Nature Knitter

Weekly Recap

2012-01-22T17:30:00.001-06:00

Well, even with my good intentions of trying to stay caught up with this blog and post more frequently, I just never found the time to get around to it this past week, so I'll give you the recap here in one big post.

Got my first 2012 life bird checked off the list: the Spotted Towhee that's been hanging around Austin, MN since October. I got in touch with the nice family whose backyard this bird visits regularly and they allowed Mr. Johnson and me to come and hang out in their sunroom on Saturday (when the bird was MIA) and again on Sunday (when the bird finally showed up again). I took a ton of pictures, but this was one of the best ones. Isn't this a handsome birdy? And I think it's amazing how well his colors camouflage him in this backyard setting. He spent a lot of time scratching around under these shrubs and would only come out momentarily, but thank goodness for the continuous shooting feature on my camera that enabled me to capture this photo
After seeing the towhee in Austin on Sunday morning, we turned around and raced back to Rochester to watch my niece Kathryn perform live on the 58th Annual Eagles Cancer Telethon. She did a splendid job singing "I Hope You Dance" in honor of her Grampy. The biggest disappointment was that she only sang one song. Kathy has a beautiful voice and we don't get a chance to hear her sing very often. Way to go Kathy!

Monday night was Holly's final test to pass the Intermediate Obedience class at PetSmart. Mr. Johnson's been working pretty hard with her on her sits and stays and all that practice paid off when she passed the class! She still gets pretty excited when she goes in to PetSmart, so the loose leash walking was what had me worried, but she did well on that portion of the test too and got her "diploma" and official graduation photo. Way to go Holly!
Winter has (finally!) officially arrived in Minnesota.We got several inches of snow this past week and the less welcome sub-zero temps to go along with it. But that did bring lots more activity at the birdfeeders and and fairly large flock of deer into the backyard on Friday nite for feasting on corn. Because the ground has been bare for so long, the deer were able to find food elsewhere and haven't been visiting us, so it was neat to see all of them once again.

I spent quite a few hours last week doing some therapeutic knitting. The stupid hard drive on my laptop at work died and I had to get a replacement installed. Unfortunately, not all the programs I used were recoverable and several significant queries that I need to run every day that are fairly vital to my job are still not working correctly, so my frustration level has been at about an 11 on a scale of 1-10. Grrrr! Hence the need for therapeutic knitting.

First project finished was this fluffly scarf. The yarn is a weird kind of mesh, and you actually just loop the meshes over each other on the knitting needles. I like how it turned out but I'm not sure how much I'll actually ever wear it because I really don't need any extra "fluffiness" on my front, plus it has a really annoying tendency to get snagged on my earrings and that's just not working for me. So this scarf will probably become a nice donation item for some worthy cause I support.
I ended up getting pretty heavily into "mitten mode" this week too with the purchase of the beautiful Cloisonee Mitten pattern on Ravelry. So I dug through my closet for some pretty colors and this was my first mitten attempt. Love it!
Of course, this pattern inspired me to "think outside the box" and so my second attempt was a glove -- a combination of two different patterns. I really liked this one too!
In my ongoing resolution to finish some old projects in January, I got one step closer to being able to wear these houndstooth mittens by (almost) finishing this one. I really need to get these done because they're super warm -- the stranding between the checks makes these mittens doubly thick (plus they're wool).
And finally, after languishing on the kitchen counter waiting to be washed and blocked, my Annis Shawl (a Knitty pattern) is also done! The yarn is a beautiful mohair/silk/nylon blend with a little tiny silver thread also woven in. These photos don't do it justice, but the fuzzy, sparkly yarn combined with the beads make this one of the most stunning shawls I have ever knitted.
I'm looking forward to an opportunity to wear this shawl somewhere and I'm sure it will be lovely and warm too.

Those "sticks" you see holding the edges of the shawl are called blocking wires. You put them through the stitches when the shawl is wet and then pin the shawl out to the shape you want it to be when it's dry.

So that's all for last week, I wonder what this next week will bring.......

2012 Wish List

2012-01-11T18:25:00.001-06:00

Here's my wish list for Life Birds I'd like to see in 2012. I chose these birds specifically because I think they're attainable without having to travel great distances -- possibly without even leaving Minnesota!

I found a Golden-Winged Warbler last spring when I was volunteering for the BirdSafe monitoring project, but it was already dead, so I couldn't count that one. It would be much more satisfying to see one alive anyway. I also saw in our local paper this week that a Spotted Towhee has been hanging out in a backyard in Austin, MN (only 26 miles away) so a trip to Austin is on my agenda for this coming weekend. I'm hoping to be able to check off the Bohemian Waxwing and Long-Tailed Duck during the upcoming Sax-Zim Winter Birding festival.

I'll be posting periodic updates to this list as progress is made. This is a pretty ambitious list, but I do have an entire year to achieve my goal. Wish me luck!

Sax-Zim Winter Birding Festival

2012-01-06T21:35:00.001-06:00

Have you checked your February birding schedule yet? How about a visit to northern Minnesota for the Sax-Zim Winter Birding Festival! February 17-19 are the dates and they'll be ready to welcome birders again.......
Need to check a Great Gray Owl off your life list? There's a pretty good chance you'll see one -- I took this photo in The Bog last winter.

How about a Snow Bunting or two? Pretty sure they'll be there for the festival also!

Ever seen one of these? Sometimes we see them in southern Minnesota, but you're guaranteed to see several Common Redpolls at this festival -- maybe even flocks of them at a feeding station with a Hoary Redpoll or two mixed in that flock.

There's still time to register for one of the "coolest" birding festivals in the U.S. I'll be there and I hope you can make it too!

Dissecting an Owl Pellet

2012-01-05T19:30:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year Everyone! I would like to say that one of my New Year's resolutions is to pay more attention to my blog again, but I'm not sure whether I can stick to that one. I'll make an attempt though now that a new year has begun. I still have bunches of photos from last summer saved in my camera that have never made it to the blog, so maybe I'll start with those. Even though this winter's been pretty mild so far, pictures of summer are always nice in the middle of January.

Today's post is about something else from last summer -- this owl pellet I found one day when we were out birding. It's been wrapped up in a paper napkin in the trunk of the car since last May. I was happy to still be able to find it in the trunk on New Year's Day, so I could take some photos of what this owl pellet consisted of. It looks pretty interesting just like this, doesn't it? You can't really tell from this picture, but it's actually a little bit smaller than a ping-pong ball.

Turning the pellet around, you can definitely see that there are some nice little rodent teeth. (I put on a glove because I remember hearing a horrible story a few years ago about some high school students that got sick after opening owl pellets, so I didn't want to tempt fate.)

I pulled the teeth out first because that was the biggest piece. What you do you think? I'm guessing maybe red squirrel or chipmunk based on the size of these teeth.

Lookit that! You can even see the little molars when I turn the jawbone over.

There were some other bigger pieces of bone in there, but no pieces that could be positively identifed as skull. The tail was pretty easy to identify though.

Here's another piece that looks kind of like a tiny little femur, doesn't it? And then there's the tail. I guess I should have had the tape measure out so I could have given you a better idea of exact size (fail!)

And here's the final showing of all the bony fragments and pieces that were inside the furry pellet.

I don't know that much about owl pellets, so I wondered whether all that fur was actually from the same animal that these bones belonged to? If it was a red squirrel or chipmunk, would the remaining fur all be this gray in color? Or does being inside an owl's stomach before being expelled change the color to gray? A mystery of nature that I can't unravel, but I was still excited about finding and opening this owl pellet.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T21:00:00.001-06:00

I wish a very Merry Christmas to all of you my dear blogging friends and followers. Cherish and enjoy your time with family and friends.

Holly Goes to School

2011-11-30T19:40:00.000-06:00

Since the middle of October, we've taken Holly to the local PetSmart for her first Basic Obedience class. This was new for us too as we never took any of our three previous dogs to class -- Rick just had them trained for hunting purposes. Holly did pretty good with most of her lessons and the teacher told us that she was pleased with how much Holly had progressed since her first week at class. I was happy with her progress too -- especially since we started classes less than 2 weeks after Holly came to live with us.

Holly was the "big girl" in class -- all of her classmates were much smaller than she is. Here Holly's checking to make sure Buster didn't miss any treats. Buster was a rescue dog too. He was a really cute little dog.
Here Holly's checking to see if she can barge in on the game with Pickwick and Eddie. Pickwick was a very quiet little guy and somewhat trained when he came to class. His mom had already attended training classes previously with Pickwick's big brother. Eddie was a holy terror on his first night of class. He barked all the time and totally ignored his mom and dad. He really benefited from obedience classes and was quite a friendly and well-trained little dog by the end of class.

Here's Holly with all 3 of her classmates. See what I meant about her being a "big girl?" You should have seen how these little dogs all freaked out the first time Holly barked in class! (She has a really loud bark!)

Our final test was last Monday. I was a little worried about Holly passing, but she did just fine. She excels at "sit" and "down," so I knew we'd do fine with that. She even did well with "leave it," although Eddie snuck in and stole the treat from the floor that Holly wasn't supposed to have. Holly did fine with her "sit and stay" as I opened and stepped out the door. Then it was time for the part of the test I was really worried about: loose leash walking around the store. Holly gets really excited when we go to PetSmart and pulls so hard on her leash, but I had her outside in the afternoon chasing a ball for about an hour, so when the time for her walkabout finally arrived, she was pretty worn out and she did fine. Congratulations Graduate!

As long as we were in the school mode, I stopped at PetSmart on my way home from work the next day and signed Holly up for Intermediate Obedience class. We'll start back to school on December 12th. This class is going to be a lot tougher, but hopefully Holly (and, more importantly, I) will be up to the challenge.

A Winter Treat for the Birds

2011-11-25T16:35:00.000-06:00

My neighbor cut up a deer for one of his buddies today. I went over and asked him for the rib cage and he delivered it to me a couple hours ago. There's quite a bit of nice fat and meat still left on the bones, so this will provide lots of high energy food for the birds. I did this a few winters ago and the birds loved it! It looks kinda nasty, but the birds don't mind. Plus, none of my neighbors can see into my backyard, so no one else will be offended by this bloody carcass hanging in a tree.
And lookit where it is -- right outside the dining room window! As I'm sitting here at my computer typing this blog post, I have a fabulous view and can hardly wait until tomorrow when the birds discover this rare treat in my tree!

Holly got part of a tasty leg bone out of the deal too!

After I got my bloody carcass secured to the tree, I got a little bit more fall yard clean-up accomplished. The weather's been so mild lately -- quite unseasonable for the end of November in Minnesota. This little honeysuckle with a sheltered southern exposure has been fooled into thinking spring's on the way. Unfortunately, our forecast of rain and snow for tomorrow will certainly guarantee that these tiny buds won't be getting a chance to bloom this year!

A Visit to the Dog Park

2011-11-10T21:55:00.000-06:00

Holly's completed 3 of the 6 sessions of her first obedience training class. She's quite "exuberant" in class and tends to overwhelm her 4 other much smaller classmates. Since class is currently the only socialization event in her life, Holly's teacher suggested we try getting her out with other dogs more, so we drove over to the dog park on Tuesday afternoon. Holly had a good time investigating all the smells of other dogs that had been there previously.
On account of this being my first visit to the dog park, I had no idea we should have brought a toy and some water for Holly. Fortunately, Mojo and his dad were there with a couple tennis balls and Mojo was more than willing to have Holly chase along with him to fetch the tennis ball.

Mojo's only about 1 year old, but he was much better behaved than Holly. Mojo's dad had spent a lot of time training him and offered us a few tips for working with Holly also.

Holly and Mojo played well together and they were evenly matched in speed when chasing after the ball and coming back with it.

I thought they made a very handsome pair!

After we had been there for about 15 minutes, another couple showed up with their little black lab puppy. This was a very friendly little dog and wasn't shy at all about meeting Holly. She tolerated the little puppy very well too.

And a few minutes after the puppy's arrival, a couple of women arrived with their huge black lab. I heard one of them say the dog currently weighed about 100 pounds! This dog was even more out of control than Holly -- those ladies couldn't do anything with the dog. Holly didn't back down from this challenger and after a few growls and snaps, we decided that it was time to get Holly back in the car and head for home.

It was fun to see Holly playing with the other dogs in a larger space than her weekly classroom. I will definitely take her to the dog park again, but might try the one at the other end of town. I was not thrilled that this park had so much dirt right in the middle of it and Holly had to have a bath after I got her home to get her all cleaned up and shiny again. I've been past the north side dog park and that entire park is all grass -- no dirt. It's also a little busier than the south side park, but I'll try it once to see how we do there.

Weekend at Crex Meadows

2011-11-07T21:00:00.003-06:00

On the last weekend of October, we took a trip to Crex Meadows Wildlife Area near Grantsburg, Wisconsin to catch the Sandhill Crane migration. We left early Saturday morning so we could be there in time to see sunset arrival cranes at their nighttime roosting areas in the refuge. We got there early enough to take a drive through the park and observe some other birds. At one area where we stopped, we got to see some Trumpeter Swans.

Trumpeter Swans can be seen at Crex most of the year (except winter), so we felt fortunate to be able to see them this close before their migration to warmer climes.

Holly isn't much of a bird dog, but she kept my seat warm in the car while I was out taking pictures!

About an hour before sunset, the cranes started arriving. We were at the wrong part of the refuge for the first part of this, but after driving around a bit more and seeing where all the other cars were parked, we did manage to catch quite a few of the cranes still arriving before it was too dark.

There were cranes everywhere! Here with "landing gear" down......

A group of cranes takes a walk across the marsh.

Here's a nice shot of a large flock in silhouette against the twilight sky. It's magical so see and hear so many Sandhill Cranes at one time!

