Blue Jay Fledgling

A young, disgruntled looking Blue Jay was hopping around the cabin's property last weekend. Every time someone walked by or its parents flew over, it'd open its mouth wide open begging for food (and increasing its funny, curmudgeonly look).

Being on the ground is typical for fledgling birds; many of whom leave the nest before they can fly. Blue Jays, cardinals, robins are some of the most common species to do this.

Note that the fledgling is just developing its flight feathers and tail feathers. They simply do not have room to do this packed into a nest with other brood members. So, they flop out of the nest around day 14 and spend 6-8 days on the ground learning to look for food, how to evade predators and practicing short flights. The whole time the parents will be around, feeding and protecting them.

In about six days this little guy should be flying, harrassing its parents at our feeders!

Is it Winter? A Leucistic Goldfinch

For the past month, every time I look out the window and see a goldfinch I think to myself: "Wow! He's super yellow. Wonder why..."  Duh. It's summer.

My slowness on the change of seasonal molt is due to the fact that one of our most active goldfinches is a very pale male. He still looks like he's in his winter colors, which has lead my slow mind to be surprised whenever I see our normal, brightly-colored finches. We noticed him for the first time in late February, when the other male finches were starting to get their yellow patches.

The finch is leucistic meaning that its regular pigmentation is washed out. Sometimes this happens in splotches, sometimes it's an overall wash. In this bird's case it's an overall wash of his yellow feathers (with some whiter areas) - the black feathers are normally pigmented.

The funny thing is, the nape of its neck is dark. You would expect it to be the same washed-out yellow:

Even though goldfinches have two molts a year, his feathers will not improve with a molt as leucism is a genetic mutation.


Add'l Reading: Cornell's Lab of Ornithology has a great article explaining the differences between albinism and leucism. 

Meet Milbert

This has been quite the year for butterflies so far. Seems like every day there's a new visitor to the yard. Or two. Or three.

Today's visitor: Milbert's Tortoiseshell.

It doesn't look that impressive closed, but when it opens it's very distinctive:

We've now spotted in our yard all three tortoiseshells that are found in Minnesota (Compton's, Mourning Cloak and good ole Milbert).

Great Spangled Fritillary Larva

While weeding around our poppies I found this caterpillar at the base of a violet clump. (I love violets and tend to leave them, until they form large masses, then out they go.)

Glad I left them! Violets are the main food source for the Great Spangled Fritillary larva, which I was able to ID thanks to the wonderful resources at BugGuide.net.

An Agreeable Moth

Hanging on a friend's white door the other day was this intriguing moth.

It was agreeable to handling and let me photograph it before transferring it to a protected area of the porch.

A bit of research turns up that it truly was an Agreeable Tiger Moth. Yep. That's the actual common name of it. Or at least I'm 99% sure this is an Agreeable Tiger Moth. There are three very similar moths (Virginian Tiger Moth and Pink-legged Tiger Moth being the other two). Please offer comments on the ID...

I must remember to start photographing the abdomen of moths to assist with ID'ing. The agreeable has an orange wash at the base of its forelegs and there's a bit of that showing on the close-ups of this moth (whereas the Virginian doesn't have the orange marking).

Here's a pretty cool head-on photo of an Agreeable Tiger Moth.

While the moth appears to be pretty widespread in the Eastern U.S., I couldn't find much information about this moth online. Will have to pick up the new Peterson Guide to Moths, co-authored by Seabrooke Leckie (@seabrookeleckie)!

Hummingbirds!

Wow. What timing. I've been incredibly busy and have neglected spring preparations. Saw posts today on MNBird Listserve and on Twitter about hummingbirds moving and thought to myself "oh oh. Better do it while I have the time."

So glad I made nectar and hung a couple of our favorite feeders this morning before heading out to meetings: We just had a couple male Ruby-throateds at our favorite window feeders (these photos are of the same bird).

