Yellow Warblers at the Cabin

Just a quick post before I hit the road, returning to the Twin Cities after a fun-filled weekend with friends and family.

I was thrilled to find more than four different pairs of Yellow Warblers flitting through the birch, oak and pine trees at the cabin. Looked as if there were several fledglings with them as well. Very fun to see!

Hope you're all having a great summer and enjoying the nature that surrounds you.

White-tailed Deer

Bird feeders attract more than birds! One of my favorite visitors are the White-tailed Deer that frequent our yard.

These images were taken up at the family cabin in Lakeshore, Minn. I love how the setting sun creates a nice soft glow in the background with the birch trees. It's even coloring the deer's fur on her neck.

I found the shot below pretty interesting. It was taken five minutes after the first shot, from a different angle. The setting sun actually has created a bit of an orange halo along the top and right side of her head. The funny thing? The sun is setting to her left, not her right as it appears, and there's nothing really for it to reflect from on the right side - other than the snow. Pretty neat!

A Little of This, A Little of That

I've been up at the family cabin outside of Nisswa, Minn., for the last few days trying to escape the sweltering temps and humidity.

While here I've been doing quite a bit of this:

which inevitably leads to this...

orange bluet (male)

and then more of this:

white-faced meadowhawk (male)

and even some of this:

preening black and white warbler (female)

Hope you're enjoying the last few weeks of summer as well!

Be sure to check out all the other fun posts for Our World Tuesday.

Windblown Tree Sparrow

It was a bit windy the other day at the cabin...

Snowy Redpolls

The cabin in Lake Shore has been inundated with winter finches: Pine Siskins, Pine Grosbeaks, goldfinches and both Hoary and Common Redpolls (no Evening Grosbeaks, yet!).

The redpolls may be my favorite winter visitors. They're just so gregarious and dapper looking. The ones in these images are the more often-seen Common Redpoll.

During a recent snowfall I had fun snapping these photos through the kitchen window while staying nice and cozy inside.

These beautiful birds are irruptive and in years like this travel in large flocks farther south than normal. While we periodically have them in the Twin Cities, this is only the third winter since I moved here in 2002 that we've had 80+ redpolls at our Afton feeders on a regular basis.

An irruptive winter is not only a thrilling one, but an expensive one (we're going through 40 lbs. of Nyjer a week!). Unfortunately these birds at the cabin aren't quite as lucky - they go days without seed waiting our return for long weekends.

Typically, these birds are found worldwide in the arctic and subarctic boreal forests. In North America, they venture into the Northern United States during the winter and as far south as the Central United States in irruption years.

Because I'm in the process of obtaining my banding license, the recovery of bands fascinates me. On the Cornell Lab site, they listed this cool fact about banded redpolls:

"A few banding records have shown that some Common Redpolls are incredibly wide ranging. Among them, a bird banded in Michigan was recovered in Siberia; others in Alaska have been recovered in the eastern U.S., and a redpoll banded in Belgium was found 2 years later in China."

That's amazing!

Another cool fact that I learned on the Cornell site? They burrow into the snow to stay warm overnight! They've found them in tunnels a foot long.

Want to learn more about these neat winter visitors? Check out Cornell's site.

Diamonds on the Lake

 
The other day while ice fishing we noticed incredible frost crystallization around the prior day's holes and in our earlier footsteps. After we were done fishing, I came back out with my camera to try and capture the amazing brilliance of the crystals.

The sun was beginning to set over the lake and the entire area was spiky with diamonds. While it doesn't look like much here, it was breathtaking to see in person:

Up close, this is what was catching the sun, hundreds of gold frost "leaves:"

While incredibly small, they were some of the largest frost leaves I have seen, nearly .5" in length.

As the sun set, it really began to light up the crystals. I love this illuminated stack, looks a foreign creature glowing from within:

The most challenging part of photographing these? Not melting them with my breath while lying on the snow trying to focus on them! This is one of the better shots showing both the gold of the sunset and some of the incredible detail in the frost leaf:

Don't you love all the unexpected treats that winter brings?


(I'm thrilled to be back after taking a month off of nearly all electronics except as required for my work. It was lovely to spend the month of December with family and friends and at our cabin. I hope you had a fun end to 2012 and are having a great start to 2013. Thanks for reading my blog!)

Pine Grosbeaks Visit the Cabin!

While at the family cabin in Lakeshore, Minn., over Thanksgiving we had some new feathered visitors: Pine Grosbeaks!

In the six winters I've been at the cabin, we've not had them in the yard, let alone lined up on the railing enjoying oilers:

They're regular visitors up at "The Shack," but it's exciting to see them this far south. The flock was all first-year birds or females, nor red males in the dozen or so birds. This one could be a male on his way to his second year molt when he'll develop his bright red feathers (note the coloring developing on its chest):

This is most likely an adult female:

The Pine Grosbeaks are just a tad larger than the Evening Grosbeaks, making them the largest of the winter finches. And, like other winter finches, they're irruptive meaning that there are years when the head south in mass numbers and this is one of those years. I'm hoping we'll have them at our Afton home, outside the Twin Cities, this winter, too!

For lovely shots of the colorful male Pine Grosbeak, check out Scott's recent blog post.