The Snow Geese that were filling the sky in Nebraska a week ago are moving into South Dakota. Sunday, we watched tens of thousands of them cross US Highway 14 between Huron and Brookings, South Dakota. Many of them will take another migration break at Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge north of Aberdeen. That’s another place to enjoy the Snow Goose spectacle. If you want to drive over (a half-day drive), contact the refuge first to check on conditions and bird numbers. Email is sandlake@fws.gov, telephone 605-885-6320, and Web site http://sandlake.fws.gov. The photo is of some of those geese moving north across Highway 14 against the rising moon. 

 Bird bands help researchers track the movement of birds. Now there are bands for your optics that can help you get them back should they go astray. It’s an idea working at the moment in Maine, where it began. For $20 you register your binoculars or spotting scope with the state, receiving a ring-like metal band that goes on the optic’s carrying strap. The band carries a registration number and a state agency phone number.  If you leave the binoculars on that park bench in post-life-bird excitement, the number can put them back in your hands. The money produced by this project in Maine goes into its endangered species fund. In Minnesota, it could go to our non-game wildlife department, perpetually under-funded, with worse probably just over the hill. Here’s a way for birders to contribute, and to protect what is likely their most costly birding investment: wild land and good glass. Perhaps best of all, the band on your optic strap lets everyone know that you’ve done a bit more than your share. Right now, that’s important. Hunters and fishermen contribute by purchasing licenses. Birders can buy the band. Hey, DNR: Let’s do it.Â

  The Great Backyard Bird Count will take place Friday through Monday, Feb. 13-16. Everyone can participate. Count the birds you see anywhere — your backyard, local park, favorite birding spot — choose one or all. There is no required amount of time you must spend.  You can submit checklists for as many locations as you want, and a new checklist for each location each day. Your counts are reported to Web site www.birdcount.org. The count is organized by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon. The purpose is to provide a snapshot of where birds are across the continent. Last year, more than 85,000 checklists were submitted, recording 9.8 million birds of 635 species. This is citizen science, valuable, and fun to boot. The Web site has more information and some lovely photographs. The Common Redpoll in the photo is one of three that have been visiting our feeders recently.    Â

Here is a list birds perfectly named to be carved from wood. Start soon; this looks like a lifetime project: Wood Duck, Wood Lark, Wood Nuthatch, Wood Sandpiper, Wood Snipe, Wood Stork, Wood Thrush, Wood Warbler, eight species of woodcock, 42 species of woodcreepers, two woodhaunters, two woodhens, a Woodlark, seven species of woodnymphs, 11 species of woodswallows, the Wood Shrike, 15 species of woodstars, and more woodpeckers than I cared to count. If you want to work from live models, the Wood Duck, Wood Thrush, and seven woodpecker species can be found in Minnesota. This information comes from the book “Birds of the World, Recommended English Names” by Frank Gill land Minturn Wright. (Photo: Wood Stork, Cedar Key, Florida.) These three birds could be difficult to carve because of the apparent problems in seeing or hearing them: Inaccessible Island Rail, Invisible Rail, and Whispering Ibis.

  Prof. Geoff Hill and fellow researchers from the University of Georgia are going back into the swamps of the Choctawhatchee River Basin in the Florida panhandle. This will be their fourth season in that area. In 2006 and 2007 they chased for birds, following leads, covering ground. They had a handful of fleeting sightings and many recorded calls and knocks. In 2008, with federal funding, they changed tactics, searching randomly chosen sections of swamp. They came out at the end of the effort with no new sightings and only two sound detections, both described as sets of clear double knocks, typical for the species. This season they go in with new remote cameras triggered by vibrations of the tree to which they are mounted — vibrations produced by a pounding woodpecker, for example. Evidence continues to be gathered, but no definitive evidence has yet come to hand. People keep asking why there are no good photos of the birds if they truly are there. Here’s my challenge for the doubters: take a camera with a telephoto lens. Walk through any thick woods — Minnesota forest, Florida swamp, your choice — and come out with a clear definitive photo of a Pileated Woodpecker, not a difficult bird to find. But, like any wary bird that flushes quickly and often at a distance, very difficult to photograph. The photo is of a Pileated Woodpecker, but not a Pileated in flight, something I have never managed to photograph.

Since cold weather first hit here, we have had the following bird species at our feeders or in the yard: Black-capped Chickadee, White-breasted Nuthatch, American Goldfinch, House Finch, Pine Siskin, Pileated, Hairy, Downy, Red-bellied, and Flicker woodpeckers, American Crow, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Cooper’s Hawk, Brown Creeper, Great Horned Owl, and Dark-eyed Junco. Flyovers have been Canada Goose, Mallard, and Ring-billed Gull. We’re waiting species we usually see: Mourning Dove, and maybe Red-breasted Nuthatch (here the past two winters). Shown is the Cooper’s Hawk. We also have seen frigatebirds, Yucatan Jays, Great Kiskadees, Hooded Orioles, and several species of warblers that breed in Minnesota but winter in the 80-degree temps of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, where these latter birds were seen. Birds look even better than usual at that temp. Here is a Yucatan Jay photo. This is a juvenile, as indicated by the yellow bill. 

The Rose-breasted Grosbeak that has been visiting our feeders arrived this morning with a problem. It had a twig frozen to its bottom. It appeared that fecal matter had frozen both to the bird and the twig. It flew from whatever perch taking part of the perch with it. This is a cold-weather problem I had not heard of before. So, the bird tells its grandchildren, “I can remember when it was so cold that ….” By afternoon the twig had disappeared. If the bird survives until Saturday it will be a star among Christmas Bird Count species. It also will be one tough little bird.

 There is the well-known Christmas Bird Count, an Audubon event of many years. This winter census of birds requires one to tromp around outside in cold weather. There also is the lesser well-known (by a long shot) Christmas Card Bird Count. To participate, you simply keep track of the species of birds that appear on holiday cards you receive. You can do this in your pajamas if you wish. We’re not doing very well at our house at the moment, only four species on our list: Bald Eagle, Tufted Titmouse, Black-capped Chickadee, and Northern Cardinal. We hope this list will grow. One year we received one card that carried the images of 16 different bird species! It gave us our best year ever, but I can’t remember the total number of species we recorded.Play along. Post your list totals here. Unidentifiable birds do not count, Hallmark birds, for instance, carrying tinsel in their beaks and sitting on Santa’s shoulder. Only real birds, like the Mourning Dove above. Â

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.

The population of the endangered Kirtland’s Warblers reached a new high this year, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Michigan is where almost all of this species can be found in breeding season. The count this year was 1,791 singing males, exceeding the goal set for delisting the species.

In 1974, only 167 singing males were found. For the second consecutive year, singing males were found outside of Michigan — nine in Wisconsin and one in Ontario. The birds nest in jack pine barrens, typically in stands between four and 20 years old. Historically, fire frequently swept through jack pine stands, allowing new trees to grow, thus producing the necessary Kirtland’s habitat. Our suppression of fire caused such habitat to outgrow the bird’s needs, leading to its decline. (Drawing of Kirtland’s Warbler from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wet site.)