May 20, 2012 - Springtime Babies

Baby Killdeer always remind me of little puff balls on legs that look way too long. I saw this one when I went to the Grand Rapids Wastewater Treatment Plant to look for a greater White-fronted Goose, an unusual bird to find in our county. Someone who works at the plant and knows I do a lot of birding saw one there and told me about it. I didn’t get to see the goose but there were lots of baby birds around so I decided to photograph them.

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Common Goldeneyes also nested at the plant. Here’s a female and her four little ones. I like seeing the drops of water clinging to the down of the babies.

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Looks like a parade! This female Mallard was leading her brood around and they followed as if they were attached by an invisible string.

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Well, these aren’t babies yet. An Eastern Phoebe pair built their nest on the side of our house right where the roof meets the walls. I got my camera as high as I could but the nest is so close to the roof you still can’t see all five of the eggs. We’ve had a Phoebe nest on the side of our house every year since we built it in 1994.

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Here’s a look at one of the Phoebes. Both male and female look alike so I can’t tell which one this is.

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One of my favorite Minnesota wildflowers is Columbine. I found them blooming while I was birding at Plughat Point, a boat access for Lake Winnibigoshish. We have Columbine in our yard, too, but it’s not blooming yet.

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Sometimes I leave our porch light on for a while after dark to see what kind of moths are attracted to the light. On Friday I found this one and got it to climb onto a stick so I could photograph it. Moths have two sets of wings. The left photo shows the top set of wings. In the photo on the right, the top wings are spread and you can see the colorful under wings. This gives you a clue about how it got the name One-eyed Sphinx Moth.

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