I made my way to the wooded area, checking the ground around each tree looking for owl pellets. Owl pellets are the regurgitated indigestible parts of the food the owl eats, and contains bones, fur, feathers and such. I did see a few questionable piles of waste, but didn't feel like poking around in it to see if it was owl or dog waste. I also came upon several deer droppings.

As I scoured the trees up and down, checking the tangles of branches, I hear some sweet little tweets coming from the woods. I followed the tweets and found some cute tiny birds flitting about the pine trees. They moved so quickly, it was hard to get a glimpse of them. But I would see a flash of yellow on the tiny birds crown, and a fleck of red on the crown of some. First bird that came to mind was a Kinglet. There are Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and I wasn't sure without checking my references which these little birdies were. I tried to get a decent picture of the cute little things, but the were so quick to flit about the tangles of the trees, that it was next to impossible to get a good shot in. I did get enough pictures that I could confirm the I.D. as being the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. The male and females both have the yellow crowns, but the males also have a red spot on their crown too, hence the Ruby-crowned. Here are the pics that cinched the identity.

So I spent almost an hour and a half wandering through the woods and found plenty of evidence that this was perfect owl territory, but no actual owl evidence. This won't be my last time, as I plan to go back in the near future!

~ Sherrie (Bird Lady)

New Features on Bird Lady Blog

The days have been cold and long and boring.  Not many birds now that the lake is frozen.  So I decided to add some new features to the Bird Lady Blog.  Now, there is a Photo Gallery page in addition to a Home page where all of my blog posts appear.  The Photo Gallery page has most of my photography that I have shared here on the blog.  Each picture is linked to the original blog post that was associated with the photo.  Here you can scroll through the pictures, and if something catches your attention, you can go right to the post, which will open in a new window.

Also, new on the Bird Lady Blog, is the BirdTrax gadget.  Yes, more tech gadgets for birders! You will find it on the right hand column above my life list of birds.  BirdTrax displays eBird sightings and data, and can be customized to your liking.  I have mine set to show sightings in a 30 mile radius around my Loon Lake home in the last 30 days.  I was going to change up the settings, but have found I can't get access to the code like I did when I put it on here.  So I guess for now, we are stuck with it like it is.  Oh well, it shows my sightings and others in the community that have submitted to eBird, so it's all good.

A view counter is now located to the right above the archive directory, so you can see how many visitors the Bird Lady Blog has been getting.  I am thankful to my Facebook and Google+ followers for my increased traffic lately.  In just the last month, Bird Lady Blog has had over 500 page views for a total of 1454 as of this moment.

Recently I also added a couple of ways to quickly become a Bird Lady Blog follower on the right hand column.  You can submit your email address and become a follower, or you can subscribe to posts and/or comments. I'm always interested in other bird bloggers and photographers and would love for you to become a follower. Be sure to leave me a comment on the blog to let me know you stopped by!

A couple of cosmetic changes were made, like enlarging the headings so they are easier to see, and I made them look just a tad fancier :o)  Also planning on changing up the header and footer photos, but I'm having a hard time deciding which ones to use.  So it will be a bit yet before you see those.

Hopefully, you will enjoy these newly added features here on the Bird Lady Blog!

As I'm finishing up the final touches on the pictures for this blog post, my husband was flicking through the T.V. channels and happened to stumble on one of my favorite movies "The Notebook".  My favorite part just played where they are at the beach with all the seagulls and she is talking about wondering if in another life she was a bird.  She starts "ka ka ka'ing" and flapping her wings, and makes him say she is a bird.  Then she says "Now say you're a bird".  He replies, "If you're a bird, I'm a bird".  Love that part!

The only visitors to my yard in 2013 have been four Red-breasted Nuthatches and a female Downy Woodpecker.  They have been there each day so far.

Still waiting for Spring

I'm still waiting for Spring to come. Yes, officially Spring has been here for a few days. But I continue to see snow and rain just about every day. As soon as the ground clears, another snow storm will be upon us. The lake is still frozen over. I should be happy that the ice on the ground is clearing and at least I can walk around some places outside, and I can park my car down our steep driveway again. I am anxious, to get out with my camera and enjoy the warm weather and the photo opportunities that it will bring. Flowers and birds, birds and flowers. Blue skies! No coats, or boots, or gloves. Today, it looked sunny outside, but you culd still feel the chill out there. But I could not wait any longer. My friend the Great Blue Heron had been at the fish pen for some time today. So I grabbed my camera, the tripod, and a jacket and ventured outside. I snuck around the neighbor's puckerbrush so as to not alert my subject. Tip-toed behind the boat house and set up shop. I even went high tech and got out my new iPhone with the iBird app and played GBH vocals and calls. He knew I was there, and kept a watchful eye on me. That eye was my focus. I only had a few minutes of battery and had lunch cooking in the microwave, so I decided to try and get a flight shot. I moved up a few feet, and then proceeded to make a fool of myself with awkward vocals and calls of my own. It worked, because off he flew and landed out on the ice. I pretty much missed the action, so I packed up and went back inside for lunch. The rest of the day, I watched from inside, my friend spent the entire afternoon there. Never did see a fish being caught. I really do love how cool his beak looks here. Very appropriate for catching fish.




I decided I really must name my Great Blue Heron friend since he is a daily visitor. The name "Blue Cheese" came to mind. But it is a little too literal, so I decided on "Bruchi's", which is a local restaurant and a play on Blue Cheese. So everyone, meet "Bruchi's".

I also used my new iBird app to identify a new bird that I saw a couple of days ago. Whenever I go to town, there is a certain fence in the Half Moon area that I always watch for birds. So far, I have added three life birds to my list by watching this fence. The first bird was a Say's Phoebe, then a Western Meadowlark, and now a Northern Shrike. A gray bird with a black mask. Simple enough to ID. An interesting fact about the Northern Shrike is that it is also known as the "Butcher Bird" because it stores food for later by impaling it on a thorn or barbed wire. The following is NOT my picture. Just posting so you could see what a Northern Shrike looks like.

My life list is now at 89. My goal is to get to 100! Of course you know I won't stop there. My life list is on the right, be sure to check it out! How many of these birds have YOU seen?

Walk This Way...

My friendly neighborhood Great Blue Heron was helping me test out the video capabilities on my new camera. Figured out right away, that the settings were not right. Next time I will shoot at a higher speed. This one looks like it's in slow motion and a bit jerky. But, I still love this video of the Great Blue Heron walking on the ice to the fish pen. They are so graceful! If only I could figure out how to get some still photos from this clip of the heron creeping around the edge of the fish pen.
OK, so I tried and tried to upload the video, but it is 9MB's too large! Wahhh! I don't have a way to edit it and keep it in an uploadable format.