Sunday morning brought another chilly and cloudy day, but we did head back out to Crex before the rain moved in. We saw a few more cranes and some waterfowl, but the biggest thrill for me was this flyover of a first year Rough-Legged Hawk.

I felt privileged to be able to capture these shots of this beautiful raptor who had made its migration journey all the way south to Wisconsin after being hatched earlier this year somewhere near the Arctic Circle.

Be sure to add Crex Meadows Wildlife Area and to your birding "must see" list on your next visit to Wisconsin!

It's time!

2011-10-27T16:15:00.000-05:00

I took the cage protector off my suet log a few weeks ago once the grackles left the yard and raccoons were no longer a problem. The woodpeckers loved having easy access to the entire log -- especially the bigger Hairy and Red-Bellied woodpeckers.

But look who I caught eyeing the suet log yesterday.......did you notice the top hole was completely empty?

Yupper!! And here's why! That big ol' crow beak can clean out a suet log in a quick hurry compared to a tiny little Downy woodpecker beak!

So right after I took these pictures, I went out and put the cage back over the suet log. I know the woodpeckers aren't happy, but at least it's not a crow feeder anymore!

Help Me Solve A Mystery

2011-10-26T14:25:00.000-05:00

The other day when we were taking Holly for a walk, I found these strange things laying in the road.

There were several together in close proximity, but I've never seen anything like them before.

I'm thinking it's probably something that fell from a tree, but looking up I couldn't see anything like it on any of the overhead branches.

The middle is some sort of woody layer. The outside "prickery looking" kind of reminded me of deer fur. It was stiff, but not sharp like thistles (even though it looks sharp). The inside was short and soft too -- almost like velvet.

Have you ever seen anything like this before? I would have "googled" it, but I had no idea of how to begin describing such a thing for a google search. Please help me solve this mystery!

A New Doggeh!

2011-10-18T17:55:00.002-05:00

I managed to make it approximately 3 weeks without a dog after dear old Sophie passed away and could hardly stand not having a dog at home after 30+ years of living with dogs! So, after searching the listings and interviewing several potential dogs, Holly came to live with us on October 7th! Here we are picking her up at Paws & Claws Humane Society in Rochester. (she's got her eyes on a shelter cat up on the counter behind us)

In case you're wondering, Holly's a boxer/pit bull cross.

The story I was told at Paws & Claws was that Holly (her previous name was Cali) was a surrender because there were some "differences of opinion" between her and the other older dog at her previous home. And after the two of them got into a serious "argument" (Holly still had some scabs on her face when we brought her home), Holly needed to find a new home where she was going to be the only dog.

She's a very sweet doggeh and quite attached to both of us already. It's comforting for me to have that warm furry body curled up next to me in bed at night. She even will crawl under the covers after Rick leaves for work at 3:45 and Holly and I get the chance to cuddle until my alarm goes off at 6:00.

She's a licker!

And even though she's a pretty big girl, she doesn't have any trouble curling up to fit the smallest spot next to you (or even on your lap!)

She especially likes laying on the pillows!

Last Sunday my family came over and Holly got to meet them for the first time. She normally doesn't beg at the table, but found that my nephew Ethan was an easy mark -- for begging.......

......and for kissing!

She likes Rick's big leather recliner, but since Kathy and Matt had already claimed it, Holly did the best she could to get her share of the chair.
At supper tonite, I found out that Holly likes broccoli! That's a first for any of our dogs.
And she very kindly and neatly pre-washed the broccoli dish for me too!

Holly's very interested in Penny and after an initial few days of hiding out, Penny has now become accustomed to having Holly around. We do keep an eye on Holly though, for fear that she'll want to play too roughly with Penny. At 15 years of age, Penny's rough-housing days are pretty much over.
We're getting lots of dog walking exercise again now and Holly takes advantage of every chance she can for a nap.
And now if you'll excuse me, it's time to walk the dog!!

Midwest Birding Symposium - Day 2

2011-10-04T22:30:00.000-05:00

Friday, September 16th dawned clear and beautiful. Since we were still exhausted from our early morning departure and long drive of Thursday, we opted out of the 6:00 AM birding hike and slept in until 7:00. After getting ready and heading out the door, it was time to officially register for the Midwest Birding Symposium and check out our headquarters at the Den of Blogniquity.
The Den of Blogniquity was a pretty cool place. I also got the chance to finally meet some of my blogging friends face-to-face for the first time ever! In the back row is me (of course!) and Susan (Susan Gets Native). In the front row is Lynne (Hasty Brook), Kathi (KatDoc's World) and Nina (Nature Remains).

Photo by Ann Oliver

More candid shots from the Den of Blogniquity. It was a nice, quiet place away from the hustle & bustle of the symposium. I believe we were supposed to take time to sit down and compose blog posts from there, but honestly, I never got a chance, there was just too much other stuff going on that I wanted to participate in!
Susan and I having a photo duel. See the window peeker in the background? Participants at the symposium were invited to stop by and see what MBS Bloggers actually did. Unfortunately, I think we disappointed a lot of people because most of us weren't there very often.
Here's another look inside the Den of Blogniquity. I would like to take this opportunity to say "Thank You" to Bill Thompson, III for giving me the privilege of being an Official MBS Blogger at the Midwest Birding Symposium.
And before we knew it, it was time to head over to Hoover Auditorium for the opening ceremonies of the Midwest Birding Symposium.
While we were searching for the best seat, we ran into some blog fans. Here I am with Bill Ringer. Lynne told me Bill had e-mailed her prior to the Symposium and was looking forward to meeting here. When we saw him, he knew Lynne right away and then he looked at me (sitting next to Lynne) and said, "the middle-aged, tattooed, biker woman." I laughed out loud right there -- I had no idea Bill was one of my blog reading fans and it was really great to meet him!
Bill Thompson, III gave the opening/welcome message and since it was fairly certain that many of us would be seeing life birds during the symposium, he also gave us instructions on how to do the "Life Bird Dance."
Next was the keynote address from Kenn and Kimberly Kaufmann who talked to use about Birding Ohio's North Coast.
Kimberly did a great job with her talk. She's passionate about birds and birding and getting people of all ages involved in birding, which is a good thing as she's also the Executive Director of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory!
Then it was Kenn's turn to speak. His "Field Guide to the Birds of North America" is my "go to" bird book, so I was really happy to hear him speak in person. And what a nice guy!
Kenn and Kimberly were both such wonderful speakers and just genuinely nice people. You could just imagine yourself sitting down with them somewhere for coffee and pie and visiting about all the cool birds and birding adventures they've been on and it would be like you'd known them forever.
They had a special promotion for Symposium participants who would be willing to go out and get some new people interested in birding. I believe it was quite successful because Lynne told me later that day that she had gotten one of the last cards available.
At the back of Hoover Auditorium was the vendor booth of one of my favorite authors and artists -- Julie Zickefoose. Julie has brought along some of the original paintings that are going to be featured in her new book coming out next spring, "The Bluebird Effect." Julie also brought along her famous canine companion, Chet Baker! If I didn't get the chance to see any life birds during this trip, that would have been OK, because I got the chance to meet Chet Baker and have my photo taken with him! I was missing my Sophie an awful lot and Chet could sense that I needed a little doggeh love. He's one special pup!
One of the fun things we got to do at the Symposium was have our photo taken in front of a "green screen" and choose a special background. I chose to be a Bird Watcher's Digest cover girl. I think it turned out pretty neat.

After a tasty lunch, we headed back to Hoover Auditorium for an afternoon presentation by Alvaro Jaramillo entitled "Birding Outside the Box -- Birding Identification Like a Pro!" Alvaro was a great speaker and his talk combined birding tips and humor, so we had fun learning new things.

Lynne was able to get a few extra birding tips from Alvaro after the presentation also. What a nice guy he was! I hope I get the chance to go on one of his birding trips someday.
Whew, this day is just flying by! After supper, we headed back to Hoover Auditorium for the evening speakers. But before the speakers, there was musical entertainment by The Rain Crows (featuring Bill Thompson, III and Julie Zickefoose).
Then it was time for our evening keynote speakers. Dr. Bridget Stutchbury spoke of her work as The Bird Detective: Investigating the Private Lives of Birds.
Our next speaker was Pete Dunne who read an essay entitled, "The Old Man and the Plover" from his newest book.
Here's a look at Pete Dunne on the Jumbotron in Hoover Auditorium.

And finally our first full day of the Midwest Birding Symposium was over. Time to head back to the motel and get some sleep so we would be ready to head out for tomorrow morning's early birding events.

2011 Midwest Birding Symposium - Day 1

2011-10-02T18:00:00.002-05:00

Today marks 2 weeks since my visit to the Midwest Birding Symposium. An insane work schedule, getting caught up on stuff at home and looking for a new doggie has been keeping me super busy. But I finally have a day off today, so I'm almost caught up on the laundry and an adoption form has been filled out for a new furry child to arrive late next week, so I took advantage of some extra time to get my photos edited and get started on my blog posts from the Midwest Birding Symposium. So I'm going to do it in chronological order, starting with day 1.

My best birding friend Lynne arrived Wednesday afternoon (Sept. 14th) and stayed overnight at my house so we could get an early start for our long drive to Lakeside, Ohio for the symposium. We backed out of the driveway right on schedule at 5:30 AM as we figured it would take us at least 10 hours to make the 700+ mile drive. Now I gots to tell ya, there is a very short list of people I would want to share a 12 hour road trip with, but Lynne is definitely at the top of that list. Amazingly enough we never ran out of things to talk about. The trip was exciting from the very beginning -- Lynne barely missed hitting a coyote who was stupid enough to dash out onto the highway in the darkness. We stopped every couple hours for snack and potty breaks and to switch drivers. Lynne handled the drive right through Chicago like the seasoned Twin Cities driver she is. We talked and laughed so much that we almost forgot to stop for gas! Good thing Lynne's car reminded us it was time or we would have been stranded somewhere on the Ohio turnpike and missed our boarding of the boat for the Sunset Boat Cruise.

We got to Lakeside, Ohio and the Midwest Birding Symposium with only minutes to spare for joining our friends on the Sunset Boat Cruise. It was really nice to hop on the boat and let someone else take over the driving duties. Plus we both were able to enjoy the view of sunset on Lake Erie.
What a great way to start out the Midwest Birding Symposium. This is a look at South Bass Island. The tower is Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial.
The cruise had a "Chum Master" who tossed out popcorn which attracted flocks of seagulls behind the boat. I wasn't able to get close to the back of the boat, but it sounded like those who did saw a good variety of gulls.
This is Kelleys Island. Some participants of the Midwest Birding Symposium were able to sign up for a Sunday cruise and birding adventure on Kelleys Island.
Sunset's getting closer. The cruise was about 2 hours long and included a wonderful buffet supper that we enjoyed very much.
Here's a closer look at Perry's Memorial.
And now it's almost dark and our cruise is almost over. You can see the light in the top of Perry's Memorial. What a beautiful sunset and a perfect end of the first day of our Midwest Birding Symposium adventure.
After our sunset boat cruise, we checked into our motel and were greeted by this little spidey in our tub. I'm not arachnophobic, but still, spiders in the bathtub just aren't cool. Thankfully, Lynne took care of this little matter.

I hope you'll stay tuned for the rest of my posts from the Symposium and maybe I'll even convince you to think about attending the Midwest Birding Symposium in Lakeside, Ohio in 2013. Save the date -- they're already accepting preregistrations!

Farewell to my Beloved Sophie

2011-09-25T18:10:00.001-05:00

Right before I was scheduled to leave for the Midwest Birding Symposium a week and a half ago, I had to have my beloved dog Sophie euthanized. Her health has been failing for many months, and she had stopped eating the previous week. I tried to tempt her with delicious canned dog food, but even that held no appeal for her. She had a difficult night on Tuesday (the 13th) and neither of us got much sleep and I knew on Wednesday morning that it was finally time to make that dreaded phone call to my vet. My trip was going to be 5 days and I didn't want Mr. Johnson to have to deal with that all by himself while I was gone. We have a wonderful vet and she had taken care of Sophie for her entire life, so I was thankful she was able to come out that very day. We were able to hold Sophie in our arms and comfort her as she passed peacefully.

Sophie was "my" dog from day one -- I picked her out and bought her and we were very attached to one another. I loved her with all my heart and miss her very desperately. We had almost 14 years with her and lots of memories -- good and some not so good -- as any pet owner would probably agree. In this post, I want to share some of my favorite memories of Sophie with you.

When Sophie arrived, Mr. Johnson wasn't happy! He didn't think we needed another dog, but I thought differently and brought her home without Mr. Johnson's approval. Sophie soon won him over with her cuteness!
Sophie loved Daisy from the start and wanted to be with her all the time.

Daisy, on the other hand, wasn't totally thrilled with her new and extremely pesty "little sister."

Penny was not quite a year old when Sophie came to live with us. Since Penny had only ever had Daisy as her "dog sister" she thought she was a dog anyway and Sophie and Penny were always great friends. Penny is also missing Sophie very much now.

Sophie loved sleeping on the bed -- no matter who she had to share it with!

Sophie also loved beer! Mr. Johnson trained her to drink from the bottle and she really excelled at that.

Sophie was an excellent retriever and loved playing with her frisbees -- no matter what the weather. Sophie was never trained as a hunting dog, but on one hunting trip when she got to go along with us and Daisy, she surprised all of us by finding and retrieving a pheasant!

In addition to people walking their dogs past our house and staying home by herself, Sophie had some other dislikes, including possums,
stray cats in the backyard (she got that from me!),

starlings (she got that from me too!),
and chipmunks.

Sophie always loved snoozing -- usually it was in a sunny spot in the living room.

