Taking photographs of a quarter million geese at a time has given me trouble. I can’t find a way to capture even the idea of that many birds in one flock. Below is a picture of a very large flock of mostly Snow Geese that rose off a sandpit pond as we left Kearney, Nebraska, yesterday afternoon. It looked more like a weather event than birds in the air. We followed the North Platte River northwest toward Scottsbluff, on our way to the Black Hills. The Canada Geese we found flying against the sunset offered a better photo op. The geese will be leaving the Platte River valley any day now, to be replaced by huge numbers of Sandhill Cranes. There’s still time for you to make the drive down there, but call ahead for a lodging reservation. Thousands of birders will be there, too.

 If you’re eager for spring and the return of waterfowl — something more sexy than our ubiquitous urban Mallards — you can get an early fix at the small lake immediately west of the Blackdog power plant. The lake is full of Common Mergansers. The plant is immediately east of the 35W bridge over the Minnesota River. There’s an exit off 35W as soon as you cross the bridge heading south. There are mergansers on the river, too, and there’s always a chance to find Bald Eagles there. A Belted Kingfisher recently was reported. The land is part of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Watch for a parking area on the south side of Black Dog Road as you approach the plant from the west. A path leads to an observation platform that gives you good views of the lake and its birds. Binoculars and/or a spotting scope will be a big help. The mergansers in the photo are males. It’s not shown here, but there was a bit of courtship display by both male and female mergansers.

 A friend and I spent Sunday in the Meadowland-Sax-Zim area, the wonderful birdy bog west of Highway 53 and north of Cloquet. Birding there is good naturally, particularly in winter for finches and owls. Residents of the area, however, have vastly improved your chances of seeing good birds by creating bird-feeding stations in their yards and inviting birders to stop and look. There even are feeders and feeding stations more or less in the middle of nowhere, tended by generous souls. The busiest of these consisted of portions of two deer carcasses smeared with peanut butter and fastened to a tree with bungie cords. Not fancy, but it certainly worked, offering us the best birding of the day. (This site is on Admiral Road four miles north of Sax Road (For directions and maps, see Hendrickson’s Web site, linked at right.)  Overall, we found two Northern Hawk-Owls, dozens of Common Redpolls, with Hoary Redpolls mixed in the flocks, Gray Jays, Boreal and Black-capped Chickadees, Black-billed Magpies, ravens, Evening and Pine grosbeaks, and nuthatches of both flavors. The feeders are in place because of the work of Duluth birding guide Mike Hendrickson. He encouraged bog residents to welcome birders and the business they bring to the small community of Meadowland. A visit to the area would be a winter highlight for any birder. The birds are a Hoary Redpoll (I think), and a Gray Jay.  

I spent Wednesday in Aitkin County, wandering through the Savannah State Forest, just looking. There were White-winged Crossbills to be seen, and redpolls, Pine Siskins, Gray Jays, various woodpeckers, and one Ruffed Grouse. On the way home, some Tundra Swans swam at the edge of the ice rimming Mille Lacs Lake. Bird of the Day was the juvenile Golden Eagle I saw over the Hedbom Road, which cuts east-west through the forest. It turned three slow circles right above me. The bird is in the photo. Key ID marks are the white windows in the wings and the black band at the end of the white tail. After the first year, the white disappears. Golden Eagles are regular in Minnesota, but not common. They are seen each fall at Hawk Ridge in Duluth.

 White-winged Crossbills, like their cousins Red Crossbills, are nomadic birds, moving to find spruce-cone seeds, their major food source. It’s been a bad seed year north of us in Canada, so White-wings are beginning a modest Minnesota invasion, pushing south of their usual but erratic winter range. The birds have been seen in Faribault, Rice, Douglas and Sherburne counties, as well as St. Louis, Aitkin, and Otter Tail, where they would be more likely. Birders have been heading for Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge for the past several days to look for crossbills in a spruce stand about a mile in on the Blue Hill hiking trail (parking lot on Sherburne County Road 9, west of the refuge headquarters. The birds, in groups of from a handful to as many as 40, move widely through the 40+ acres of spruce. I saw crossbills three times in 90 minutes Saturday (15 Nov) by walking up and down the plowed firebreak along the eastern edge of the stand. Watch for fast-moving birds flying just above the tree tops. You sometimes can hear them chatter as they arrive. Take the Blue Hill trail from the parking lot, and bear left at the first fork. Continue on that trail until you reach the spruce stand. It will be obvious. ALERT: While this portion of the park is closed to deer hunting, surrounding land is open to hunting. Officials recommend you wear a blaze-orange garment of some kind. (The photos were taken at Sherburne NWR.) 

 If you like winter birds, northern Minnesota specialties in particular, there is a festival coming that can’t be beat. The second annual Sax-Zim Bog Winter Bird Festival will be held Feb. 13-15 in Meadowlands, northwest of Duluth. Birds to be seen include Sharp-tailed Grouse, Ruffed Grouse, Snowy Owl, Great Gray Owl, Northern Hawk-Owl, Northern Goshawk, Rough-legged Hawk, American Three-toed Woodpecker, Black-backed Woodpecker, Northern Shrike, Gray Jay, Black-billed Magpie, Boreal Chickadee, Bohemian Waxwing, Snow Bunting, Pine and Evening grosbeaks, Red and White-winged crossbills, and Hoary and Common redpolls. There are guided tours and programs. Check it out at http://moumn.org/sax-zim/. This might be the only true winter birding festival in the nation. Last year, birders from 21 states attended. (The bird in the photo is a Black-backed Woodpecker.)   

