Dec. 16, 2012 - Fall Visitors

Because I had so many photos from the North House Folk School workshop, I’ve fallen behind in sharing the ones from this fall. Here is a Ruffed Grouse that was walking around the back yard of our home in northern Minnesota. It’s a popular game bird and the population has cyclical ups and downs, but there are always some of them around. Notice how the bird’s plumage helps it blend into the surroundings.

GrouseRuffedDunningLake20120927

Dark-eyed Juncos pass through our yard every spring and fall on the way to and from their nesting grounds in northern Canada and Alaska. Their plumage tends to be quite variable in color. Males are generally darker, almost black, and females lighter gray. I think this is a female. They do stay in the United States during the winter, but we usually don’t see them because they go farther south than where we live.

JuncoDarkeyedDunningLake20121012

White-crowned Sparrows are another migrant that we see in spring and fall. Their migratory habits are similar to Juncos. I think they are one of our prettiest sparrows. The bird is actually gray/white underneath; the golden color in this photo comes from the early morning light.

SparrowWhitecrownedDunningLake20120929

Here’s an American Tree Sparrow. It showed up just after an early snow storm. They nest farther north than most sparrows: at the tree line or even on the tundra. They also tend to winter a little farther north than most sparrows. I’ve seen them in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area in January. They have a clear white to tan breast and belly, with a small dark spot (just visible in this photo), on the breast. They also have a bi-colored bill; the upper mandible is dark and the lower one is yellow.

SparrowAmericanTreeDunningLake20121028

Our largest sparrow is the Fox Sparrow. Its name refers to the reddish color of the wings and tail. We don’t always see them during migration but this year we got lucky and had several at our feeders.

SparrowFoxDunningLake20121012

This is a Clark’s Nutcracker and it’s very unusual to see one in Minnesota. In fact, I was told that the last one seen in the state was 7 years ago. This one was discovered by someone I met on a birding workshop last spring. It was less than 2 miles from our apartment in Shoreview, so I had to go see it. It stayed in the same area for at least a week and was seen by many birders in the metro area. The bird might still be around because every week or so someone reports seeing it. Clark’s Nutcracker’s are found in the western mountains so this one is far from home. The species was named after Captain William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame. At 12.5 inches it’s a little bigger than a Blue Jay.

NutcrackerClark'sShoreview20121031