I Went Looking For Spring Ducks The Other Day. The Boardwalk Between Upper Mud Lake And Lake Waubesa

[ID: A Red-headed Woodpecker clings to the top of a dead tree limb. They are mostly black, with bright bands of white on their wings and a dark red (almost burgundy) head. They are looking off to the left with an acorn in their bill, likely looking for a new place to hide it. End ID]

Here's another more recent bird from the archives that I'm particularly proud of. It was our last day visiting Yellowstone Lake State Park in Wisconsin this past October. My partner and kid got out ahead of me because I had heard a call I didn't immediately recognize. It was a pair of Red-headed Woodpeckers, collecting and caching fallen acorns. The adult above had stashed the acorn in their bill at the top of the dead tree, but they must have thought better of it when they noticed me spying on their hiding spot!

I'm thinking I should start to fill out this new blog. My main artistic expression these days is photography, and birds are my favorite subject. So let's take a look back in the archive together.

[ID: A female Black-and-white Warbler clinging to the side of a lichen-encrusted tree trunk. She's checking the underside of a brown mushroom on the tree for something to eat. She has a mostly white body, with a thin back eye line and black streaks on her side and wings. End ID]

This little creature is a Black-and-white Warbler. We found her while hiking the New Glarus Woods State Park this past September. Folks think of Warblers as a springtime bird in the Midwest, as that's when they're looking their brightest and boldest as they migrate north for mating season. I appreciate the Black-and-whites like this little lady for being just as striking on their way back south.

Banded Stilts

Photo Credit: Georgina Steytler

I saw one of these at Sweetwater Wetlands a couple weeks ago! I'm so excited to have an ID, as I barely know anything about lizards!

[ID: A Stout Desert Spiny Lizard sits on a grey rock, apparently doing a territorial display which looks like it is doing a push up. It is a mostly white and grey spiny lizard with a black shoulder patch, blue throat scales, and various scales with red, orange, and yellow edges along its flanks and back. End ID]

The bodybuilder.

A stout desert spiny lizard (Sceloporus magister) performing his push up territorial display. At Tohono Chul, Tucson, Arizona.

owls from animal crossing new horizons

-bella

Folks, I have tracked down another Owl!

[ID: A Short-eared Owl sits on top of a wooden post at dusk. They stand about a foot tall, with rounded body and head, oval face, and no visible ear tufts. Their feathers are a lovely pattern of brown, tan, and cream, with white and tan face feathers radiating from a hooked black beak. They are staring directly into the camera with two large honey-colored eyes, rimmed in black feathers reminiscent of smoky eyeliner. End ID]

It was just about dusk at Goose Pond, and we were slowly driving down a road to the north of the pond, scanning the power poles and fields in the failing light. I'm driving, and I've got my friend in the passenger seat, the person who first got me into birding. I had seen reports of a pair of Short-eared Owls in the area, our last target bird on an afternoon of exploring Madison's lakes and fields. I had read that, unlike other Owls, Short-eared are known for coming out to hunt before sunset. She says there's something just over the horizon out her window, so I stop and we both get binoculars on it. I say, "It's owl-shaped! That has to be it!"

[ID: The Short-eared Owl sits on the same wooden post, looking left into the sunset. Just one eye is visible in profile, illuminated by the fading horizon. End ID]

The Owl is heading back the way we came, and I take just a single burst with the camera before swinging the car around. Then my friend sees a second one following it! One of them must have seen something because it lands in the field, while the other one heads off over the horizon. Once I have the car pointing the right direction, the first Owl takes off again and lands on the nest box in the pictures.

[ID: The Short-eared Owl sits on the same post and stares intently at the ground. Perhaps they see something to pounce on? End ID]

The next box is right by the road, so we start creeping up close. The Owl seems totally unbothered by our presence and just sits, patiently scanning the field. We creep closer, get a few more pictures, creep closer, get a few more, until we're like 25 yards away. By then we're close enough that the ID is unmistakable. Look at that makeup!

[The Short-eared Owl flies into the distance, headed away from the camera. Their wings are outstretched, gently riding the wind as they scan the field below for prey. End ID]

The Owl probably sat on the nest box for 15 minutes or more. Meanwhile, some other birders have pulled up behind us, clearly here to do the same thing. Not long after they show up, the Owl takes off again! This time we get to see them hunting up close. They clearly spotted something and dove down to catch it. I am not sure if they were successful, but they took off after a few minutes and continued flying lazily around the field, looking for more snacks. We stayed to watch the hunt until the sun had sunk below the horizon and the light began to fail, then made our way back down the road toward home. Hope you catch your fill, little friend!

