A reader sent me this photo recently, asking, What is it? It’s a Domestic Mallard, sometimes all white with yellow-orange bill and legs. It’s also known as a Peking Duck. People raise them. Sometimes you’re seeing their livestock, sometimes an escaped bird. Interbreeding with wild ducks can cause puzzling plumages.

In the past couple of days, birders in the metro area have reported Eastern Bluebirds, Eastern Meadowlarks (Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge), Common Grackles, Sandhill Cranes, Killdeer, Snow Geese, many species of waterfowl, including Green-winged Teal and mergansers, Great Blue Herons, Double-crested Cormorants, Brown-headed Cowbirds, Rusty Blackbirds, White-fronted Geese, Red-shouldered Hawks, Northern Harrier, Kestrel, Merlin, and Turkey Vultures. American Robins are everywhere, as are male Red-winged Blackbirds.( The males arrive first to claim breeding territories. Females will follow soon.) Pictured is a female Red-winged Blackbird carrying grass for her nest. 

 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.

  Every winter a handful of Varied Thrushes stray east into Minnesota and beyond from their forest homes in the Pacific Northwest. These visitors feed on fruit. They often hang around a bountiful tree for days. At first glance, Varied Thrushes can be mistaken for robins; they’re often found feeding with robins, another bird that feeds on fruit. But the bold stripe at the top of its breast and the orange slash on the Varied Thrush’s head can’t be missed it you look again. The bird shown here was feeding in a crab apple tree in Roseville. It was photographed in a nearby cottonwood tree.

 White-winged Crossbills, a finch species of northern spruce forests, are being seen in many areas of Minnesota this winter, including the Twin Cities. Crossbills feed on the seeds found in spruce cones. The cone crop in Canada is poor this winter, so the birds have moved south in search of food. They’ve been seen in Minneapolis, Plymouth, Falcon Heights, Mendota Heights, Hastings, and Sherburne County, among other metro locations, and from Ely and Hibbing south to Fillmore and Houston counties. They’re being reported from all over. Any spruce tree with cones is a candidate for crossbills. The birds do indeed have mandibles that cross, allowing them to pry cone sections open so they can extract the seeds. These birds were photographed at the parking lot of the TwinWest Chamber of Commerce in Plymouth. The bird above is a female,  below a male. 

 A Snowy Owl is being seen at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. It is very difficult to see, however, because it spends most of its time far from any accessible viewing point. The bird is a juvenile, as determined by the amount of black on its feathers. Snowy Owls make a perhaps annual appearance at the airport. Its flat terrain is familiar to birds from the Arctic tundra. The hunting has to be good, too. These photos were taken Thursday morning.