Thank you network, for keeping me on my toes! (and keeping our hummingbirds happy and fed)

Raindrops on...Everything

After working this weekend, I had this morning off and took advantage of it by bundling up and having coffee on the stoop. It had rained overnight and the air was soft, moist and filled with a pine scent. If I closed my eyes I swear I was sitting lakeside (alas, no such luck).

Once the morning coffee woke me up, I started poking around in the garden only to discover everything was covered in water droplets. That, of course, prompted more action on my part and I dug out the camera.

These small irises (only about 5" tall) are gorgeous.

Water droplets perched on the top of a tiny grape hyacinth plant:

 

The tiny baby sedum and moss growing on one of our garden rocks reminds me of a small succulent garden. Even the little moss tendrils were covered in tiny drops:

But I think my favorite is the perfectly aligned droplets on a blade of grass:

All Abuzz

Amazingly, our wild plum trees did not get zapped by the recent frost that killed so many of our other blooms. Maybe it's because they're one of the few things blooming right now, but during yesterday's warm afternoon the trees were filled with the buzzing of bees.

I counted at least six different types of bees and tried to get photos of most of them. Interestingly, there were only two big fat bumblebees mixed in the group and they never wandered down from the topmost branches. I did not see any of the metallic green bees that we have on the property. Maybe they've not emerged yet?

There were several butterflies, too, but the bees were what amazed me. Must have been nearly 1,000 of them moving from blossom to blossom. You could hear the buzzing from 25' away.

There were three types of teeny, tiny bees that made up the majority percentage. Here's one of them:

The other ones were the sharply lined black and yellow bees that I grew up calling "sweat bees," and these odd little ones that I never saw land on a flower. It seemed their number one task was attacking the few wasps that were also buzzing around:

As frightening as wasps look while flying, their markings are amazingly beautiful. I love the copper wings and the designs on its body, the construction of its eye and the bright red at the base of its antennae.

On all the wasps I noticed a small divot with a little raised bump right on the top of its head. You can see it in the photo below, right in the center of its head. Looks like a little push button. (I didn't try pushing it.)

Using da Google, I learned that this is called a dorsal ocellus (ocelli, plural) and is a "simple eye." Turns out that there should be three of them (and I'm assuming there are, just not visible in photos). The central one and two lateral ones above the regular compound eyes.

Much of this was far beyond my understanding, but basically these three eyes, being simple in their design, don't actually transmit images to the brain but rather are highly evolved light meters used to detect shadows created by movement, etc. The cool thing about these tiny eyes? They are much more sensitive to light (and changes in it) than the compound eyes, and due to their simple design they function much faster than the compound eyes. Who would've thought I'd learn all that simply by watching bees buzz around my plum trees? One of the great benefits of writing a blog: You learn something new every time.

Getting back to the bees... I love this bee. Completely covered in bright yellow pollen, I originally thought it was part of its markings.

These black bees had a solid black butt, but looked like they were wearing a wooly golden shrug:

And this honey bee looks like it's up on the latest fashion trends, wearing large sunglasses:

I think this is the same bee, but from different angles the eyes look completely different.

Thanks for sharing in my bee adventure!

Bluebird and First Warbler of Spring

Our first warbler of spring, a Yellow-rumped, shared a bath today with one of our bluebirds. Some Yellow-rumpeds apparently over-wintered in parts of Minnesota this year, but this is the first one we've seen on our Afton property.

Spring "warbling" is going to be tough this year with the trees all leafed out!

Spring Flower Phenology, Of A Sort

I returned home from Chicago to find the Pasqueflower open, the forsythia leafed out and tulips budded.

Seems amazingly early to me, but I thought I should dig through all my phenologies to confirm. I've kept a record since 2002 for our house outside the Twin Cities.