But she would also burrow under the covers in bed if we forgot to make it in the morning.

Since she was always cold with her short fur, she would readily submit to wearing the sweater I knitted for her on cold winter days.

Because Sophie's health had been failing for a couple years, we tried to take her along with us whenever we went on our birding trips. She got to explore the Sax-Zim Bog in northern Minnesota.

And she came along to Crex Meadows in Wisconsin when we went to see Sandhill Cranes.

The weather was hot when we visited Blue Mounds State Park, so she just hung out in the shade with Mr. Johnson.

Sophie's special treat was a cheeseburger from McDonald's dollar menu. She even ate the pickle!

Earlier this year I found a cushy dog bed to put on the floor for Sophie since she wasn't able to jump up on the couch or bed anymore. She loved that bed so much I ended up buying her 2 more for other rooms in the house. I like to think they made her last days much more comfortable.

Sophie Belinda Johnson
10/23/97 - 9/14/11

Midwest Birding Symposium

2011-09-18T06:55:00.004-05:00

Well, here we are at the final day of the Midwest Birding Symposium and I'm finally doing my first blog post (I guess I'm not the multi-tasker I thought I was!) We're heading out for more birding this morning, but I wanted to show you a few random images showing you why this Symposium is so wonderful.

Birding the Boardwalk of Magee Marsh with Kenn Kaufman!

Setting the Guinness World Record for the 801 people in one place doing an owl call!

Meeting many blogging friends for the first time!

Life Birds! (this is a black-throated green warbler)

Meeting celebrities of the birding world!

(Lynne with Alvaro Jaramillo)

Chet Baker ON. MY. LAP!!!

And of course, the indescribable and always entertaining Susan!

Lack of time, my little netbook display and slow internet capabilities are not up to the task of creating good blog posts, but when I get home next week, I'll share all the photos and stories of this festival so YOU can start planning to attend the next one in 2013!

A Life Saved

2011-09-06T15:26:00.002-05:00

I got back from my walk this afternoon to find a juvenile Cedar Waxwing just sitting on the downstairs patio -- the apparent victim of a collision with this dining room window.Believe it or not, despite what the birds are seeing on this window, there are surprisingly few window strikes here and those that have occurred are almost never fatal. I think the fact that the tree is so close to the window helps to keep the birds from hitting at full speed.

Anyway, as soon as I saw this little bird, I put the butterfly net over him to make sure I could rescue him. He didn't resist the net at all and I was easily able to scoop him up and give him a quick physical examination which revealed no obvious trauma or broken bones. His loud squawks indicated he was pretty aware of his situation, so I was confident that he wasn't injured seriously.

I admitted him to St. Alegria for a short convalescent period.
After about 10 minutes in the warm, dark and safe confines of St. Alegria, juvenile Cedar Waxwing was ready to be released.

After opening my hand, this youngster quickly winged his way to the top of the nearest evergreen tree. There are plenty of Cedar Waxwings hanging around the backyard this time of year, so hopefully he'll be reunited with his family soon. And just maybe, he learned a valuable lesson about staying away from my dining room window!

Downy Finds a New Treat

2011-09-05T13:42:00.004-05:00

Hello! What do we have here?

Is this actually something to eat? Why haven't I noticed it before?

Well, this isn't going to be easy getting a meal here, is it?

I'll just have to try and turn a little bit more, but there sure isn't much to perch on!
Jeez, this is really challenging! It sure looks a lot easier when the nuthatches are doing it!

A Trip to the State Fair

2011-09-03T08:00:00.001-05:00

Last Monday, we visited "The Great Minnesota Get-Together" aka the Minnesota State Fair.

We admired some knitting. I was awed by these mittens -- appeared to be about 25 stitches to the inch! I couldn't even begin to imagine how long it took this person to knit these!

We also admired some award-winning wood carvings -- I especially loved this adorable little fox.
We ate some delicious fair food -- these are the Australian batter-fried potatoes with ranch and cheese sauce!
We took a ride on the Sky Glider.
And saw some interesting looking fish at the DNR fish pond.

We watched a sheep-herding competition at the Coliseum.

And admired the alpacas.

We saw lots of baby animals -- twin baby lambs (1 day old)

Cute goat kid (2 days old and totally rambunctious!)

Baby Piglet (1 day old)

We saw this cow in labor at The Miracle of Birth Center in the morning

and her handsome little calf lying next to her later in the afternoon (born at 1:30 pm)

We saw some super-sized horses

and some regular-sized horses

We had an excellent adventure at the Minnesota State Fair. As with all other visits, one day just isn't enough to see everything. I took lots more photos and if you'd like to check out the entire photo album, you can click on this link to visit the album on my Facebook page.

Monarch Ranch Update

2011-09-02T16:25:00.002-05:00

Three monarch butterflies hatched in the monarch ranch this morning. This brings my current total to 25 (finally!)
It's been a disappointing season for my monarch ranch. Last year by this time, I had released my last monarch, with a total of 50 tagged. This year it's taken me since July 26th to reach a total of 25.

The biggest thing I'm seeing this year is that fully one-third of all the caterpillars I've brought in from outside have been victims of a parasite. Some of them have died before they even have the chance to turn into a chrysalis and at least 6 have died in the chrysalis. I'm not even seeing that many monarch butterflies in the wild so that meant I had a tough time even finding eggs on the milkweed leaves in my yard this year.

I'm not sure whether other people are experiencing the same problems with monarchs or not. I've heard from some other blogger friends that they aren't seeing the numbers of butterflies (of any species) like they have in previous years, so I'm wondering whether this is a nationwide problem and what are the influencing factors: climate change, drought, pesticide use, habitat loss, or a combination of all those? If any of you hear or see anything about this, please let me know. Thanks

Dad's Memorial Bench

2011-08-27T08:01:00.003-05:00

Here's a look at the memorial bench we're going to put up for my Dad. Mom got the memorial dollars totalled up, I finally got the wording right that all my family members could agree on, chose 5 possible locations for placement around the St. John's property to present in a proposal to the trustees. Amazingly, the church trustees were able to approve one of those spots in only 3 days, and we were free to move ahead with this project. I visited Bill at the memorial company yesterday, signed the agreement and gave him the deposit. Hopefully, before the end of September, this bench will be in place near the school where my Dad influenced so many lives for the past 50 years. Hopefully the people who sit on this bench and were Dad's students or worked with Dad will have some good stories and memories to share with each other or their own kids and grandkids.

Love you and miss you Dad! You can bet I'll take my turn sitting on this bench and remember some of the interesting and fun stories of having you for a teacher too!

Midwest Birding Symposium Update

2011-08-23T19:35:00.001-05:00

By now you probably know that I'll be attending the Midwest Birding Symposium in Lakeside, Ohio in just a little over 3 weeks. I'm also one of the lucky few chosen to be an "Official Blogger" at the Symposium. I'm really looking forward to this road trip with my best birding friend Lynne (also chosen as an Official Blogger). And if any of you have any good tips on the best way to get through the Chicago expressway system with a minimum or stress and/or profanity, please share them with me in the comments.

It looks like there's a multitude of fun activities and events planned for attendees at the Midwest Birding Symposium, but did you know there's going to be a raffle too? I understand that the money collected for raffle tickets goes to benefit a variety of birding, conservation and natural resource groups. I checked with the folks in charge of the symposium to see if they were still looking for raffle items and if they'd be interested in any of my handmade fiber treasures. The answer was "Yes!" So for those of you who are attending the symposium, please be sure to register to win one of these following items I'm donating:

8-Pointed Star-Shaped Ripple Afghan

Stripes are Pink Camo and Cafe Au Lait

I'm still crocheting on this one -- it's about half done and already pretty large. It will definitely be big enough to cover an adult -- probably even an adult and her small dog or cat!

It's 100% acrylic plus machine washable and dryable.

Lace Shawl

Knitted with silk/wool yarn and adorned with beads on the entire shawl

(click on the photo to enlarge)

Included with the shawl is this adorable copper shawl pin in the shape of a little birdie (from my personal collection)

Haven't registered for the Midwest Birding Symposium yet? No worries because there's still time and space available. If you think you can make it to the festival this year, I even have a discount code for you to use. Mention MBS2011BB25 on your registration to take advantage of the group discount rate.

Hope to see you there and if you can't make, check in with the Nature Knitter blog on Sept. 16-18 to get all the latest news from this "Official Blogger."

County Fair Results

2011-08-15T14:40:00.001-05:00

For the first time in many years, I entered some of my knitting projects for open class competition at the Olmsted County Fair. The entry process can be done totally on-line now, so that really streamlined things on entry day. I was kind of disappointed last year when I went to the fair and saw that there really weren't many handknitting projects entered in the fair. I thought with all the people that seem to be knitting these days that there would have been much more, but maybe people just don't do that anymore? So I decided that this year I would try raising the competition bar a bit by entering a few of the items I've finished in the past year. Here are the results of my fair entries and I've included the judges comments that were attached.

Gray Wool Mittens

"Nicely done. Decreases accentuate linear look. Warm, interesting cuff design."

Fair Isle Tam

"Colors work well together. Even floats inside."

If you're not a knitter and wonder what "even floats" mean, she's referring to the color not in use that's carried along the backside of the knitting project. If you're ever with a knitter and that person picks up a colorwork garment and turns it inside out, this is what we're looking at.....

Blue Swirly Cable Hat

"Interesting cables, shaping and cables work well together. Yarn accentuates cables."

Baltic Style Mittens

"Nice Braided Cuff. Interesting color combinations with muted and bright. Warm material. Even stitches and floats, nicely done."

Norwegian Wedding Gloves

"Exquisite! Yarn choice accentuates the lace. Great job, no finger gap, workmanship is superb."

Was awarded the burgundy "Honorable Mention" ribbon on these also. I've never seen or received this ribbon before, so I'm not sure if it's something new or what the deal is with it exactly.

Batik Shawl (knitted with 100% alpaca yarn)

"Love interplay of cables and lace, interesting to look at -- even the back is interesting. Very even, lovely piece."

I love the interplay of cables and lace on this pattern also -- one of the main reasons why I chose to knit this shawl, and it earned me the Reserve Grand Champion award!

Of all the years I've entered projects at the fair, this is the only time that I can remember receiving blue ribbons on everything. I was pretty happy about that. One year (sometime back in the '80s) I did get a Grand Champion ribbon and trophy on a large lace knitted shawl, so this year's reserve grand champion ribbon was pretty exciting too.

On all of my judges comments, the following statement was included: "Thanks for sharing your talent with Olmsted County." I hope that seeing my knitting projects at the fair will inspire and encourage other knitters in Olmsted County to think about entering their projects in the fair next year.

(I apologize for the poor color on these photographs -- I took the pictures late last nite under artificial light so they look pretty crappy.)

The Wren Family

2011-08-07T08:55:00.000-05:00

Underneath my deck, I have a little wren house (shaped like a mailbox). Every year since I put it up, the wrens have had a family there.
Since there's no way to look inside, I have no idea how many babies are squished in there, but I do know there are at least two.

And they're very noisy babies!
All day, every day, Mr & Mrs Wren spend every waking hour searching my backyard for bugs to feed these noisy babies. Sometimes they find bugs in the garden......

They perch on the clothesline before feeding the bugs to the babies (because their house is right below the clothesline).

But they really like to perch on the edge of the hanging basket holder that's right next to their house.

Their babies hear them chirping when they fly home with a bug and since those babies are always starving(!) the parents never get a rest.....

"More please, NOW, Mom!" ("Sigh," thinks mom)

During my photo session yesterday afternoon, one of the wren parents arrived with this epic-sized grub!

Let's see how the baby likes this treat......

Mom obviously considering whether to eat this tasty morsel herself or try to fit it in Junior's beak.

OK, let's try it again.......open WIDE!

Much wider, please!
That's good, you've almost got it!

OK, now get ready to swallow.......are you ready? I'm going to let go.

Oh No! YOU DROPPED IT!!

And Mrs. Wren goes back to searching for more insect treats in the backyard.

Watching these birds feed the insects they find is the main reason for never using pesticide sprays of any sort in my backyard. Having once inadvertently killed a family of bluebirds by spraying tent caterpillars with Raid, I learned a difficult (and valuable) lesson. Now I rely on the birds to do all the insect control work in my backyard and they seem to be managing the job very nicely.

Butterflies

2011-07-26T17:55:00.001-05:00

Ruthie's 2011 Monarch Ranch officially opened this afternoon! After last year's successful monarch ranch, I'm hoping to double my monarchs raised, tagged and released from 50 to 100! To facilitate that, I recently purchased a larger monarch caterpillar enclosure (on the left). So now the smaller one with the pink lid will be my monarch nursery (already containing the 7 leaves with eggs and 2 baby caterpillars that I found earlier this afternoon).
I also purchased a small, collapsible "Port-A-Bug" carrier for collecting the monarch caterpillars and eggs in the backyard, and a large, collapsible mesh butterfly house for when the monarch butterflies hatch and need space to spread their wings before release outdoors. Good thing I have a large kitchen counter!

Here are the 2 little caterpillars I was lucky to find today -- this one is newly hatched! I was lucky to spot this tiny critter. This isn't a very clear picture, but the orange circle shows where the caterpillar is -- the black spot is its head.

Here's a little bit larger (first instar) caterpillar. I think the dark spot on its middle might be part of a shed skin.

I went out to the wildflower garden in the backyard to see if I could get some photos of monarch butterflies -- I'm just starting to see them more frequently in the backyard. There are thousands of beautiful flowers blooming right now in the backyard and the majority of them are purple coneflowers. The fragrance is wonderful and it's a magnet for butterflies and bees.

