Powderhorn Bird Watch

August is always a slow birding month but in the past I have found other park-related things to write about. I am not doing so well on that this month but I will try.
Maybe bad news items first is the way to proceed. One of the adult Cooper’s Hawks (probably the female) that nested near the southwest corner of the park contracted West Nile Virus and died. The two young seemed fine right after that and I saw one today (Sept. 1). Some people say they are still seeing two or three hawks in the park but the nest is abandoned. I don’t know the present situation but on the bright side, during the art fair, the hawk family was healthy and putting on quite a show in the pine grove for observant art fair attendees.

More raptor bad news: The falcons nesting a couple blocks south of the park have successfully raised young, but the tree they used, and many, many more large Elms in the neighborhood, is marked for destruction. I guess there is not much we can do about either situation but hope that the remaining birds thrive and stay in the area.

Another troubling item, but at least it does not directly involve birds: Several people that I some times run across in the park, tell me they have sent letters to me or the paper about birds or other nature items, but the letters have somehow been lost at the newspaper office. I really appreciate the letters and comments, and feel bad about this. Please try again if you have written to the paper lately.
One correspondence that didn’t get lost was a recent New York Times article,

ent by a longtime Powderhorn peace and justice advocate. Thanks for the article. It is about the dispute over whether the Ivory-billed Woodpecker has really been found after many people thought it extinct for over 50 years. I, like most people, think it has been found and of course hope there are enough birds to continue the population. But there are various people in the upper reaches of birding that think that since they didn’t find it themselves, the bird must not exist. I guess there are always egos and jealousies involved in any scientific or academic endeavor. One of the arguments was that the recording of the call could have been a Blue Jay mimicking the sound of the Ivory-Billed. I don’t have any Ph.D.’s like the people in the dispute have, but I’m wondering what the Blue Jays were mimicking since the Ivory Billed has been gone so long. I looked in one of my various bird books and found the oldest know Blue Jay lived 17.5 years, and Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers supposedly have been gone 3 times that long.
Back to the park and neighborhood. As far as I know, the C

nada Geese have not made their usual return to the lake, and I have seen no migrating shore birds. The Great Blue Heron regular is still regular but no other Herons or Egrets have passed through.
Yard birding has been routine with the

arious babies coming along well. The Chickadee family provides the most entertainment along with Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, Goldfinches, Cardinals, Blue Jays and English Sparrows. As usual, I am hoping for migrating Hummingbirds, but even if they don’t show up, the butterfly garden is attractive and getting butterflies.
A couple of months a

o I listed the wild animals I had seen in the city this summer. I have a new addition: a possum (or an opossum?). I saw it near the U of M ballfields, in the middle of the night as usual. I also saw a flock of migrating Nighthawks in late August.
And now for something completely different, or maybe not, for this neig

borhood. The inaugural World Naked Gardening Day is September 10, proclaimed by some organic gardeners in California in an attempt to bolster the number of nude gardeners. The founders recommend not working with cactus or poison oak but that any plant can be grown just as well with or without clothes (on the gardener, not the plant). Perhaps next year this event can be tied in with the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association’s garden tour. And once I got to thinking about this, I thought—Why not nude birding? I’ll put some more thought into this and consider tying it in with May Day or the Art Fair.

After World Naked Gardening Day, remember the primary elections on September 13. The city and park board elections are important to our park and neighborhood.

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