[ID: The Short-eared Owl flies low over the field, with the sunset lighting up their silhouette from behind. They are a small figure in the lower third of the shot, with a background of brown grasses, evergreen trees, and blazing orange sky above. End ID]

I guess I'm an owl guy now. Just last week I learned about an Eastern Screech-Owl pair that has been nesting in Monona, WI for at least three years, so I had to go take a look over the weekend. The pictures below were all taken on Sunday.

[ID: An Eastern Screech-Owl sleeps in the knotty hole of a tree. The Owl is a red morph, with tawny brown feathers on the head, wings, and breast. Dark brown streaks and white patches make for a scaly camouflage effect on the lower breast and belly. The Owl has tiny brown ear tufts that stick up from the top of her head above feathery white brows. From this angle, the Owl is facing the left side of the frame, with just a little bit of beak and talon visible among the puffed feathers. Her left eye is a black slit, tightly closed against the daylight. End ID]

I visited the nest site a couple times on Saturday between other birding excursions in the area, but had no luck. The tree pretty much hangs over the road in a residential area, so it was super easy to swing by and have a look. It may have been too cold and windy that day for the Owl to want to sleep out in the open.

[ID: An Eastern Screech-Owl sleeps in the knotty hole of a tree. The Owl is a red morph, with tawny brown feathers on the head, wings, and breast. Dark brown streaks and white patches make for a scaly camouflage effect on the lower breast and belly. The Owl has tiny brown ear tufts that stick up from the top of her head above feathery white brows. From this angle, the Owl is facing the camera directly, with just a little bit of beak and talon visible among the puffed feathers. Her eyes are black slits, tightly closed against the daylight. End ID]

I met several other nice birders that were there for exactly the same reason as me. Some just popping out of their cars for a quick look and others stopping to chat or swap birding stories and intel for a while. A mother and son from Monticello, a retiree from somewhere 90 minutes away (he didn't say) who left to seek out the same Snowy Owl I saw a week prior, folks who live just down the block and see the Screech-Owl at least once a week. We learned from past sighting reports that the red morph of this pair is the female and the grey morph is the male, due to their relative size and courtship behaviors. (With many predatory bird species, the females are generally larger than the males, even when coloration between the sexes is identical.) The owner of the house across the street explained that the female has been back living in the nest hole for a couple weeks, but she hasn't seen the male yet this year.

[ID: An Eastern Screech-Owl sleeps in the knotty hole of a tree. The Owl is a red morph, with tawny brown feathers on the head, wings, and breast. Dark brown streaks and white patches make for a scaly camouflage effect on the lower breast and belly. The Owl has tiny brown ear tufts that stick up from the top of her head above feathery white brows. From this angle, the Owl is facing to the right of the frame, with just a little bit of beak and talon visible among the puffed feathers. Her eyes are black slits, tightly closed against the daylight. End ID]

At the end of the day, I decided to wait with one other birder (who had driven about two hours from Menasha) in the hopes that the Owl would emerge before sunset. We weren't completely without luck, as the Owl decided to sleep in until around 5:30pm, when basically all light had gone from the sky. I only saw her because she immediately flew from the hole and landed on a nearby roof to take a look around. Neither of us got a single usable picture, but I could see her well enough through the binoculars to make a positive ID and log my 190th species. My compatriot had to return home that night, but I decided to keep an eye on eBird and pop back over if someone else happened to see the Owl during the day.

[ID: An Eastern Screech-Owl sleeps in the knotty hole of a tree. The Owl is a red morph, with tawny brown feathers on the head, wings, and breast. Dark brown streaks and white patches make for a scaly camouflage effect on the lower breast and belly. The Owl has tiny brown ear tufts that stick up from the top of her head above feathery white brows. From this angle, the Owl is facing the left side of the frame, with just a little bit of beak and talon visible among the puffed feathers. Her left eye is a black slit, tightly closed against the daylight. End ID]

As I'm sure you guessed from the photos in this post, other folks reported the Eastern Screech-Owl sleeping out in the open midmorning on Sunday. So I finished my chores and tossed my gear in the car for yet another short drive to Monona. And much to my delight, she was still there when I arrived, completely asleep and looking quite comfortable! (One of the birders from Saturday had mentioned that she likes to sleep out in the open when it's warmer and not so windy.) I snapped about 700 photos from various angles, then went to meet up with my good friend Rachel.