Kenai Peninsula, Alaska — Day Six

The five-mile long spit that stretches into Kachemak Bay from Homer, Alaska, points across the bay at Gull Island. Today, we rode with Capt. Karl Stoltzfus of Bay Excursion Tours to check the bay for seabirds, and to circle Gull Island. Highlight of the expansive bay were sea otters, dozens of them dotting the absolutely calm water (no chop, no waves a bonus). Then came Gull Island. This is two islands, actually, rocky humps rising steeply from the water. Thousands of birds nest here — Common Murres, Pigeon Guillemots, Horned and Tufted Puffins, Red-faced and Pelagic Cormorants, Mew Gulls, and Marbled and Kittlitz’s Murrelets. The birds call incessently. They wheel above the island. They come from and leave on feeding forays. It is birding bedlum out there. We circled twice, slowly, high tide allowing us to be within 20 feet of shore at times. It is birding bedlam out there. And it stinks. Years (centuries?) worth of guano stain the rocks. Nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

Kenai peninsula, Alaska, day three

We boarded a Renown Tours boat in Seward for a five-hour trip to see whales, birds, and a calfing glacier. Our pilot was bird-alert; not all of them are. Mammals were encountered first — humpback whales, dolphins, sea otters, and then a pod of about 20 orca (killed whales). We passed a rocky point used by sea lions for basking and birthing. Baby sea lions look like big puppies. We passed close by cliffs used for nesting by Double-creasted, Pelagic, and Red-faced Cormorants, Black-legged Kittiwakes, and Horned and Tufted Puffins. There were a lot of puffins on the water, diving as we approached or flying off. Identification of these birds often requires good knowledge of bird butts. There were murrelets out there, but none close enough to positive ID. Later in the day we would drive a shoreline road out of Seward and get good looks at a pair of Marbled Murrelets not more than 40 feet offshore. Black Scoters were along that shore as well, along with a dozen immature Harlequin Ducks. Bird of the Day was the brown (grizzly) bear we found on the way home. Three cars parked along the road ahead of us and a wooded glen holding half a dozen people with cameras was the clue. The bear, a sow with cub, was less than 200 feet away, resting in the brush, but very alert. My host is a biologist familiar with bears. He pointed out that slowly advancing on the bears with digital cell-phone-size digital cameras cranking out bright little flashes each time a photo was taken was a bad idea. This was the basic approach of the viewers we watched. The bear was intently focused on us, its cub at its side. I took photos with the equivalent of a 900mm telephoto lens, keeping my distance. Well, I just made sure that one of the other photographers always was between me and the bear. It’s that old joke — I don’t have to run faster than the bear, just faster than that other guy. Glaciers, by the way, are big but don’t do much.

For the next few days I’ll be writing about a recent birding trip to the Kenai Peninsula, along the coast of the Gulf of Alaska, south of Anchorage. I was based in Soldatna, near the mouth of the Kenai River. Gulls and terns are nesting now, chicks hatched and being fed. Shorebird migrants are beginning to move south along these shores from Arctic nesting grounds. Short-billed Dowitchers and Whimbrels have arrived, and are feeding on the tidal flats. The gulf holds more gulls and terns, Red-faced Cormorants, murres, various auklets, loons, grebes, and ducks. Special a week ago was sighting of a pod of 90 Orca (Killer Whale), the largest single pod seen here in a decade. The first day for me was filled with a 5.5-hour flight to Anchorage from Minneapolis, and a three-hour drive south. The scenery was great, the highway weaving through mountain valleys, following one shoreline or another. Birding from the car was not good, however: the road demands full attention. A highlight was the sign near Soldatna warning about moose on the road. The highway department keeps track of moose fatalities: so far this year, 171.

Tomorrow, Friday, June 27, the 2008-2009 duck stamp goes on sale.

The stamp is one of the best conservation tools we have. It’s been supporting birds of all kinds for 75 years now. All birders should buy one.

Duck stamps pump big-time money into conservation of many of the birds you love, be they ducks or not. Waterfowl hunters must buy the stamp if they’re going to hunt. You can do it as an inexpensive and readily available conservation effort.

Stamps are sold at most post offices, at some sporting-goods stores, including Wal-Mart, I believe, and over the Internet.

Stamp money – 98 cents of every dollar – is used by the federal government to buy or lease wetland habitat for protection in the national wildlife refuge system.

Many, many non-game bird species benefit from refuge land. They needn’t be ducks. This is a no-brainer for me. I’ll be at my local post office tomorrow morning with $15 in hand (the cost of the stamp). I’ll bring it home and tape it to the front of my Sibley bird guide, where my earlier stamps reside.

Joe Hautman of Plymouth painted this stamp, showing a pair of pintails. The 2009-2010 contest to choose the next stamp painting will be held in Bloomington in October. There will be several public events.

Stay tuned. When you buy your stamp, do you display it? How?