I stood at the edge of the flowers waiting for some cooperative butterflies to land on the flowers, but was momentarily distracted when this little female hummingbird landed on a branch just above me. Hello lovely hummer!

I was thrilled to see this beautiful Tiger Swallowtail fly into the garden. Wow! This one must have been newly hatched because its wings were in good shape and colors were very brilliant.

Still no monarchs checking out the flowers, but this handsome Red Admiral flew in to sip some nectar.

And there were plenty of honeybees buzzing around too.

There are so many flowers out here that every insect should be able to find its own, but that didn't stop this honeybee from attempting to move in on a Red Admiral. (In case you're wondering, the Red Admiral chased that little bee away!)

Walking around the outside edge of the garden, I also spotted these 2 spiders on a small web woven between 2 Queen Anne's Lace stalks. I could exactly figure out what was going on here (it's either spider sex or one of the spiders is dead and becoming a meal for the other spider)

(you can click on this photo to enlarge it and see what you can figure out!)

That's all for now. I'll be sharing monarch ranch updates as they become available.

Woodpeckers!

2011-07-16T16:15:00.001-05:00

I have more woodpeckers at house this summer than I can ever remember before! Mostly Downys and many of them juveniles. This is a photo I took this morning -- featuring 5 Downys and 1 male Red-Bellied. What you can't see in this photo are 3 more Downys hanging onto the spindles of the deck railing below this photo! I have to refill this log every other day (it holds 1 suet cake). I also added another peanut feeder to a hook at the other side of the deck.

Another "first" for this year is a juvenile Red-Bellied Woodpecker at the feeders. The adults were occasional visitors all winter but have been showing up at the feeders more regularly this spring. Then one day not too longer I spotted their youngster at the peanut feeder. This little guy is perfectly capable of getting his own food, but I was thrilled to capture this series of photos from my dining room window earlier this morning. "Dad" came to the suet feeder while "Junior" just happened to be perched on the deck railing. What follows is the only interaction I've seen this summer between this Red-Bellied Woodpecker adult and baby.

"Hey Dad, is that for me?"

"Hurry! I'm so hungry!"
"Nom, Nom, Nom!"

Do woodpeckers have saliva??

Gag!

"OK, is that enough?" Dad asks

"Please sir, I want some more!"

Dad's thinking, "Hey look, peanuts!"

Midwest Birding Symposium

2011-07-15T08:09:00.005-05:00

Have you ever been to a birding festival? I've been to a few and enjoyed them very much. That's why in a couple of months I will be heading over to Lakeside, Ohio with my best birding friend Lynne, for the Midwest Birding Symposium. This will be the first time either of us have attended this festival, but because it's billed as "the world's friendliest birding event" we're looking forward to haveing a great time AND seeing some great birds!

We'll be meeting up with several of our birding/blogger/Facebook friends there -- some of whom I've never actually met in person before, but looking forward to this chance to meet and bird with them. If you're interested in attending this festival, registration information can be found at this link. Early bird registraion ends today (July 15th), but even if you don't have a chance to decide and sign up today, I would still encourage you to take advantage of "Ruthie's group discount code" if you're registering for the entire weekend (GROUPCODE MBS2011BB25). I've heard the meals are going to be fantastic too!

Some Miscellaneous Stuff

2011-07-14T17:25:00.000-05:00

This afternoon I donated my 120th unit of whole blood. For this achievement, I received my 15 gallon pin to add to my blood donor flair collection, plus a t-shirt and lovely purple water bottle. You know, it really doesn't seem like that long ago when I was celebrating my 100th unit.....

I realized when I was hanging out laundry the other day that I haven't shared any photos of the garden yet this year, so here they are. This garden bed contains 2 yellow zucchini plants (foreground), 3 pepper plants -- yellow banana, red and purple (at the left hiding behind the zucchini), 4 tomato plants (center), and 2 rows of giant sunflowers that I hope to harvest to have sunflowers heads to put out for my birds this winter (far right side).

Here's the other raised garden bed, containing radishes (pretty much done for the year now), leaf lettuce, beets, carrots, onions, and green beans. The orange flags were to mark the rows before everything sprouted, but I could probably take them down now. The white stuff between the rows on both these gardens is horse bedding (wood shavings). I was hoping it would help to keep the weeds down between the rows and I could till it into the soil as compost in the fall.

Remember a few years ago when I did a garden makeover at the front of the house? Here's how it looks today. Now that the plants and flowers have had a couple of years to grow and fill in, this garden has turned out exactly like I envisioned (hoped) it would. The lilies are especially fantastic this year.

I think this sunflower was planted by a chipmunk. It's right outside the basement window and I decided to let it grow. It has a perfect blossom and I'm sure the birdies will love feasting on the seeds later this season.

I finally got my fish children into their outside pond for the summer. They're not at all cooperative about having their picture taken and usually stay under the big rock when they see someone standing by their pool, but I did manage to catch a couple of them hanging out by the water lettuce.

Here's a little bit closer (but not necessarily better) look at them. They've adapted well to living in the backyard pond and I'm sure they won't be too happy coming back in to their 20-gallon tank in the fall after living in 60-gallon luxury for the summer. I have until October sometime to decide whether I want to invest in another larger aquarium for inside the house.......

Cuteness Continued!

2011-07-11T15:12:00.003-05:00

I saw that Richard featured a 2-part Cuteness post in his At The Water blog a couple weeks ago and here's my version of baby squirrel cuteness continued!

I first noticed a tiny red squirrel walking across the patio while I was downstairs ironing the other day and couldn't believe how small it was (even smaller than my chipmunks!)

I can't remember ever seeing such a little one before -- of course, up until this year, the red squirrels also weren't very common visitors in the backyard.

Yesterday I happened to spot this little one again and decided to take the camera outside and see if I could get some photos.

Not at all fearful of humans was this little one, so I was able to get within about 4 feet to take these photos.

I know they can be super naughty and also very destructive, but that doesn't take away from their cuteness, does it?

They're definitely fun to watch!

This one is my favorite and also my new desktop wallpaper.

Squirrel Antics

2011-06-24T18:20:00.002-05:00

After many years living at this place, I finally have a few squirrels as regular visitors in the backyard. I really don't mind squirrels -- many of my birdfeeders are squirrel-proof so the squirrels mostly behave and eat at the ground feeder trays that I fill with corn for them. The squirrels do give me plenty of photo opportunities and lots of chuckles while watching them from my dining room window. Here are a bunch of pictures that I've been saving up for several months and am finally getting around to sharing them here on the blog.

Here is my fattest gray squirrel trying to figure out how to get the delicious, peanutty birdseed from my Yankee Tipper feeder.
The beauty of this feeder is that the lid is heavy aluminum and can't be chewed through -- all the while the vision of those peanuts is taunting this squirrel.

The large diameter and smoothness of the seed tube doesn't give the squirrel any chance to grab on and shimmy its way down to the seed ports.

I was waiting for the squirrel to drop down onto the tray so I could see the tray tip the squirrel off, but this guy evidently has experienced one of these feeders before and didn't even try to get down to the seed.

So the next stop was my woodpecker log filled with delicious peanutty suet -- only to encounter another disappointment with the cage protector. Can you believe how chubby this squirrel is?

I do let them drink as much water as they want though. ;-)

For entertainment value, this Squngee corn feeder has been a good addition to my backyard feeding station.

However, my squirrels are too lazy (or maybe too fat??) to jump up on the ears of corn once they eat past the point of where they can reach from a standing position.

Whoa!! Getting a little off-balance here!

Corn is OK, but peanuts are way better! Another trip to the deck for shelled peanuts.

Drat! Can't even chew through this metal feeder! (and I can't even imagine how awful that green plastic coating must taste)

This ambitious squirrel found easy access to the corn on the cob I put out for the bluejays to peck on. His bushy tail makes a good umbrella on this rainy day.

And if you're a squirrel not ambitious enough to leap to the corn cobs, it's pretty easy to pull them over from the feeder tray. This skinny squirrel is not a regular visitor -- probably because Fatty keeps chasing all the other squirrels away.

I have at least 2 red squirrels who visit regularly too. These little guys are my favorites. Even though they can be super naughty, I still think they're adorable.

Because of its smaller size, the red squirrel employs a totally different method for obtaining peanuts than the big gray squirrel has to use.

I'm amazed how this little guy can hang on with only its back feet and eat the peanuts with its front feet......and in the pouring rain too!

This looks like a squirrel bed and breakfast! Lazy bugger!

There were a few really snowy weeks last winter when the squirrels were absent from my backyard, but once it got closer to spring, they started to reappear. They seemed to be especially grateful for fresh water at my heated birdbath.

And even heavy snow couldn't deter this determined red squirrel from raiding the birdfeeder tray for its favorite snack -- black oil sunflower seeds.

The tree stump offers a good place to stop and snack on sunflower seeds in a snowstorm too.

Good-Bye Dad

2011-06-13T13:00:00.000-05:00

Last August, my dad was diagnosed with liver cancer (directly related to Dad's cigarette habit many years ago). At that time, he was given an indeterminate "weeks to months" to live. His oncologist then started him on an oral chemotherapy drug and Dad achieved remission in March of this year. At the end of April he developed a lesion and osteomyelitis on one of his toes and the toe was surgically amputated. He was sent home with Augmentin, but after a couple weeks he started experiencing some jaundice and fatigue symptoms. His health continued to decline and after numerous visits to Mayo Clinic, the doctors determined that Dad's diseased liver had been unable to cope with the Augmentin and they began trying to reverse this antibiotic side effect. Last Tuesday, Dad had gotten so weak that Mom had to bring him to the ER again. He was admitted to the hospital that day and again the doctors spent much time trying to figure out how to get his current condition reversed. Many things were tried, but without any success and this morning at 3:30 AM, Dad achieved his heavenly reward. Thankfully, we were able to be with him at the end to say our final good-byes.

I've known Dad for over 52 years, and being the first-born child, Dad also had to deal with me for the longest time of all his children. I'm sure when I was born, my dad sincerely hoped that someday I would become a doctor or maybe even a teacher like he was. No doubt the thought of his little girl becoming a tattooed biker or master naturalist never even entered his mind, but life always has a way of throwing in a few curve balls and Dad got the chance to experience all sorts of interesting things with his oldest child.

Dad got to be a Norwegian with me for the years when I was knitting and selling at some of the Scandinavian festivals here in the upper Midwest. I even sewed him a "gen-yoo-ine Norvegian" vest so he could dress the part to work in my booth. He also bought and proudly wore his red cap that stated, "I'm not Norwegian, but I'm taking pills for it." In the photo below, we were at the Norway Day festival in Minnehaha Park. It was about 90 degrees that day and we were so happy to take that booth down and get into our air-conditioned car for the drive home!
I'm sure Dad also never expected his oldest daughter to become a slayer of wild animals, but he dutifully came out to admire my first deer kill on this horribly cold November day so many years ago.

At this festival in Fargo, North Dakota, Dad got the chance to meet a Viking! We should have gotten into the Viking re-enactments, because I think Dad would have made a pretty good Viking. I could definitely see that he would have enjoyed donning one of those helmets with horns on it and a pair of reindeer fur boots.

Dad was the beneficiary of several of my hand-knitted creations. He also willingly modeled sweaters that I was hired to knit for other people that were about the same size as Dad. (I think he would have liked to keep this particular sweater for himself!)

Since Mr. Johnson and I only ever had furry children, Dad learned to love his grand-dogs. Here's Grand-Dog Candy caught in the act of mooching from her "Grampy."

I got my love of nature from Mom and Dad. Even as a little child, I remember Mom and Dad always kept the bird feeders filled. When we moved to our new house in the early 70's, a much bigger yard gave them the chance to put out more bird feeders and we all got to see and learn about the new birds and wildlife that started visiting the backyard.

Dad was a Lutheran school teacher for over 53 years. That's how he met Mom -- at his first teaching position in Chicago. When my sissy was 10 days old, Dad & Mom packed up the family and moved to Minnesota where he was principal and taught for many years. He "officially" retired from teaching in 1997, but continued to work in an administrative capacity at "his" school right up until the last day of school this year.

I believe his greatest joy was in knowing how many students received a quality education while they were in his classroom and school. It was really gratifying to him when a former student would send a note or tell him personally how much they appreciated him as a teacher and what a positive influence he had on their lives.

Having never become a doctor or teacher or even completing any post-secondary education, I always felt that perhaps Dad might have been a bit disappointed in me. Until I got this greeting from him on my 50th birthday:

I don't think there's anything better for a child to know than that their parents love them and are proud of them. Thanks Dad, for everything you taught me during the 52 years of my life and for supporting me in all of the decisions I've made -- even the not-so-smart ones! I love you and I'll miss you very much!

Charles Raymond Kaun

May 24, 1933 - June 13, 2011

In Search of the Blue Grosbeak

2011-06-06T16:08:00.000-05:00

My mandatory 3-month layoff has finally wound down to the final 2 weeks and I'm taking advantage of these last remaining days to try and squeeze in a few more birding day trips. Yesterday's birding adventure took us clear across the southern part of Minnesota to Blue Mounds State Park just north of Luverne in search of the beautiful Blue Grosbeak.

One of the outstanding features of this park is a herd of bison in the park. Unfortunately we didn't see any of the buffalo, but we did see a couple of white-tailed deer.
I checked at the office when we arrived to see if there had been any sightings of the Blue Grosbeak lately and the woman behind the desk told me either on the paved path beyond the buffalo viewing deck or at the interpretive center (where I had seen a female Blue Grosbeak on a visit years ago). OK, well let's head up to the paved trail that was closest to see if the grosbeak was there.