[ID: An Eastern Screech-Owl sleeps in the knotty hole of a tree. The Owl is a red morph, with tawny brown feathers on the head, wings, and breast. Dark brown streaks and white patches make for a scaly camouflage effect on the lower breast and belly. The Owl has tiny brown ear tufts that stick up from the top of her head above feathery white brows. From this angle, the Owl is facing to the right of the frame, with just a little bit of beak and talon visible among the puffed feathers. Her eyes are black slits, tightly closed against the daylight. End ID]

You see, Rachel got me into birding in the first place, and she and her partner were coming to Madison to visit and go to a hockey game that evening. I made sure to let her know that she better bring her binoculars if she was interested in taking a small detour to pick up a lifer. And being a very well-behaved Owl, the Screecher didn't move an inch from her roost. The light was better this time, so I had to snap another 600 pictures or so. We met a few more birders and checked around the base of the tree for pellets, but didn't find any. We wondered about the species of the tree (I thought ash, she leaned toward box elder), then said goodbye to the Owl. It's certainly fun to pick up a lifer when I'm out by myself, but I find it even more enjoyable to share that moment with someone else.

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled “do not stand at my grave and weep” after the poem by mary elizabeth frye. the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

Here's a bird that took me completely by surprise. (Content warning for a predator eating/carrying prey. I've put the more graphic pics below the cut.) Last week I was working at my dining room table, waiting for a plumber to show up. I glanced out the window and saw this Cooper's Hawk land on the neighbor's roof.

[ID: A male Cooper's Hawk stands on the roof of a house. The Hawk is mostly bluish grey with orange and white stripes on the breast and legs. He has dark red eyes and a hooked yellow beak with a grey tip. He's standing at the edge of the roof, looking off to the left. There are grey and black feathers scattered about, but the roof is blocking his prey from view. The sky in the background is an overcast grey. End ID]

Of course, I immediately jumped up and grabbed my camera. Based on the smaller size and the bluish tint to the wings, I figure the Hawk was male. I noticed right away that he was bending down to pick apart and eat something. I couldn't tell what he was eating, but I could see lots of black and grey feathers scattered about.

[ID: A male Cooper's Hawk stands on the roof of a house. The Hawk is mostly bluish grey with orange and white stripes on the breast and legs. He has dark red eyes and a hooked yellow beak with a grey tip. He's standing at the edge of the roof, looking down at his prey and lifting one yellow foot with sharp, black talons. There are grey and black feathers scattered about, but the roof is blocking his prey from view. The sky in the background is an overcast grey. End ID]

He stuck around for several minutes, which gave me some time to find a good position and adjust my settings to compensate for the overcast skies. (Picture me standing on a dining room chair, slightly crouched to line lens up with the top edge of the window.)

[ID: A male Cooper's Hawk stands on the roof of a house. The Hawk is mostly bluish grey with orange and white stripes on the breast and legs. He has dark red eyes and a hooked yellow beak with a grey tip. He's standing at the edge of the roof, looking down over the edge of the roof. There are grey and black feathers scattered about, but the roof is blocking his prey from view. The sky in the background is an overcast grey. End ID]

Just as I was taking another burst, the Hawk did a little hop to get a better grip on his meal. Go ahead and scroll past this last photo if you'd rather not see the remains of what appears to be a Downy Woodpecker. All I knew in the moment was that I had held the shutter button through the whole sequence. It was only later while processing photos that I could make out enough detail on the prey for a possible ID.

[ID: A male Cooper's Hawk is shown mid-hop in the air above the roof of a house. The Hawk is mostly bluish grey with orange and white stripes on the breast and legs. He has dark red eyes and a hooked yellow beak with a grey tip. He's just flapped his wings to hop into the air and get a better grip on his prey. The prey appears to be the remains of a Downy Woodpecker, with the head and most of the upper body torn away. However, the remaining feathers appear to have the characteristic black and white pattern on the tail to suggest either a Downy or Hairy Woodpecker. There are grey and black feathers scattered about. The sky in the background is an overcast grey. End ID]

Just after that, the Hawk flew off between the houses and was gone. It made me a little sad to think that one of our regular feeder visitors was now somebody's lunch, but it's somewhat comforting to think that our neighborhood must have a fairly healthy ecosystem. At least we have enough small birds and other prey around to convince the raptors to keep coming back to their favorite hunting grounds!