While working my breeding bird atlas territory this morning (Wednesday) I found this Great Egret along the shore of Lake Independence. It had just captured a sunfish large enough to fillet and fry. It maneuvered the fish in its bill for about five minutes, until the fish could be swallowed head first, dunked it once in the lake — perhaps to freshen its slipperiness — and then down it went. Progress of the fish down the bird’s long neck was easy to see, and almost painful to watch.   

“Toilet paper containing 100% recycled fiber makes up less than 2% of the U.S. market, while sales of three-ply luxury brands like Cottonelle Ultra and Charmin Ultra Soft shot up 40% in 2008. […] (From recent issue of “Time” magazine.) What if we had to use the trees in our own yards for our paper needs?

If you’ve upgraded to new or better binoculars or spotting scopes, here’s an excellent way to recycle your old optics. The American Birding Association has a program known as Birder’s Exchange. You send your optics (in good repair, please) to ABA, and it sees that they are put to good use in Central American and other countries where “our” migrant birds winter, where conservation efforts are important, and where resources are very limited. Researchers working in these countries often have no binoculars and not even identification books, particularly books in Spanish. You can help with books by contributing funds to purchase the one guide to North American birds that has a Spanish-language edition (Kenn Kaufman’s recent guide). This is an important effort that the ABA has been pursuing for years. Hundreds of binoculars and scopes have been donated. More are needed. To participate, package the items carefully and send them to Birder’s Exchange, ABA, 4945 N. 30th St., Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80919.

The 2009-2010 federal duck stamp goes on sale today (Friday, June 26). Every person with an interest in or concern for birds should buy one. Ninety-eight percent of the $15 cost is used to purchase land for national wildlife refuges and waterfowl management districts. Purchase of the stamp is required if you hunt waterfowl. Benefits of stamp funds reach far beyond ducks, however. The habitat created for waterfowl, like refuge habitat, supports hundreds of non-game bird species. If you’ve ever birded at one of Minnesota’s national wildlife refuges you know what I mean. Buy the stamp. Hunters put them on their hunting license. I stick mine on the cover of my Sibley identification guide. Put yours somewhere where you and others can see it often. Let it serve as a reminder of the importance of this purchase. Most post offices will have the stamp on Friday, as will many sporting goods stores. Minnesota’s 13 national wildlife refuges, all offering excellent birdwatching, are Agassiz, Big Stone, Crane Meadows, Hamden Slough, Mille Lacs, Minnesota Valley, Rice Lake, Rydell, Sherburne, Tamarac, and Upper Mississippi River. There are eight waterfowl management districts covering more than 267,000 acres. (Images from US Fish and Wildlife Service)

A year ago I was birding in Churchill, Manitoba, listening to warblers sing, watching shorebirds court. This year six-foot snow drifts on the roads there make birding impossible. Much worse, the extremely late spring in northern Manitoba and across the eastern Arctic has made breeding impossible for many species of waterfowl, shorebirds, and songbirds. An entire class year has been lost for many species. An early return of non-breeders is predicted. You could be seeing birds returning south weeks ahead of schedule. To read about this go to a story on the Web site of the Winnipeg Free Press newspaper:

www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/westview/big-chill-in-churchill-47992231.html

Are perching birds sitting on your boat or dock at the lake? Causing an unsightly problem? Reader David Kleis wanted to keep birds off his dock and pontoon boat. So he simply trimmed a sapling tree, mounted it to the end of his dock, and gave the birds a better place to perch. It’s used by a variety of birds, he says, and has the bonus of convenient viewing. 

Cedar Waxwing, a nomadic species found throughout Minnesota, has never been a bird I see routinely. There has not been a place where I could expect to see them. This year, however, I am seeing them almost daily in the breeding bird atlas territory I am surveying. They’re in willows, along edges, flying overhead. Perhaps I’ve just become more aware. This is a bird with an expanding population, which also helps. They breed here and there, returning to former breeding sites less frequently than other songbird species. I was fortunate the other day to watch a waxwing gather nesting material and carry it to a nearby tree. Try as I did, I couldn’t see the nest under construction from my viewpoint about 60 feet away. The bird was taking the fuzz from the flower of a cattail. It can take up to 2,500 trips over five to six days to collect the fibers needed to create the nest.   

Two years ago I was in the Alaskan boonies, an hour’s flight out of Bethel, looking at Red-throated Loons. You can see the same bird today with a much shorter trip:
Duluth. As many as 15 of the Arctic breeders were seen this morning (Sunday) on Lake Superior off Park Point. This is most unusual, both in number and date. To see photos taken by Duluth bird-guide and photographer Mike Hendrickson go to www.moumn.org and click on Recently Seen (upper right portion of the page).

If your bird-book budget has taken a hit lately, consider used-book stores. The metro area has several. Those that I have shopped all had good selections of books about birds, at prices half of retail or less. Bird identification books are scarce, but other aspects of birds and birding are well covered. Most if not all of these stores also buy used books should you want to help pay for new purchases with old. The photo was taken at Half-Price Books on Excelsior Boulevard in St. Louis Park.

I’m finding dead Tree Swallows in the nest boxes I tend at a neighborhood golf course. I’ve got four dozen boxes, so the information I gathered by looking in six of them this afternoon isn’t necessarily definitive, but I think these cold wet days are the reason baby birds are dying. In one box were five birds near fledging size, all dead for at least two days. In a second box I found six birds perhaps a week old, not dead but barely moving when touched. Healthy birds would have been actively reacting to me as a deliverer of food. They’ll be dead by morning. Tree Swallows feed exclusively on insects they catch in the air. Cold, wet days aren’t good for that. There is one other interesting element to the swallow nests this year: they contain far more feathers than usual. You can easily distinguish a Tree Swallow nest from an Eastern Bluebird nest (both species use the boxes) by the presence of feathers in the swallow nests. Usually, there are two or three feathers, as you see in the first photo below, taken in 2005 (the nest was removed from the box for the photo). The second photo shows one of this year’s nests as seen in the box. It’s wrapped in feathers. Well-feathered nests stay warmer. Chicks in these nests grow faster and have lower frequency of parasites. None of that matters, though, if there is no food.