I had my trusty birdJam along to review the Blue Grosbeak song and maybe with a little luck I'd get a look at a male defending his territory from the Blue Grosbeak in my iPod. No Blue Grosbeaks showed themselves as we walked along this path, but there were still plenty of other things to see. Do you like Dickcissels? There were lots of them singing nearby. This is one of my best Dickcissel photos ever......givin' me the big stinkeye!

They're very enthusiastic singers -- I like to catch photos of them with their beak open and belting out a song (this would have been a perfect picture except for that stupid stick right in the way!)
Bobolinks were also present and singing their beautiful bubbly song. However, they're not quite as cooperative as Dickcissels when it comes to having their picture taken, so the best I managed to capture were these 2 quick shots as the Bobolink flew away.

Some kind folks have placed many of these nice Gilbertson Bluebird houses throughout the park. Although we didn't see or hear any Bluebirds, many of the boxes were occupied by Tree Swallows. I like Tree Swallows a lot. Plus they love to pose for the camera -- you don't even need the telephoto lens because they allow people to get really close.

Female Tree Swallow

Such a fun little bird whose stay here in Minnesota is all too short.

In the vegetation near the small lake, I spotted this pair of Eastern Kingbirds. I'm used to seeing these birds as individuals sitting on a fence or fence-post, so I'm guessing this is a mated pair getting ready to nest here along the riverbank.

We did hear lots of Yellow Warblers chirping along the trail and with the help of my birdJam, I was able to get a male to fly down and investigate the interloper in his territory. He sat just long enough for me to snap this photo through the shrubs.

Another outstanding geologic feature of Blue Mounds State Park is the pink quartzite rocks and boulders coming up out of the ground all over the park.

There was a small lake there with a swimming beach and just big enough for a leisurely Sunday afternoon canoe excursion with the family.

A family of Canada Geese was also out for a Sunday afternoon paddle around the lake.

I'm always amazed to see wildflowers growing right out of the rock!

And even more amazed when I see cactus growing in Minnesota! This is a Prickly Pear Cactus also seeming to grow right from the rock.

Isn't the lichen growing on these rocks beautiful too? I love the contrasting colors.

Having visited this park before, I knew that I would get my Western Meadowlark here and I wasn't disappointed. Even though it was 90 degrees, I made Mr. Johnson turn off the A/C so I could roll down the car windows and hear the Meadowlark song (one of the most beautiful birdsongs, in my opinion!) Then the Meadowlark posed obligingly atop a traffic sign so I could snap his photo through the windshield.

Quite the handsome bird, don't you think?

We headed up the hill to the Interpretive Center. This striking building was built right out of the quartzite cliff and was once the home of author Frederick Manfred. He later donated this home to Blue Mounds State Park.

There were some interesting exhibits about the birds, animals and geology of the park, including a buffalo hide that we could touch and a stuffed, full-sized buffalo (the little kids inside were loving that!) I did a quick walk-through, but I was definitely more interested in this Barn Swallow nest that was being constructed right outside the front door.

We took Miss Sophie along on this trip. The day ended up being a little bit warmer than had been predicted, so we tried to keep her cool since she's not able to take much heat anymore. This picnic table under a big ol' cottonwood tree provided a nice shady spot for Sophie and Mr. Johnson to take a break.

On a previous visit to this park, I saw a female Blue Grosbeak near the interpretive center, so I was really hoping to get the opportunity to see one here since we hadn't spotted any at the other end of the park. It was getting close to the time for us to start heading for home and I still hadn't seen one. I thought maybe I heard one singing in the trees behind me, but playing the birdJam in response hadn't yielded any results, so with a sad heart I started packing everything away to walk back to the car. Then all of a sudden, a bird flew out of nowhere and perched on this common mullein stalk about 15 yards ahead of us. "That's him!" I gasped. I swung the camera up and snapped 3 quick pictures before he flew away again. This was the best photo of those 3. I was SO happy to see this bird, and the male besides! He flew past a couple times more and then he was gone.

Walking back to the car, we also got the chance to see these Turkey Vultures perched in a dead tree down the hill. As I focused the camera, one vulture decided to fly away. It's not often that we humans get to look "down" on a Turkey Tulture in flight, so I was happy with this shot.

To commemorate my visit, I also purchased a new piece of "flair" for my binocular straps.

Since this little birding excursion ended up being a 400-mile round trip, I also took advantage of the driving time to get some knitting done. The cabled half-mitts were about two-thirds completed before the trip, so I finished them up and also got this cardinal dishcloth and baby gnome hat completed.

Coonz in the 'Hood

2011-06-02T09:30:00.002-05:00

Update 6-6-11: I've had a couple people suggest to me that I should use the "Coke & fly bait" recipe to get rid of these backyard raccoons. "Won't get 10 feet before he drops over" was one of the comments. In case any of you are wondering why I don't just poison these pests it's because I absolutely refuse to use poison in any way, shape or form. Have you ever seen an animal that's been poisoned? It's not a pretty sight. And then, what do I do with that dead, poisoned animal? Because any creature that feeds on carrion will be poisoned too. I know there are people who don't care whether a coyote, crow, or vulture dies either, but there are all kinds of bugs, mammals, and birds (including bald eagles!) who eat dead things. Nope, no way, no sirree......no poison in MY backyard! There are enough wild spaces around here far away from my yard where I can let a raccoon go free and that's just the way it's going to be.

For the first time in as long as we've lived here, raccoons have become a problem in the backyard. There was one particular birdfeeder that was continually being knocked down. No matter how far out I would hang it on a really skinny branch, I'd get up in the morning and the feeder would be laying on the ground. So I called up my neighbor to see if he would loan me his Havahart trap and the very first nite we put it out, we caught this big guy! (His love of the birdseed with peanuts in was all it took.)

So I hung that birdfeeder back up again and dang, it wasn't 2 days later and I woke up to see the birdfeeder on the ground again in the morning. (Fortunately it's a Wild Birds Unlimited tube feeder, so the thing is virtually indestructible.)

So, out came the trap again and the next morning I woke up to find the trap turned over on its top with no raccoon inside. This smart raccoon knew that if it could get the cage rolled over on its top, the door could be opened for a speedy escape. Obviously one smart critter.......

OK, so on to Plan B -- a fencepost on either side of the cage to keep it from rolling over. Yeah, that'll do it! But the coon was smarter than that -- for the next 4 mornings, I woke up to find the food dish empty but so was the trap! This raccoon was clever enough to know not to step on the plate in the bottom of the cage that would make the door snap closed. #*%&!!

So yesterday while mowing the lawn (plenty of time to think......) I came up with the plan of putting the food dish under the cage, so the raccoon wouldn't have easy access to the food and would most likely have to step on the trip-plate while trying to get at the food through the bottom mesh of the cage. And then I also added 2 posts through the cage to secure it from tipping over and to keep the coon from being able to lift the cage from the outside to get at the birdseed dish.

The first thing I did when I got up this morning was look out the kitchen window.......Yes!! Gotcha clever raccoon!
It's nice to know that I'm smart enough to outwit a raccoon (and it only took a week!)

This raccoon is much smaller than the one we caught last week and a little bit different colored too. I think maybe she's an older (therefore, smarter) female. She wasn't the least bit excited about riding in the back of the pick-up.
A few miles away, we arrived at her new home. Mr. Johnson got to do the honors. Ready, set......

GO!!

She blasted out of that cage like her tail was on fire! I had no idea raccoons could run that fast!

This is the last we saw of her -- still barrelling down the trail towards what I hope will be her new home. Maybe this will teach her a lesson about avoiding birdfeeders at least......

Birding Close to Home

2011-05-31T17:15:00.002-05:00

Yesterday afternoon we took advantage of the summer-like weather to visit Root River Park, a new county park about 5 miles from where we live.
In case you're wondering, this park has also become the new home of a certain very large raccoon.....

The park had a nice parking area, a handicapped accessible porta-potty, and nice, wide mowed paths. I don't know how many acres the park is or how many miles of trails there are, so I'll have to do some research into that. I do know that it's a great birding area with trails bordering forest edges, through the woods, along the riverbank and through grasslands, so there were ample opportunities for us to see many different things. As we were walking down the trail into the woods, I saw a larger bird ahead, skulking through the branches of a small cedar tree. At first I thought maybe a brown thrasher, but a look through the binocs showed a much darker brown color. I walked a little bit closer and the bird flushed into some overhead branches. Awesome! A cuckoo! Now, will it sit still long enough for me to get a good look so I can determine whether it's a yellow-billed or black-billed?

What do you think? I went with Black-Billed Cuckoo on this one. I used my birdJam to play a few calls and got this cuckoo to fly to another branch with less cover. Definitely a good way to start the afternoon!

The bird never vocalized, but we did have the chance to see it again in the same area on our way out, so I'm wondering if it doesn't have a partner and they're nesting in the park.

The trail wound down the hill to the river bottom and we could hear several Common Yellowthroats singing. Again the birdJam was put into use and this male came over to investigate the intruder in his territory. I was fortunate enough to snap this one pretty good picture as he sat still for a nanosecond!

A few yards farther down the trail and I heard a distinctive "bee-buzz" from one of the trees to my left. Aw man, Blue-Winged Warbler! I've heard them, but never gotten a good look at one before. A quick scroll through the menu to Blue-Winged Warbler on the birdJam and after only a few calls, this handsome male flew in to chase away the intruder in his territory also.

From this dead branch, I got a really good photo op, so I just pressed the button and the continous shooting feature did the rest......

a great flight shot, showing his bright yellow underneath and the white sides of his tail.

Look out! It's a Blue-Winged Warbler dive bomb!

I spotted this male Eastern Bluebird sitting on the top of an old dead tree stump in the middle of a pasture. He was keeping an eye on the nestbox which was located about 50 yards away.

At the edge of the Root River, we had fun watching this female Baltimore Oriole enjoy a bath.
There was a small rock just barely submerged under the water and just deep enough for her to be able to get under the water and make some big splashes.

She spent quite a bit of time there until she was pretty much soaked, and then she flew off to a sunny branch just above this river bank.

There were plenty of wildflowers blooming along the trail edges too. Here are a few:

Wild Blue Phlox

Golden Alexander

Wild Mint

Columbine

Huge patch of blue phlox along the riverbank (this picture is my desktop wallpaper)

Wild Geranium

We wondered how this White Pine grew as large as it was with its roots right at the edge of the rocky bluff......

Also saw this beautiful Mourning Cloak butterfly. I've never noticed the "eyes" on its wings before........

This was a great park and I'm looking forward to visiting it again to explore some of the other trails. Root River Park will definitely be at the top of my "must visit" birding list during next spring's warbler migration.

I'm so glad it's finally spring

2011-05-22T13:15:00.000-05:00

There are some really good reasons for living in Minnesota......winter isn't one of them!
However, once winter finally departs (this year after staying too long!) spring finally arrives and with it come the beautiful birds that we dream about all winter......like this Baltimore Oriole

And how about a pair of Indigo Buntings!

There's nothing like the intense colors of the spring and summer migrants arriving in the backyard to make us forget winter nightmares like this.......

.....and enjoy the beauty of male Rose-Breasted Grosbeak with the promise of crabapple blossoms in the background.

Here's a little visitor I usually expect during the winter, but he didn't show up in my backyard until just last week -- the Red-Breasted Nuthatch.

I heard an unusual bird call in the backyard last weekend and finally spotted this Eastern Towhee hanging out with some other ground feeding birds in the backyard. This was a marvelous sighting for me -- haven't seen an Eastern Towhee for at least 10 years and this is a FIRST for my backyard!

It even flew close to the house and perched in the crabapple tree for a few minutes so I was able to snap a photo of him from my patio too!

Last weekend's weather provided some sort of migration fall-out, because in addition to the towhee and red-breasted nuthatch, some Cap May Warblers also showed up and feasted at the suet log.

Did she say Cape May Warblers?? Yes I did! Another first for my backyard PLUS a life bird for me!

What gorgeous little birds! They hung around for several days, flitting in and out of the cage protecting the suet from starlings and then they were gone, no doubt heading to somewhere in northeastern Minnesota.

The brilliant yellow feathers of the goldfinch are always a welcome sign of spring around here too. I started seeing a few yellow feathers on these finches in March, and then it seems like all of a sudden they've all turned completely yellow.

The best surprise of last weekend also hung around for several days. See him in the background there? (hint: that ain't no cardinal!)

OHMIGOSH, IT'S A MALE SCARLET TANAGER! I'm surprised my yelling didn't scare him away!

He loved the grape jelly which the orioles grudgingly allowed him to share.

What a contrast to what I saw on this deck from December until March!

Once the orioles arrived, they were back to stay. Here are the male and female Baltimore Orioles.

The males are not very tolerant of each other's presence at the jelly dishes. Grape jelly has become one of the scarcest items on Rochester's grocery store shelves in the last couple weeks.

Here's a good example of tolerance with an Orchard Oriole enjoying some jelly while the Baltimore Oriole visits the nectar feeder.

I was surprised to see the Orchard Oriole visiting the suet log too. He didn't seem to have any problems getting through the starling-proof cage.

Such a beautiful bird. (I put dried mealworms on top of their grape jelly and that's what you see hanging out the tip of his beak.)

I even got to see the female Orchard Oriole perched in the backyard swamp white oak tree.

The Orchard Orioles usually don't hang around for very long, so last weekend was probably the only time I'll see them this spring also. But at least the Baltimore Orioles are still sticking around, feasting on grape jelly and singing their beautiful songs for me every morning. Hopefully they'll nest somewhere nearby and bring their little ones to visit before their departure again in August. But I'm not even going to think about that and simply enjoy the colors and sounds of spring in Minnesota.

