Outside

The Snowy Egrets Are Back

I think the Snowy Egrets are my favorite pond bird. The first one showed up in the last week of April, and another came a few days later. I love to watch them fish - slowly stalking around the pond's perimeter, suddenly freezing with neck outstretched, then the lightning-quick SPLASH, and another minnow or tadpole is added to the dinner tally.

I feel a little bad choosing a favorite pond bird, though. The ducks are fun to watch. The males chase each other or one of the females, quacking and complaining the whole time. The green herons are still exciting to see, but they're so elusive that it takes some work to spot one. The kingfishers are neat, chattering and diving for their meal. Blue herons drop by a few times a week but they're just visitors, not permanent residents. Canada geese - no, I could do without them. They're loud, mean and aggressive, and they mess up the early-spring yard with their droppings. Thankfully, they leave when the brush and grass around the pond grows tall.

Yes, I think I like the egrets best, but don't tell our other fair-weather residents - they're all fascinating in their own way.

April Fool's Day Snow

The big April Fool's Day joke here in Minnesota was last night's snow storm. As Spouse and I watched the Twins beat the Angels 3-2 in the home opener, the snow raged outside the windows. This morning, this is what we saw.

The front yard

The vegetable garden

Two deer in our neighbor's yard

One of the deer in a close-up

Inch by Inch

Spring is coming, but very slowly. Last year, ice out on our pond was on March 28th. As of today, the pond is about one-third ice-free.

The ducks, though, have already taken advantage of the open water. Several Mallards arrived on Friday, when the patch of water was 20'x20', at most. A pair of mergansers - a male and female - arrived this morning.  If you click on the picture to the left to enlarge it, you'll see the merganser pair near the middle of the photo, while some mallards are to the right.

But then there's this, from the National Weather Service. Spring may be coming, but it's taking its own sweet time:

1119 AM CDT SUN MAR 30 2008

...WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MONDAY MORNING THROUGH LATE MONDAY NIGHT...

HEAVY WET SNOW MAY DEVELOP ACROSS SOUTHWEST MINNESOTA MONDAY MORNING. THE THREAT FOR HEAVY WET SNOW WILL THEN SPREAD NORTHEAST ACROSS THE TWIN CITIES METROPOLITAN AREA AND POINTS NORTH DURING THE LATE MORNING AND ACROSS MUCH OF WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN BY EARLY MONDAY AFTERNOON. THE POTENTIAL FOR HEAVY SNOW WILL CONTINUE ACROSS THE WATCH AREA THROUGH MUCH OF MONDAY NIGHT BEFORE DIMINISHING BY DAYBREAK TUESDAY. SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 6 INCHES OR MORE ARE POSSIBLE BY LATE MONDAY NIGHT.

A WINTER STORM WATCH MEANS THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT SNOW ACCUMULATIONS THAT MAY IMPACT TRAVEL. CONTINUE TO MONITOR THE LATEST FORECASTS.

What Our Coyote Eats

** Warning: This post is not for the squeamish! Don't page down unless you're sure you can look at pictures of what coyotes naturally eat! **

It's become a regular Wild Kingdom around here. Mr. Coyote has been active over the past few days, and we've discovered what he's been eating when he's on our side of the pond.

Yesterday, Spouse was looking out the kitchen window and saw the coyote doing something behind our next-door-neighbor's garage. As we watched, it was obvious he was eating something. Given the distance (about 20 yards), and the obstructions (deer fence and brush), it was impossible to tell what it was, but our best guess was a deer.

Even though we couldn't see what he was eating, I took a poor video anyway. (Ignore the audio, really. I was thinking I could edit it out, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet.)

Today, I decided to go see what it was. Yes indeed, it was a deer, a big 10 point buck at that. It's been there awhile - you can see the snow on top of it (it hasn't snowed since Christmas Day), and it's frozen to the ground. Pretty much the entire back half is gone, along with the innards.

Just this morning our resident "doe matriarch" stopped by to check out the deer fence next to our deck. She doesn't seem to know that the dead buck is probably only 20 yards behind her. She's the oldest of our herd (there are only a few deer left in our suburb with these old, mid-90's tracking collars), and even though you can't tell in this photo, she's pregnant. She better watch out.

Confirmed Coyote Sighting

On Christmas Eve day, we had the first confirmed sighting of a coyote in our yard. Unfortunately, I couldn't get my camera out in time, so this picture was copied from the City of Eagan's website (Eagan is a suburb of St. Paul).

Spouse and I both thought we had seen coyotes in early December, but neither of us was sure. About a month ago, Spouse said he thought he saw a coyote while walking the dog, but it ran away quickly and he wasn't sure. Then about a week after that, I saw what I thought was a coyote running across the icy pond, but it was dusk, the lighting was poor, and I couldn't tell if it was a coyote or a fox.

But on Monday, the coyote decided to run across the yard and pond in full daylight with eight people watching. I've seen mangy brown coyotes in Phoenix, but this Minnesota coyote looked a bit different. The animal we saw on Monday had a very fluffy coat, mottled gray and black, with a white bib down the neck and chest. In fact, he looked a bit like a wolf but according to a January, 2007 posting at the US Fish and Wildlife Services website, the gray wolf's territory stops just north of the Twin Cities. Whew.

