Monday Mornings

Most Monday mornings, I join several local birding friends for a couple of hours of birding and photography.  Today, we explored several Minneapolis lakes looking for water fowl. Seems most of the ducks have left town for points south.  One highlight was 2...

Pileated Woodpecker

A male Pileated Woodpecker in our backyard. “Nearly as large as a crow, the Pileated Woodpecker is the largest woodpecker in most of North America. Its loud ringing calls and huge, rectangular excavations in dead trees announce its presence in forests across the...

Snow Buntings

Snow Buntings in flight at the White Bear Lake beach “Appropriately named, the Snow Bunting is a bird of the high Arctic and snowy winter fields. Even on a warm day, the mostly white plumage of a bunting flock evokes the image of a snowstorm.”...

Fox Sparrow in the backyard

“A large, boldly striped sparrow of scrubby boreal forest and mountain chaparral, the Fox Sparrow is most familiar as a migrant or wintering bird. Its vigorous "double-scratching," kicking backward in ground litter with both feet to uncover food, often draws...