Birds of Forestville

2011-05-16T10:05:00.002-05:00

My three trips to Forestville State Park last week were primarily for birding. My previous post about wildflowers showed you what was on the ground, but this post is all about the birds I saw. We were hoping to catch warbler migration, but the first two days were a little chilly for much warbler activity. Fortunately, Forestville State Park has lots of other birds to see and enjoy. I knew it was going to be a good day when we spotted these Turkey Vultures perched in the tree at the entrance to the park!
I have Mr. Johnson so well-trained now that he immediately knew to pull the car off to the side of the road so I could get out to take photos. Luckily for me, one of the TVs decided to leave its perch and give me some perfect fly-over shots.

So beautiful in flight! (Hi Lynne!)

Turkey Vulture doing its part for highway clean-up! (sorry about this poor quality photo--thru the windshield)

For the rest of this post, you may want to click on the photos to enlarge them.

Down by the river (where we sometimes see warblers) we found lots of Ruby-Crowned Kinglets, busily scouting among the rocks and tree roots for insects.
I was thrilled to get a couple of shots where you could actually see this tiny bird's ruby "crown!"

A Hermit Thrush was puttering around on the ground near the parking lot. I hoped it would sing for us, but this bird remained silent.

Hello Handsome Thrush!

They're easy to miss when they're lurking on the ground.

Here's a waterthrush I managed to photograph through a break in dense ground cover. Initial hopes were that this was a Louisiana Waterthrush, but upon further review, I think it's a Northern.

Lincoln's Sparrow

Brown Creeper

Yellow-Rumped Warbler

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

Black & White Warbler

Another look at the B&W Warbler, this one reminded us of a tiny woodpecker, scooting in all directions around the tree trunk foraging for insects.

On our second trip to the park, I spotted this raptor perched in a small tree near the park entrance. Can you see it there?

I had no idea what it was, but when I got out of the car to take a better look, it decided to fly away. (I was thrilled with this shot and the fact that I managed to get the camera focused in time to actually capture the bird flying away!)

Luckily for me, the raptor decided to soar directly overhead for several minutes and I was able to get several nice photos that helped to identify it as a Broad-Winged Hawk!

This warbler was busy gleaning insects from a gooseberry bush. Can you give me a better look at yourself, please?

What do you think? I went with Orange-Crowned Warbler on this one based on what my Kaufman field guide says: "Often stays fairly low in leafy thickets.....Very plain.... No wingbars. Dark line through eye, faint broken eye-ring. Blurry streaks on chest."

Got to see my FOY Rose-Breasted Grosbeak on this day. Such a handsome bird!

Last week's third birding trip to Forestville was with my Sissy. Another chilly and overcast morning, but we were optimistic about the weather forecast and hoping for the chance to see some warblers. I did get this nice shot of a male Red-Winged Blackbird showing off for a female perched nearby. Who could resist a handsome guy like him?
Down along the river's edge, I saw this Spotted Sandpiper poking around a few rocks.

A lucky sighting, I think because it blended in really well with its surroundings.

Here's a not-so-good shot of a Blackburnian Warbler we spotted high in the tree top. The flame orange throat is such a dead giveaway to this warbler's ID (even on a cloudy day!)

Northern Waterthrush

Northern Parula (he just wouldn't sit still!)

One more try.......

American Redstart-bottom view

American Redstart-top view!

I think this was a Palm Warbler. If I remember correctly, it had a rusty-colored cap that didn't show up in this photo.

Thanks Sissy for driving on this trip and being a good sport while I had to keep stopping to take photos! Hope we can do this again next spring (or sometime sooner)!

Wildflowers of Forestville

2011-05-14T13:35:00.004-05:00

Last week I took advantage of some fairly decent weather and headed down to Forestville State Park to look for spring migrants. Unfortunately the first couple days were chilly and cloudy, so the birds weren't flying around much, but there were still plenty of other things to see including lots of blooming early spring wildflowers. Here's what I was able to photograph on Monday and Tuesday of last week. (be sure to click on any of these photos if you want to see the *larger* version!)

Bloodroot (almost to the end of their bloom season)

Virginia Spring Beauty

Trout Lily

Virginia Bluebells

White Violet

Common Blue Violet

Squirrel Corn (I call it Bleeding Heart)

Marsh Marigold

Hepatica? Blue-Eyed Grass?I can't find any flower like this with 7 petals....if anyone knows what it is, please leave me a comment so I know too. Thanks!

Swamp Buttercup

One of the Anemones (Rue? or Wood?)

Dutchman's Breeches

I'd like to dedicate this post to my Mom who used to love taking us out to the woods when we were kids to search for spring wildflowers. I remember dutifully traipsing along with Mom all those years ago, but luckily some of her enthusiasm stuck with me all those years and now I look forward to searching for spring wildflowers. Unfortunately, Mom is unable to hike over the uneven terrain anymore to enjoy these spring wildflowers. I had some prints made of these pictures and put them into a framed photo collage for her Mother's Day gift, so she can enjoy them every day of the year.

Purple Martin!

2011-05-12T09:58:00.001-05:00

I get a lot of birds in my backyard, but no birds get me more excited than Purple Martins! I was buttering my toast this morning and thought I could hear a Purple Martin chirping but dismissed it as a probable House Finch. Then a few seconds later I heard a definitive Purple Martin song. Toast forgotten, I grabbed my binoculars and camera and ran to the deck and there he was! A beautiful male Purple Martin!

Every year I fill my gourds with a nice bedding of white pine needles and hoist the rack in another desperate attempt to attract these beautiful birds to my backyard. They nested here only once about 7 years ago and the eggs weren't viable, so no nesting colony was ever established.

This adult male checked out all the gourds -- probably to see if there were any females hiding inside.

He perched on the top and checked out the decoy, obviously dismissing that guy as no competition!

Mr. Robin wishes he could fly like that!

Nobody here.......

Nobody here either........

After about 5 minutes of flying around and checking out the gourds, this martin flew north, probably in search of a better neighborhood. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he will find an unattached female martin somewhere and bring her back to my place, since he knows there are plenty of nesting sites available!

Early Morning Life Bird

2011-05-06T11:30:00.001-05:00

Last evening my Sissy called me on the phone, all excited because she had this bird in her backyard that she had never seen before. "It has a red head and a greenish body," she said. Jeez, I thought to myself, what in the world could it be? I grabbed my big Sibley Guide to Birds and went through all the possibilities. Finally, the only thing I thought it could be, based on her description, was the Summer Tanager. I found some other photos on-line and had her look on-line too. "Yup, there it is!" she finally said. It's a male Summer Tanager with first spring plumage. Of course, by the time we finally got this all figured out the tanager was gone. But early this morning, when she was getting ready for work, the tanager showed up again, so she called me. I finished hanging my laundry on the line and Mr. Johnson and I piled in the car to drive the 4 miles to my Sissy's back yard. After standing around for about 30 minutes, Mr. Johnson spotted him -- see, up there, in the branches!
Then he flew down to the feeder pole where the oriole's grape jelly was hanging. Wow, isn't he something?

And finally, he flew to the grape jelly dish, in the direct sunlight, and I was able to get this fabulous shot of him. Wow again! What a gorgeous bird! And a new lifebird to check off my list! Thanks Sissy for sharing this great bird with us!

While we were waiting, Mr. Baltimore Oriole flew in to gobble down some grape jelly and show off his gorgeous colors in the sun.

And I got excited all over again when this Orchard Oriole (my first of the year!) also arrived and showed off his acrobatic skills to dine on the grape jelly too.

So far this May, I've gotten 22 new birds added to my list, bringing my total to 120 so far for the year. The best thing is that I've seen most of these birds within 40 miles of home, so even with gas prices close to $4 a gallon, birding close to home has been pretty good this spring.

A Saturday Trip to Necedah NWR

2011-05-04T21:04:00.001-05:00

I'm getting way behind in my blogging (again!) so I'm going to try and get caught up in the next few days because my files are full of pictures that need to be shared and I need to do it soon while I still remember all the details.

I took my Sissy over to Wisconsin to visit the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge on the Saturday before Easter (since we were both lucky enough to have that day off). The weather was clear and sunny when we left Rochester, but by the time we got to the refuge the weather had gotten overcast with occasional rain showers (but at least we didn't see any snow flurries!)

Due to the over abundance of rain in recent weeks, most of the roads inside the refuge were closed due to high water, so without a four-wheel drive, we were limited in the areas we were able to visit. Fortunately, we were able to get to the viewing tower at the edge of the Rynearson Pool #1 where we were lucky enough to see WHOOPING CRANES! I had only gotten a brief glimpse of one on a previous visit to NNWR and this was my Sissy's first sighting. What beautiful birds! We actually saw 4 on this day and it was definitely worth getting wet & cold for.

After talking to another guy in the parking lot, he told me how far I'd be able to get with the car before the roads became impassable, so we took off down the road in search of other birds. We hadn't gone far when we spotted this single Sandhill Crane in the water-filled ditch to the right. We had been hearing them since our arrival and my Sissy was thrilled to see one so close.

While we were watching the crane off to the right, we heard more in flight and coming closer to us. On the left side of the road was a larger pond and that's where this pair of Sandhill Cranes was headed. Wow! We were so excited to see them in flight and so close!

They strolled around for a while and finally found this patch of higher, dry ground where they were able to spend some time resting, preening their feathers, and enjoying the few minutes of sunshine on this otherwise dreary day.

I hope all of you get the chance to visit Necedah National Wildlife Refuge some day. Their beautiful new visitor's center is now open and if you check their website, they have lots of great programs open to the public throughout the year. I hope to get another chance to visit later this summer -- I'm sure the water levels will have gone down by then!

Easter Sunday 2011

2011-04-24T19:15:00.001-05:00

Hope you all had a very happy Easter Sunday! We drove down to Mom & Dad's and celebrated with the rest of my family. My little nephew Ethan had an excellent Easter egg hunt.

After finishing our meal, stacking the dishes for Mom to fill the dishwasher and packing up some delicious leftovers to bring home, we headed for home with a short detour through rural Fillmore County to see if we could find the White Winged Scoter that had been spotted a week ago. Along the way, we saw this fox running across a field and heading for the road.

After turning the car around so I could take some better photos, the fox had the same idea -- turn around and run!

After turning down another gravel road, we finally spotted the pond where the scoter was supposed to be hanging out at. I first spotted this Lesser Yellowlegs scouting the muddy edge closest to the road.

And there he was! The White Winged Scoter! (click on the photo to enlarge it) The first ever recorded sighting of this bird in Fillmore County.

We first heard about this duck earlier last week when we were out birding and ran into Chris Hockema. Chris told us the duck's plumage was somewhat different than what's usually seen on an adult males scoter, but that the dark head and white eye "comma" were easily seen for a definitive ID. I was really glad this duck was still hanging around and we got a chance to see it. Thanks to John and Chris Hockema for locating the duck and sharing its location with other Minnesota birders.

Birding Close to Home

2011-04-21T20:35:00.000-05:00

Mr. Johnson decided we should take advantage of a bit of nice weather today (between snowy and rainy days) and do a little birding close to home (as gas has now gone up to $3.79 here!) Our first stop was the County 9 wetlands, about a mile east of Rochester. As usual the Giant Canada Geese and Coots dominated this large pond, but we also saw some Northern Shovelers, Ring-Necked Ducks, a Bufflehead (lifer!) pair and one Redhead. No shorebirds were seen, but I did spot a Swamp Sparrow flitting around in the tall grasses close to the observation deck where we were standing. I managed to get a couple photos that were good enough to confirm this little bird's identity.
Not a life bird, but it was still neat to spot this early spring arrival and get some good photos.

After a quick lunch at KFC (have you tried any of their $5 lunches? Delicious!!) We headed a few miles west of Rochester to the Kalmar Reservoir. Most of the waterfowl was at the other end of the reservoir, but fortunately one of Rochester's premier birders, Chris Hockema, was also at the reservoir with his spotting scope and he helped us to locate some waterfowl that we hadn't seen yet this year: Eared Grebe and Ruddy Duck. Like the County 9 wetland, Coots were the dominant bird here.

I was amazed to see that many of these coots were spending quite a bit of time on shore poking around in the grass. Not sure what they were foraging for, but it was interesting to see them walking around on land.

As were were pulling out of the reservoir driveway, I saw these 2 handsome fellows hanging out together at the little waterway next to the road. I never thought of Mallards as particularly large ducks, but this guy just dwarfs the Blue-Winged Teal drake. An odd couple for sure, but they certainly posed nicely for my camera, don't you think?

More rain is in the forecast for tonite, tomorrow and maybe a little bit on Saturday, but Sunday is supposed to be sunny before the next round of rainy weather moves in for next week. Hopefully the weather will straighten out soon and we can get started on our next birdquest -- migrating shorebirds.

A Trip to the Alpaca Show

2011-04-10T21:50:00.000-05:00

Today Mr. Johnson and I took a trip over to Owatonna to visit the Minnesota Alpaca Expo. I found out about this event months ago on Ravelry and thought it might be fun to check it out. There was no admission fee (how great is that?) We spent a couple of enjoyable hours wandering through the arena and marveling at all the cute faces.

There are 2 different varieties of alpacas. These are the Suri alpacas. They have long shiny locks like very soft, slightly curly hair.

And these are the Huacaya (pronounced Wuh-kai-ya) alpacas. They are fluffy like teddy bears.

They use their ears to express emotion. This one was not happy about me taking its picture and turned its ears way down around behind its head.

There was also judging taking place here.

Another cute Suri face.

This alpaca and its owner were on their way back from the show ring.

Aren't they sweet looking? We were most surprised at the different sounds they make. Mostly a high-pitched humming, but we also heard one making some little rhythmic squeaky noises too.

Here's a Suri and Huacaya together and you can really see the differences in their fleece. (also note their ears......not liking the camera at all!)