I learned a few things doing this:
1) I'm not as good as keeping records as a I thought. For example, in my mind I always note the opening of the pasqueflower as the sure sign of spring. Turns out that I've actually only recorded it for THREE years, including this year. How'd that happen?
2) I've sadly lost (hopefully just misplaced) my records for '04-'06.
3) Phenologies confirmed the association in my mind of pasqueflower and forsythia opening around the same time.
4) I do keep lots of information in the phenologies, but it's not always consistent by species. (some years I may not have noted arrival of bluebirds, or of first baby wrens but did not first wild plum blossoms or first fall frost)

Here's what I do have:
Pasqueflower Opened
2002: April 14 also the 1st 70+ day of that year
2011: April 24 (here's a link to more info on the pasqueflower from my 2011 post)

Here's some detail on the pasqueflower. I love the silky hairs on the petals and the silvery pollen inside.

Forsythia Opened
2002: April 17
2003: April 14, also record high of 89 today
2007: Cold killed forsythia blooms before they opened on April 9
2009: April 17 Of note, released first Pine Siskin fledgling we'd ever had from WRC today
2011: April 24
2012: March 20 (fully opened)

If you don't keep a phenology of your yard I highly recommend it. It's fun to go back and see when the first hummingbirds arrived, or what year it was that you had Scarlet Tanagers in your yard. Or your first bluebird nesting pair. I use it for everything from noting the habits of wildlife, to when I seed and harvest the first greens, tomatoes and other garden veggies.

For my purposes, an appointment-style nature calendar works the best (for 2011 it's one of our local Weatherguide Calendars). Plenty of room to note things and usually there's a timely photo on the left-facing page. Not only that, but they store easily.

Now I just have to remember to write in them more often!

Chasing March Butterflies

Last year at this time we had several feet of snow on the ground and were worried about flooding in the St. Croix River Valley.

This year, it's March 18th and I'm out chasing butterflies in 80 degree weather.

The warm weather has stymied the maple sap run throughout most of the Upper Midwest, and what little sap is seeping from the trees attracts dozens of insects, including the first butterflies of the year.

At first I thought there was just one species, but after much patience with the camera, it looks like there may be three, all of which hibernate as adults. (and, since I'm doing all this ID using my "Golden Guide on Butterflies and Moths," please let me know if I've mis-ID'd something!)

The first one I spotted was the Comma:

Here's the silhouette of a Comma drinking sap from the maple:

This one I immediately noticed was different because of the light edging on the wings:

Here's a side view that shows the dark texture of the wings:

 
 Then it opened. It's a Mourning Cloak:

Thought I'd try to get a better shot of the Comma and realized that this butterfly was not a Comma. Turns out it's a Compton Tortoise Shell:

Here's the underside of the Compton's wings:

This one just makes me smile:

Can't think of a better way to spend a March day! Might have to check the trees out tonight to see if moths visit...

Fox Sparrow Visits With Redpolls

It's not the greatest photo since the birds were out in the yard (and I desperately need a new lens), but I had to snap it. Not often you see a Fox Sparrow with redpolls.

Fox Sparrows do periodically overwinter here in the Cities, but it's still a fun sight to see on a bright sunny Friday with promises of springlike weather around the corner. This one did not overwinter in our yard. New arrival or an overwintering bird? Guessing it overwintered nearby but it still amps up my excitement for spring migration!

A Bright Spot for Monday

Looking out my kitchen window this morning was thrilled to see a significantly yellower goldfinch on one of our feeders.

With warmer temps coming and singing birds it sure feels like spring is here!

Northern Flicker and Downy

I always forget how large Northern Flickers are (wingspan of 17-20") until I see them with other birds. Here's a yellow-shafted one with a male Downy Woodpecker.

While we have flickers around our yard in the summer, I tend to think of them more as a winter visitor. For the past four or five years we've had a pair in the yard all winter, using the heated baths and coming to our suet feeders. During the summer, natural food and water sources are abundant so we don't see them daily like we do in the winter. Maybe it's the same pair, just forced closer to the house due to diminished food supplies...

Fun fact: Flickers are the only ground-feeding woodpecker in North America!