Photo from the City of Eagan website.

Barred Owls

We are very lucky to have a lot of wildlife that visits our yard, including a family of barred owls. The family includes a male, female and a almost fully-grown youngster. For the past two weeks, they've been spending evenings hunting in your yard and around the pond. Most nights they hang out in the trees just outside our living room window.

I've been trying to get a good picture of all three owls for awhile now, but they are most active right around dusk and after sunset, so although we can see them from the window, I can't get a good photo. In this picture, though, someone showed up a little early - around 7:00 pm, so I was able to get a picture.

Barred owls are very vocal, and they have several different calls. The most common sounds like, "Who cooks for you, who cooks for you-all", or "hoo-hoo-to-hoo, hoo-hoo-to-hoo-aw." They also make a lot of other noises and calls, which the Cornell Lab of Ornithology characterizes as a "raucous jumble of cackles, hoots, caws, and gurgles." To hear their familiar evening call mixed in with a few cackles and caws, go here and click on "listen to sounds of this species."

Every night, we listen to the owls and watch them swoop around catching prey. I believe the adults are still teaching the youngster how to hunt, because just a few nights ago I watched one owl feed another. My guess is that the youngster still can't always catch his/her own food, so the adults still need to share what they catch.

 

Now, if only one of them would catch a few more of the rabbits that have eaten most of my beans!

Odie, a recovered barred owl with eyesight problems living at the University of Minnesota Raptor Center

Little Turklets

This past weekend I had a chance to see our newest neighbors - eight little baby turkeys. I couldn't get a picture with all of them, but here are a few with hanging out with mom.

Mid-Summer Life at the Pond

Last weekend, I took this picture of the swamp milkweed (asclepias incarnata) growing next to our pond. It's a very pretty plant, with coloring and flowers very similar to Joe Pye Weed. The grasses growing with it, although nice looking, are actually the evil reed canary grass, a very invasive grass that likes wetlands. It needs to be removed, but there are only so many hours in the day, and at the pond we've allocated those hours to removing the buckthorn first.

Anyway, as I was snapping away at the milkweed, I noticed a pretty butterfly perching on a willow branch. I hastily took a few pictures, but I didn't expect much. Whenever I use the zoom on my camera, I get blurry shots - between me moving and errant breezes outdoors, I never seem to be able to get a good zoom picture. But voila, I actually had one that worked. If anyone happens to know what type of butterfly this is, just let me know in my comments.

Then, I noticed movement on the pond, and suddenly a female hooded merganser and her 9 ducklings appeared. They were swimming very fast - probably spooked by Spouse and me tromping around at water's edge - but I managed to get one halfway decent photo, seen below. We had seen the male and female earlier in the spring, but this was the first time I had seen their offspring.

But, sadly, this little family is minus one duckling. On Wednesday morning, as Brix and I were in the yard for his morning constitutional, I watched as the merganser family headed out onto the pond from under some brush. As they were appearing in the sunlight, a hawk (probably a broad-winged hawk, as they are most common on our pond) swooped down from a tree above and grabbed one of the ducklings. Mama merganser did a lot of flapping and anxiously gathered up the other ducklings, but there was nothing to be done - Mr. Hawk had his breakfast.

Yet another day in the life of the pond.

Red Bug Question - Now Identified!

I was looking to identify the bug below for my neighbor, but she ID'ed it herself with help from an ag consultant: it's a red velvet mite. They are found in woodlands and are essential to the soil food web.

My neighbor found it in her yard. It's very small - about the size of a wood tick (regular dog tick, not the smaller deer tick), and very bright red. The area is wooded, with shredded wood mulch that's at least a year old . She is putting in shade perennials and finding it when she digs in the area.

Painted Turtle

On Sunday evening as I left to take the dog for his walk, I found this painted turtle diligently digging a hole in which to lay her eggs. Unfortunately, she didn't choose a particularly good spot. She's digging right on the edge of our (very old) driveway, next to the (weed-filled) patch of "lawn" that I tend to drive over when I back out of the garage. I don't always drive over this little bit of yard, but it's a very tight curve and if I don't pull into the garage just right, when I back out my front tires tend to drift a bit off the driveway. (At least that's my excuse for the lack of grass and the lovely plantain and dandelions growing here.)

The good news is that she didn't try to cross the street to lay her eggs. In years past, I've watched at least one painted turtle each spring slowly cross the road to get to the wooded hill on the other side. I will usually stay outside until I know she's crossed safely, but I always worried about the return trip back across the street to the pond. Just a week ago, Spouse and I were returning from a shopping trip and we had to stop the car about 100 yards before our house so that I could hurry a different painted turtle back to the pond.

Ironically, even though we see these large female turtles every spring, I have yet to see a baby turtle anywhere in the pond or yard. That's probably a good thing - they're staying hidden from predators and keeping off the road.