And of course, there was yarn! Lots of yarn! This vendor was my first and last stop at the expo. And I bought this skein of beautiful blue yarn from her (400 yards!) You can't believe how soft it is.

I also found this skein of 100% alpaca yarn in a gorgeous apricot color -- 498 yards!

What a fun day. I'm really glad we went and will definitely watch the calendar for next year's dates and the chance to attend again.

New Housing Addition

2011-03-30T10:40:00.000-05:00

Back in January, I bought this nice little, 2-chambered cedar bathouse on eBay. Now that I'm laid off for a few months, getting this bat house added to my backyard wildlife habitat was at the top of my "to do" list. Last week I bought a little can of water-based black paint and got the bat house painted. (Black keeps the house extra warm if the bats ever do move in and choose to use this house as a nursery colony.) See - 2 chambers! With nice rough wood that will make it easier for the bats to climb inside.

Instead of putting up a new pole, I decided to mount this bat house on the south-facing side of the tall bird-perching pole in the backyard. This pole is at the edge of my wildflower garden.

Yes, we still have a few snowbanks left in the yard!

Here I am attaching the bat house to the pole. I did it early this morning because the ground was still frozen and my ladder feet wouldn't sink into the mud yet.

New housing addition completed! Optimal mounting height is between 10-15 feet off the ground. I think it's probably around 11-12 feet high, but this is as high as I could achieve and still heed the "do not stand on or above this step" warning on my ladder.

I've never seen an abundance of bats in the backyard, but I'm hoping they might find this house and decide to take up residence. I'll keep you posted on whether any bats decide to move in. Does anyone have any ideas on how to attract them?

Waterfowl Afternoon

2011-03-27T21:25:00.001-05:00

It was a beautiful, sunny day here in southeastern Minnesota -- perfect for a drive thru the Whitewater Valley IBA this afternoon in search of migrating waterfowl. Here are some photos of what we found today.......

Greater Scaup
A handsome bird with a pretty light blue bill

Common Merganser, Male

But wait, there's more!
Two more male mergansers were escorting this pretty female down the Whitewater River.

We saw some Hooded Mergansers also, but they were pretty flighty and I wasn't able to get any photos of them.

These gulls blended in well with the ice still remaining on the edge of this pond. (That's a goose nesting box platform in the background and a muskrat lodge in the foreground.)

Here's a Canada Goose with a much smaller partner. Does anyone have a thought on ID of the smaller goose? Looking at my big Sibley guide, I'm wondering whether it might be a Richardson's or Lesser Canada Goose?
A few miles farther down the road, we came to a large pond with lots of waterfowl. Close to the road I got this great shot of a beautiful Canvasback duck. With my binoculars, I could even see his pretty red eye. Even though you can barely see the dark rust color of his head, he has the "unique head shape with long black bill and flat forehead" as described in my big Sibley guide.
At the other side of the pond there were lots of different ducks. We saw more Canvasbacks and also some Ring-Necked Ducks and even a couple of Northern Shovelers.

Go ahead and click on these photos for an enlarged view of all the different ducks here.

And here was a Canada Goose already occupying her next box platform.

Hope you enjoyed our lovely Minnesota spring afternoon!

A "Spring" Day in Minnesota

2011-03-23T15:30:00.001-05:00

Since this has been a winter for the record books here in Minnesota, I guess there's really no reason we should have expected spring to arrive on schedule. It's just hard to believe that today could have been so awful when just 2 days ago it was 50 degrees and sunny!

Thunderstorms with heavy rain yesterday and last night gave way to heavy snow for much of the morning. It's a good thing there are still a few crabapples left on some of my trees for my robins!

Lots of juncos still in the backyard although the birdseed I spread on the ground for them was covered by snow in a very short time. Fortunately, they were able to scratch and scrounge around enough to find it.

Little red squirrel took advantage of birdseed on top of this stump feeder. The snow doesn't seem to bother him at all.

Another little red squirrel discovered the full seed tray on my deck. I like how he uses his tail as a snow shield and also how his ears and whiskers collect and hold the snowflakes (click on the pic to enlarge it). They are little piggies, but still so cute & fun to watch.

Couldn't resist taking yet another cardinal photo. They're singing the spring songs, but still not actively asserting dominance for territorial rights in my backyard yet, so I'm still seeing a number of cardinals at the birdfeeders.

Here's a house finch, junco and goldfinch all taking advantage of the big birdfeeder. Just yesterday we noticed that grass in the backyard was actually starting to look a little greener!

It took a few attempts, but the downy woodpeckers finally remembered how to get inside the cage to the suet log. I had to put the cage back on the suet log because flocks of European starlings (who arrived back with the blackbirds and grackles) had picked this suet log clean. My starling trap has been getting a real workout this week (that's the topic for a future blog post.....)

Huge flocks of blackbirds arrived late last week. These are mostly common grackles and red-winged blackbirds, but I'm thinking there might be some rusty blackbirds and/or Brewer's blackbirds mixed in with these flocks too.

When we were out on a birding drive last Saturday afternoon, we got to hear and see some rusty blackbirds. They have a really distinctive song which I was able to identify with the help of my birdJam.

I don't know about you, but there's just something fundamentally wrong with seeing and hearing a spring/summer bird in this snowy landscape. (Maybe the birds think so too!) I'm pretty sure this is a first year male red-winged blackbird. Spots and wing bars are still visible, but it also looks like there might be a few of the red shoulder feathers appearing too.

And here's a really beautifully streaked female red-winged blackbird. The females are far less abundant at my backyard feeders, so I always consider it a rare privilege to see them -- especially this close!

The only nice thing about wintry weather this time of year is that we can be fairly certain it will be short-lived. Temps are are going to be pretty chilly for the next couple days, but highs in the 40s are predicted for the weekend. I've had my Nature's Window monitor turned on all day and am enjoying hearing all the spring bird songs even when it's just too nasty to spend much time outside.

Hope you're enjoying some spring birds in your backyard!

Choosing your battles

2011-03-12T10:55:00.000-06:00

Do you ever see the little red squirrels in your backyard? I had a couple that were regular visitors last summer and now that the weather's gotten a little milder around here, at least one has started showing up again. I usually sprinkle a little bit of birdseed on the ground for my ground-feeding birdies and the squirrels always are quick to take advantage of this readily available bounty. But hey, look who else likes it too! Look out little red squirrel!
I was anxious to see what was going to happen here once the crow arrived. My red squirrels are quite selfish and usually quick to chase off any other hungry visitors -- especially the much larger gray squirrels.

Here you see though, the crow prevailed. I think the crow was maybe looking forward to more of an argument from Little Red, but it wasn't going to happen this morning.......

.......and Little Red quickly moved over to the next closest birdseed pile on the ground, alongside some smaller and more aggreeable companions.

Red-Tailed Hawk

2011-03-05T17:20:00.001-06:00

Several weeks ago, Mr. Johnson found this dead Red-Tailed Hawk alongside the road on one of his daily walks. After I got home from work, he drove me out there so I could look at it to give a positive ID and see if I could figure out how it died.

I really like Red-Tailed Hawks and I was fascinated to be able to hold and observe this bird up close, although it was also very sad because the world has now lost another of these beautiful raptors.

Because of the dark streaking across the belly and absence of the red coloring on the underside of the tail feathers, I'm going to say this was a first year bird. There were no obvious signs of any trauma that might have contributed to this bird's death. I did notice that it smelled a bit like a skunk -- not strongly, but the aroma was definitely there. Do Red-Tailed Hawks eat skunks? Could it have eaten a skunk that someone had poisoned? I guess we'll never know....

Look at that sharp, hooked beak! Perfect for tearing apart a tasty mouse or some other small mammal.

Here's another look at it without my fat fingers in the way. I'm always amazed at how large their eyes are too. (Addendum: I neglected to say in the original post that when we brought this bird home you could see that its eyes were yellow - it's been wrapped up in a bag and frozen outside for about 5 weeks and the eyes have gone dark now.) Seeing them up close helps you understand how they have such excellent vision to spot a tiny mouse on the ground from the top of a utility pole or tree branch.
Here's a close-up look at the tail that gives this bird its name. Such pretty plumage.......

Look at these talons! I couldn't believe how long and sharp they were!

Here's another look at it with my finger for comparison. Their feet are really huge. Last summer I was lucky enough to spot a Red-Tailed Hawk on the ground that was in the process of catching a snake. I was able to pull over and watch the hawk dance around on the snake until it was able to grasp the snake securely with its feet and talons and then fly away with the snake. I guessed the snake to be about 2-3 feet long. It was a sight I'll never forget. After seeing this hawk's feet up close, it helped me appreciate more how they're able to capture and subdue their prey.

The bird was still frozen, but I was able to stretch its wing out a little bit. My Sibley guide says they have a wingspan of 49 inches. It's hard to tell from here, but when you see them soaring in the sky, you can definitely appreciate their size and beauty.

If this hawk hadn't smelled of skunk, I would have been sorely tempted to do something illegal with it (like wrap it up and store it in the back of my deep freeze). But instead, I wrapped it up in a brown bag and laid it to rest far underneath one of the large evergreen trees in my backyard, where it will eventually return back to the earth.

A Woodpecker Comparison Study

2011-03-01T18:44:00.004-06:00

I have lots of woodpeckers in the backyard this winter. Downys are the most numerous -- last weekend I saw 6 poking around the branches in the oak tree outside the dining room window. I've been taking pictures of all my woodpecker friends who visit the suet log hanging on my deck. I hope you enjoy these photos showing the difference in size and color of my backyard woodpeckers.

Here's a female Downy. She's compacted her body to the smallest size because she's hiding from a Cooper's Hawk visiting the backyard. I can always tell when a hawk is here because the woodpecker doesn't even attempt to eat any suet -- motionless as a statue!

Here's another Downy woodpecker at full size.

They love this suet log and seem to prefer the holes in the center of the log because those are always cleaned out first.

Here's a male Hairy Woodpecker on the suet log. You can definitely see how much larger they are than the Downys -- especially when you can use an object like this suet log as a basis for comparison. I was lucky to catch this woodpecker in a blink!

Here's the female Hairy Woodpecker.

Going up a little more in size, here's the Red-Bellied Woodpecker. This one's a male. We've had a solitary female visiting the backyard feeders all winter long and just within the last couple weeks this male has also now started showing up. I hope they will pair up and stick around for a while.

And lastly, here's my queen woodpecker -- the Pileated! I've been waiting weeks for her to visit the backyard again and she finally showed up last week and wouldn't you know it, the suet log was empty! At least I managed to get this photo of her before she flew back to the other suet feeder. Isn't it cool how she's almost as big as this suet log? What an impressive bird! I don't think I'll ever get over the amazement of seeing her in my backyard.

This has nothing to do with woodpeckers, but I thought you might enjoy seeing this little flock of cardinals who come to feed at twilight. It won't be many more weeks until the cardinals start establishing their territories. Then these cardinals won't be tolerating each other's presence under the bird feeder and I'll have to wait for next winter to see this many together again.

Mini Vacation to Northern Minnesota

2011-02-13T13:40:00.002-06:00

Since I didn't have to work this weekend, I convinced Mr. Johnson that he would love to spend hours in a car on a drive up to the Sax-Zim Bog for a winter birding adventure. Stoked up on coffee & some delicious Perkins muffins, we headed out early Saturday morning for the 255 mile trip. I knew it was going to be a good birding day when three Pileated Woodpeckers flew over us on our first pit stop north of the Twin Cities. Even with unexpected snow, slippery highways and plenty of overturned vehicles in the ditch, we continued northward on our quest to see awesome birds. And we weren't disappointed!

Here's a pictorial review of our incredible birding mini vacation. This review will start and end with what were birding highlights for me, and all the good things in between.

We were heading out Admiral Road and McDavitt Road to finish up our drive through the Sax-Zim Bog birding area. Up ahead on McDavitt Road, we spotted some parked cars and people out with cameras and tripods. Thinking this might have been the Black-Backed Woodpecker reported earlier in the week, we stopped so I could get a chance to see it too. I wasn't the least bit disappointed to see a Great Gray Owl instead of a Black-Backed Woodpecker!

After only a minute or so, this beautiful owl decided to fly over to another dead evergreen snag nearby, and I was there to capture the short flight!

Wow! (I'm sure I had the dopiest smile on my face while I was taking these pictures!)

The owl spent quite a bit of time looking at the ground. I'm sure it was trying to locate something tasty to eat.

Good-bye beautiful owl! Thanks for making my day so special!

I saw my FOY Red-Breasted Nuthatch (they haven't visited my birdfeeders in SE Minnesota this winter).

We also enjoyed seeing and hearing Common Ravens.

Along Admiral Road and McDavitt Road, some folks have set up a couple of bird feeding stations. These are good places to stop and see lots of birds taking advantage of the unexpected bounty. Black-Capped Chickadees were the most plentiful birdies at these feeding stations. It was not unusual to see at least 8 at a time! I also got a great look at a Boreal Chickadee, but it flew away before I even had the camera turned on.

Through the windshield I snapped this really awful photo of a pair of grouse. We ran into some Rochester birding friends (who were also having a mini vacation at Sax-Zim) and they said these looked like Sharp-Tailed Grouse.

Sophie got to ride along with us for the trip. There were a couple of places where we were able to let her out of the car to just run around.

Even though she's an elderly doggeh now, she still thoroughly enjoys trips in the car and finding new scents wherever she happens to be (no matter how deep the snow is!)

Do you like Northern Shrikes? We saw a total of three of them during our drive through the Sax-Zim Bog birding area.

We do have them in SE Minnesota, but again, not commonly seen at any time of year.

Here are a couple of Pine Grosbeaks and a Common Redpoll at the top of an evergreen.

