Backyard wilderness

I thought I would start out with something beautiful and hopeful, plus it was something I forgot to write about last month. On June 26, I was driving to our neighborhood East Lake Rainbow Foods through a short but fairly heavy rain shower. The rain ended by the time I was parked, leaving a complete double rainbow across the sky over “Rainbow” Foods. I have seen a few double rainbows in my life but this was the best. People in the lot (or at least observant people) were just standing outside their cars in awe, showing it to their children, etc. I even tried calling a few people to give them the opportunity to see it, but didn’t reach anyone. I was reminded of this tonight (July 31) when I saw a small but interesting partial rainbow while returning from Western Minnesota. This was only about an eighth of a rainbow at best. At one time, it shrunk down to a small round section that looked like a red, yellow and blue beach ball in the clouds.

Now, to relate this to birds somehow. The Rainbow parking lot is the only place anywhere near the neighborhood where I am finding Common Nighthawks this year. They are there quite consistently.

Drifting away from birds again, but to other things in the air, and another road trip. While returning from northern Illinois in the middle of July, we decided not to take the usual Interstate route but went straight west to the Mississippi River and drove the Great River Road part of the way back through Iowa. The birds were about the same as birds on Minnesota’s part of the river. The terrain, vistas and large and small river towns were fantastic and not at all what I expected with my provincial Interstate 35-based view of Iowa. Now getting somewhat back to the subject. At dusk a little after 9 p.m., I thought I had been on the road too long, as I started seeing small sparkles all over the place. It turned out that the sparkles were fireflies, thousands of them, in every ditch, field or pasture. This lasted 10 or 15 minutes and I’m sure I saw more fireflies in that time than I had seen previously in my life. I never see any in the city but sometimes do in outer suburbs or nature areas.

As usual, July is a slow birding month in the park (which is one reason why I write about rainbows and fireflies) but some things are happening. The Wood Duck and Mallard families are mostly coming along fine, but one Mallard mother hatched seven ducklings very late in the month. Maybe fall weather will cooperate and they will have time to grow and survive. The Canada Goose family is gone, as usually happens this time of year. I expect they will return for a while in the fall before migrating, but I always worry that they may have been caught by the goose police.

As many park walkers will have noticed, one Great Blue Heron and one Great Egret have been fairly regular lake visitors in July. This is better than June, but not anywhere near most years’ Heron family numbers.

On one early July day, I heard Nuthatches in the southeast corner of the park, fairly unusual for the month. I tracked them down to one tree, and found quite a few of them, I really could not tell how many. The Nuthatches and one Downy Woodpecker were going up and down the higher branches of the tree, very unusual for the month. My only conclusion was that some tasty type of insect had invaded or hatched in this tree and the birds, through some sort of instinct or communication, had found the feast. This was a one-time, one-tree event as far as I could tell.

Later in the month, on July 27, near the dead end of 14th Avenue at the park, I found another one-tree, one-time gathering. No Nuthatches, but seven kinds of birds in and around one tree, including Downy Woodpeckers, Robins, Cardinals, Chipping Sparrows, Tree Sparrows, Kingbirds, and immature Baltimore Orioles, the first Orioles I have seen in the park in two years. After that highlight, I encountered a lowlight, a group of about a dozen youth, of both sexes, from about 5 to 15 years old. There was an almost constant stream of loud, stupid, extremely profane, vulgar and disruptive behavior from the group. The youngest members of the group didn’t participate too much, but I can’t imagine that they will grow up much differently than the misfits who are apparently “looking after” them. I wish the park board and the city had more resources to deal with this behavior which has been way too common in the park this summer.

I could, and probably should, rant about this a lot more, but I will get back to birds. After walking past this troubling and troubled group of youths, I was on the south shore of the lake when a Cooper’s Hawk flew from north to south across the water and continued south out of the park. This is the first hawk I have seen in the park for some time.

A week before that, on July 20, I heard and then saw two Kestrels over the backyard. They were quite low and engaged in some sort of mating or fighting behavior. It’s hard to tell which is which sometimes. That was about the only newsworthy report from the backyard. The usual suspects continue to come to the feeders and birdbath.

Finally, as I often report in July, various shorebirds from the Arctic are passing through the state, the first birds to head south. Usually, most do not visit our neighborhood.

Comments and observations are always welcome. Send them to me, in care of the Southside Pride. Thank you.