The sparrows return and so do the hawks

BY JOHN KARRIGAN

Today (April 29) was gray and cloudy, but my first look in the back yard was brightened by at least ten White-throated Sparrows, jumping around, eating and seemingly having a good time. As far as sparrows go, White-throats are fairly colorful, with bright white, yellow and black features on their heads. We usually get a couple of them every spring and fall, but this was a record number in my back yard. In my misspent youth, White-throats were the first true sparrows I remember seeing. Before that, I thought all sparrows were House Sparrows, aka English Sparrows (really Weaver Finches from Europe). Now I know there are about two dozen sparrow species in Minnesota. Chipping Sparrows are (or were) on the block a few days ago, but I have not seen them yet. Juncos (another sparrow) were here until a few days ago but I think they have gone north until next fall. At least two Hermit Thrushes were in the yard on April 18.

Brown Creepers were reported in the park early in April and in the yard and block in mid-April, but I didn’t see any until late April (in the park). The male Goldfinches in the yard are now bright yellow. You no longer have to imagine the color, as I wrote a couple of months ago. House Finches are fairly regular in the yard and neighborhood.

Another small bird and member of the finch family, the Pine Siskin, actually a pair of them, were in the yard for a few days in early April. This was a yard first for me, but they are sometimes seen in the outer ring suburbs.

Going still smaller, I have seen two kinds of butterflies in the yard so far this year. The first one (on April 10) was a Mourning Cloak, which I found trying to get out of a garage window. I carefully took it outside, where it rested for a while and then started wandering around the area. Then I tried to figure out why it was in the garage. I found out the last generation (in the fall) of Mourning Cloaks overwinter (sort of hibernate) in sheltered areas such as under bark, in cracks, etc., and this one must have found a nice place one fall day when the garage was open. I have since seen that one or others wandering the area on nice days and I have seen Cabbage butterflies, the common, medium-sized white ones, since April 20.

Enough of these little sissy birds and butterflies. A mature Bald Eagle was circling over the block at about 6 p.m. on April 5.

Things are going fairly normally at the park but I have not seen as many migrating waterfowl or songbirds as I expected. That may change soon, I hope. The water level was decreasing fast, but the recent rain helped and now
the inlet pump is running. I had a commitment and could not participate in the Earth Day cleanup, as I usually do, but they must have had a good turnout. No matter how good the turnout, the migrating litter always manages to return to the park.

I have seen a Cooper’s Hawk over the park several times, but have not seen any activity around the hawk’s usual nest site. A Great Blue Heron is now pretty regular and though I missed it, a good observer saw a Great Egret on the dock on one of the few nice days. Double-crested Cormorants have been on the island for the last third of the month. From one to four Pied-billed Grebes have been on (or under) the water since the middle of April. As usual, they spend so much time under water, they are hard to see.

There is now (on April 29) one baby Canada Goose on the island. I assume he or she is the first of a normal sized brood, just waiting for the rest of his or her family to hatch.

Eastern Phoebes have been on the hillside area north of the lake for the last third of the month and I think the Song Sparrows are still in the reeds on the northwest corner of the lake.

On the first really warm day (April 14), the turtles were out in force on the island with Painted, Snapping and Spiny Softshelled Turtles all represented. There have been a few warm days since then, but I have not been able to get to the park on those days. There are one or more very large schools of very large goldfish, usually near the northeast shore of the lake that obviously survived winter very well.

I have seen no warblers in the park or neighborhood so far this year.
The classes I mentioned last month (for volunteers to help with the Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas) were canceled. I don’t know why or if they will be held later. Obviously the press I was able to give them only came out two days before the classes were to start so that didn’t help much.

Thanks a lot to the fan on 10th Avenue South who sent me the card with the beautiful hawk photo. I cannot see all of the identifying marks but I can see enough to be pretty certain it is a Cooper’s Hawk. And thanks also to the reader on 35th and Clinton with another hawk photo. Once again, the view doesn’t show all I would like to see but experts at the April Audubon meeting agreed that it was a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk. It’s great that people in the neighborhood are noticing the hawks and lots of other wild things in our urban area.
Salt Lake trip

On the last weekend in April, as usual, I went to the annual Salt Lake (in far western Minnesota) birding event. Last year, as I wrote last year, we barely got there, driving in very bad white-out conditions. The next morning the rear and one side of the car were buried to the roof in a snow drift, so we didn’t get much birding done. This year the weather was warm and nice when we started out from here and cold but OK when we got there. There was only a half-inch of snow on the car the next morning. Saturday was nice but windy, as it often is in western Minnesota. On the way there, near Milan, Minn., we got great looks at Pintail Ducks and a Mute Swan. We also observed flocks of American White Pelicans and Double-crested Corm-orants. The group of approximately 50 birders observed a combined total of 151 bird species as tallied at the Sons of Norway chicken dinner on Saturday evening. Among the 50 species I observed, my personal highlights included spotting several American Avocets, great looks at Vesper, Swamp and Savannah Sparrows, flocks of roughly 200 to 300 Lesser Yellow-legs (a shorebird species) gracefully flying back and forth in unison over the swampy grassland and a male turkey displaying (fanning out his feathers) and strutting his stuff for several hen turkeys.

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