Very pretty birds! Want to see them closer? Here's the Common Redpoll. This is a male. During an irruption year, I have seen them dining on thistle seed at my birdfeeders, but none so far this year.

Here's are 2 female Pine Grosbeaks at one of the feeding stations on Admiral Road.

(See her peeking out from behind the bucket on the left side of the photo? I didn't even notice her until I was editing this photo!)

Here's another beautiful female perched on a branch.

Here's a male Pine Grosbeak perched on a branch above me. They're actually a pretty large bird at 9" -- about the same size as a Northern Cardinal -- so they're really easy to spot.

While I was watching the Pine Grosbeaks, I also noticed a large bird sitting in the top of a tree just up the road. It definitely wasn't an eagle, crow, or raven, but I couldn't tell for sure what it was except that it was a raptor of some sort (judging by the head and beak size/shape).

After walking a little bit closer, this bird decided it had had enough of my scrutiny and decided to fly away. Fortunately, I had my camera ready and was lucky enough to get this shot which confirmed its identity -- Rough-Legged Hawk.

(See the nice black wing tips and dark elbow spots? A beautiful raptor!)

We never saw the Evening Grosbeak, Northern Hawk Owl, or Gray Jays, but I was really happy with all the birds we had seen during our visit. However, the most exciting sight of the day for me took place just a short distance from our turning on to the main road and heading for home. Even though this is a really poor picture, can you tell that it's a Black-Billed Magpie?

This bird was perched in a tree near the road, but as soon as we stopped the car it flew away. I started snapping pictures hoping that at least one of them would turn out, and this picture turned out the best (of the other worse ones!) I've only seen Magpies once before in Minnesota and it's been at least 20 years. I loves me some Corvids!

As we were departing the Sax-Zim Bog birding area, the skies started to clear and we enjoyed what turned out to be a beautiful sunset heralding the end of a lovely birding day in Northern Minnesota.

For any of you who have thought about attending the Sax-Zim Bog Winter Birding Festival, I urge you to strongly consider this festival for next February. I'll see you there!

Oh yeah, one more thing......I made good progress on this new shawl I started and knitted on during the 500+ miles spent riding in the car yesterday!

Last Day of January

2011-01-31T21:00:00.000-06:00

We finally made it to the end of January -- it always seems like a really long month each year. We had a little bit of snow all day and I was able to snap a quick photo of this beautiful male cardinal while I was eating my lunch today. There's nothing like a brilliant red cardinal to brighten up a gray winter day.

Yesterday I finished a little shawl that I started last August. This is the Multnomah Shawl, and you can find the free pattern by clicking here.

I like these little wool shawls because they're nice to dress up any outfit, plus they're actually pretty warm too. An added bonus of this shawl is that the green in this variegated yarn is an exact match to this godawful green blouse I bought on clearance at JCPenney's a few years ago. Now I know I'll be wearing this green blouse much more often (notice my happy face!)

The other neat thing about this shawl is that I got the chance to use one of the new shawl pins I purchased last week from one of my fellow Etsy shop owners. This cute little flower shawl pin is perfect on this shawl. If you're looking for a shawl pin, please check out some of Amy's other cute designs at this link to her website.

A couple months ago, a new yarn shop opened in Winona, Minnesota. It's called Yarnology and I've already made several trips down there where the wonderful shop owners have everything I need to satisfy my knitting addiction. Last weekend they had their grand opening celebration so Mr. Johnson and I made the drive to Winona again so I could take part in the grand opening event and sign up for a drawing. The really nice thing about going to Winona (in addition to Yarnology) is that we have usually have time to drive through the scenic Whitewater WMA and look for birds & wildlife, plus Winona has lots of restaurants and we get a chance to try a new one on each trip. Anyway, getting back on track here, last Sunday afternoon, I got a phone call from Gaby (one of the Yarnology owners) letting me know that I had won a prize in their drawing. Woo-Hoo!! And look at this fabulous prize I won.......

A beautiful lacy shawl pattern and 10 skeins of Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool yarn to knit it with (plus a little package of T-pins for blocking). On the way home, I also picked up 2 tubes of glass beads that will look beautiful on this shawl. I was so happy to receive such a wonderful prize and can't wait to get started on this shawl (as soon as I finish a dog sweater for a co-worker and the last Special Olympics scarf). I'll be sure to post pictures of this shawl once I get started on it.

A New Gadget!

2011-01-26T15:45:00.000-06:00

Here's my newest gadget for enjoying birds & nature: the Nature's Window 3 outdoor monitoring device! I ordered it shortly after the first of the year and it arrived last week. Six feet of microphone cord is the standard with this unit. However, because of where I planned to locate my unit, I paid for an additional 30-foot microphone cord.
Here's the microphone -- it's really tiny! I was a little skeptical of how much sound this might pick up.

After setting up the monitor and running the cord out the dining room window and across the arbor that's built over my downstairs patio, this is all you see of the unit. It's almost completely invisible except for a little bit of the cord coming from the side of the house to the arbor.

The sound quality of this Nature's Window monitor is fantastic! It picks up bird sounds from a good distance away. Because we live so close to the highway, it also picks up a fair amount of highway noise, however instead of sounding annoying, this constant background noise almost ends up sounding like ocean waves, so it's actually kind of relaxing!

What I really like about this monitor is that now I can hear the outside sounds without having to crack open a window on these dreadfully cold days! And I can't wait until spring when the cardinals start singing their cheerful songs. Once summer arrives, I'm thinking I'll probably leave the monitor turned on all the time -- what could be better than having crickets and tree frogs sing me to sleep and waking up to the songs of orioles, rose-breasted grosbeaks, robins and brown thrashers!

Hello? Is Anybody There?

2011-01-23T18:44:00.002-06:00

Downy Woodpecker stopped by the dining room window yesterday morning with a message:

"Hello? Ruthie, are you there?"

"Could you please put down that stupid knitting long enough to fill my suet log?"

"K......thanks.......bye!"

Sharp-Shinned Hawk

2011-01-16T16:30:00.001-06:00

Sundays and Mondays are my designated weekly Project FeederWatch days. There were any number of household chores I could have tackled this day, but I chose to sit near the dining room window with my knitting projects and watch birds in the backyard instead. Of course, my new camera was within arm's reach also and I was lucky enough to be ready when this little Sharp-Shinned Hawk flew into the backyard! In the absence of bluejays -- chickadees sounded their frantic "dee-dee-dee-dee" alarm call to let all the other little birdies know that this Sharpie had arrived!

She landed in the oak tree for only a few moments before she decided to take wing again. (I LOVE the continuous shooting mode on this camera!)

My disappointment in her departure was quickly replaced with joy as she flew just a short distance to a branch in the crapapple tree about 3 yards from where I was sitting!

Right below this tree hangs a small tray feeder frequented all day long by juncos and house sparrows. I love the intensity of her gaze as she scans to make sure no little birdies might be hiding somewhere down there.

Scanning the feeders across the yard for potential meals.......

Isn't this a great shot? I was wishing there would have been a sparrow down there somewhere for her!

When no little birdies showed up, she took the time for a little preening.

But always ever watchful for any prey that might unknowingly venture into the backyard.

A little preening of the back feathers always feels good too!

And still no prey in the backyard.......

Taking a little more time for preening those back feathers and then she was gone, flying out to an evergreen in the backyard where house sparrows like to hide.

Total time elapsed for this visit was about 5 minutes, but what a treat for me to see this beautiful little raptor up close! I wished her luck in her hunting endeavors and urged her to help herself to as many house sparrows as she could manage! (The other really cool thing about this Sharp-Shinned Hawk is that I can record her visit on my Project FeederWatch checklist as a backyard feeder visitor!)

Recently Completed Knitting Projects

2011-01-11T20:05:00.000-06:00

I haven't shown you any photos of knitting projects lately, so that's what this post is going to be about. Last year, one of my resolutions was to try an keep an accurate record of knitting projects I started and finished during the year. I printed out worksheets and actually did pretty good until the middle of November when I was just so busy with knitting projects that I didn't take the time to keep track for the last few weeks of the year. However, I was pretty faithful about recording my projects for the rest of the year. In a review of the list, here are the results for 2010: Projects started was 112! Projects completed was 98. Ideally the number of completed projects would be greater than projects started, but only in a perfect world (which also explains why I have so many unfinished projects stashed all over the house!)

I've already decided I won't be keeping track of any knitting projects this year -- at least not officially. However, here are a few of my FOs (finished objects) for 2011.

A co-worker asked if I could make an earflap hat for his wife similar to a hat they saw on the Columbia website. I didn't have a pattern, but drawing on my years of knitting experience and components of several different hat patterns, here's how the hat turned out. It had to be purple and pink with long tails on the earflaps. I knitted it with Vanna's Choice 100% acrylic yarn, so it's machine washable and dryable (plus the yarn is really soft). I really like how this hat turned out.
Here's one of the scarves I'm knitting for the 2011 Special Olympics USA Scarf Project. I found out about this project from another knitting friend's blog. I've pledged to knit 3 scarves in these "official" colors of blue and turquoise. All of the athletes will have a handmade scarf to wear when participating in the 2011 Special Olympics. I'm sure it will be quite a sight to see all of them wearing these beautiful scarves.

I like to try new yarn colors. I picked up this ball of Patons wool a couple weeks ago because I was curious to see how this weird color combination would knit up. I probably will not buy this yarn again, but I'm sure there's someone who will see these half-mitts in my Etsy store and will love them enough to buy them.

Lastly, here's a small shawl I finished last week. I started it on Dec. 24th and the yarn used to knit this was Berroco Sox Metallic. (Ravelry members can download this pattern for free -- it's the Dane Shawl.)

I wore it to work yesterday. I love that it will coordinate with a lot of different colored tops. I know I will wear this shawl often.

Here's the back view. I was going to be just a few yards short to finish up this shawl but then I visited Yarnology (where I originally bought the yarn), the lovely owners there had a partial ball of this yarn in their backroom and graciously loaned it to me so I could finish up my shawl without having to purchase a whole 'nother ball. Now that's what I call "customer service!"

This yarn is beautiful with a silver metallic thread running through it. It was hard to photograph, but if you look real close a the photo below, you might be able to see it.

Life Bird -- Golden Eagle

2011-01-04T20:14:00.000-06:00

Today my best birding friend Lynne and I attended a Golden Eagle seminar and field trip at The National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota. After an enjoyable lunch at the local Chinese buffet, we headed back to class at the Eagle Center where we learned about all the differences between Golden and Bald Eagles that would help us become proficient at Golden Eagle identification.

After about an hour of classroom time, we were ready to head out into Golden Eagle country and test our newly acquired ID skills. Hopefully the Golden Eagles would be there waiting for us........ After a short drive to the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi, the first pair of Golden Eagles was spotted perched together in a tree far across the valley. After driving a few more miles, another pair was spotted -- again, quite a distance away.

Fortunately for us, our teacher and Golden Eagle expert Scott Mehus was saving the best for last. On our final stop between 2 bluffs, we were treated to a flyover by not one, but a PAIR of Golden Eagles!As we were getting out of the car at this last stop, Scott said, "this is the place -- you'll want to get your cameras out and ready." "How can he know this?" I wondered to myself. "It's not like he has any control over the appearance of these birds, does he?" Skeptic that I am, I didn't have my camera out when the first Golden Eagle flew over the top of the hill, but you can bet that I scrambled my sorry butt double-time back to the car to get my camera out in time to photograph the second eagle when it flew over the hill a few seconds later!
Turns out Scott didn't control these birds, but he has followed them long enough to know that they roost overnite in this valley and the approximate time they arrive in the late afternoon each day. I snapped pictures until my fingers were numb with cold (it was only about 5 degrees). It was an awesome finale to a wonderful afternoon and I was thrilled to get such wonderful looks at these magnificent raptors. Only 4 days into the new year of 2011 and what a spectacular check-off for my life list!

My Holiday Day

2011-01-03T16:55:00.000-06:00

Since last Friday was a regular working day at IBM, today was our day off for the New Year's holiday. It was nice to be able to sleep in for one last day and also to have another day for taking pictures with my new camera. These little Pine Siskins at the thistle seed feeders on my deck were good models.

Later on in the morning, I switched from tiny birds to a really big bird! This is one of the Bald Eagles from the pair that has the nest just up the road from our place (we call it the Fleet Farm Eagle because the nest is across the highway from the big Fleet Farm store). It was perched on this branch, but I asked Mr. Johnson to try driving a little bit closer so I could get out of the car and take a few more pictures.

I actually was hoping this eagle might decide that it didn't like us getting so close and decide to fly away.

Which it did! (and in case you're wondering, it wasn't too disturbed because it only flew about a hundred yards away to another tree farther away from the annoying person by that car)

I like the continuous shooting feature on this camera which enabled me to get this series of shots as the eagle flew past me.

I especially liked this shot! Click on the photo to enlarge it so you can see the beautiful detail on this raptor's feathers.

I look forward to taking more pictures of this pair of Bald Eagles in the spring when they're ready to occupy their nest at the edge of this woods and raise another family.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T11:20:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year everyone! I'm looking forward to learning how to use the new camera Mr. Johnson gifted me with for Christmas. I see a little bit of a problem coming up here with learning to divide my time between 2 enjoyable activities........so far, I haven't knitted a stitch this morning, but I did manage to take these wonderful pictures out the dining room window.

An abundance of peanut-loving bluejays are my best subjects so far!

When I die, I want to be reincarnated as a bluejay!

Don't even think about trying to get this last peanut Dude!

The Victor!!

Chilly doves!

Chickadees are good subjects too -- esp. since this mealworm feeder is right outside the window.

Oops! Almost got that one!

OK, let's eat!

K. TKS. BYE!!