Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge

A few weeks ago, my husband and I went to Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge, near Seymour, Indiana. I had been seeing on flickr that an Eastern Screech Owl had been hanging around for the last few weeks, and I wanted to see this Owl! I haven’t seen many Owls in the wild. I have caught the occasional glimpse and of course I hear them from time to time, but never have I been able to photograph them. We met Jack Bird from Madison and he took us to the Owls' hole. (See his photostream here.) It was pretty exciting! I got a few half way decent shots, but he was too far away to get a perfectly focused shot.

Eastern Screech Owl

While we were watching the Owl my husband saw a very large bird from a distance, so we headed over to the area where he saw it fly to and sure enough it was a Bald Eagle. Wow, within five minutes time, we saw an Owl and a Bald Eagle. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Bald Eagle

Red-tailed Hawks seemed to be the bird of the day at Muscatatuck, as we saw several.

Red-tailed Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk (Juvenile)

This little squirrel hung out long enough for me to snap a few shots, then darted off to go about his business!

Gray Squirrel

After we left Muscatatuck, we headed over to Ewing Bottoms. It’s an area near Brownstown, Indiana, just about 15 miles from Muscatatuck. This is an area full of low farmland, that sits near the White River, so there is a lot of flooding in these fields. Sandhill Cranes use these flooded fields to roost and eat. They stop here during migration in November & December, then again in February & March on their way back north. Usually you can see thousands of Sandhills, and every so often, on a lucky day, a Whooping Crane! I didn’t get to see a Whooping Crane this time, but there were tons of Sandhills!

Sandhill Cranes in the field

Sandhill Crane

Sandhill Cranes

Sandhill Trio

Posted in: Bald Eagle,Eastern Screech Owl,Gray Squirrel,Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge,Red-tailed Hawk,Sandhill Cranes

Announcing a New Book "Pocketguide to Eastern Streams"

Ryan Ankeny was gracious enough to suggest that I do some shameless self-promotion of a new field guide to eastern streams written by my wife and myself (Thanks Ryan!). It's entitled "Pocketguide to Eastern Streams" and is available from Amazon and through virtually any bookstore.

Here is a link to one source:

Pocketguide to Eastern Streams

Streams are natural attractants for a lot of animals and are excellent places to find tracks, flowers, birds, and a lot of other cool things. The basic idea behind our book is that there are a variety of plants and animals that tend to catch your eye as you hike, fish, play, or work in and around streams. Our guide is meant to give you a means to identify those things and some of the other organisms that you are likely to encounter by flipping rocks, fishing, or using a dipnet. The guide provides an introduction to stream ecology, the different kinds of streams found in the eastern U.S., and stream/watershed restoration. However, the bulk of the book is dedicated to helping you to identify most of the common plants and animals found in and along streams.

This book would be an excellent resource for anyone who works in and around streams or just loves to go creekwalking. It contains information that is useful even to experienced stream ecologists, but is written to be interesting and understandable to the novice naturalist. The guide is a great resource for anglers, educators, naturalists, stream managers, restoration ecologists, and wildlife professionals. It is most applicable to small streams that are easily explored by wading and canoeing, but many of the taxa and concepts apply to larger rivers. The guide covers 225 different kinds of plants, invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds.

Here are a few examples of things covered in the guide:

Kentucky Hunter's Moon

On the drive home from work I couldn't help but notice how large and beautiful the moon was coming up from the horizon.  I've never seen the moon so big and low in the sky, it almost looked like a second sun.  It turns out this moon is known as the Hunter's Moon which follows the Harvest Moon.  It is so named because the light given off from the moon's reflection of the sun would allow hunter's to stalk their prey into the night.  The full Hunter's Moon isn't until tomorrow so you still have a chance to see it tomorrow evening.  Be sure to be on the lookout at sunset because it was one of the prettiest moons I have ever seen!

 

I hope everyone appreciates the lengths I went to to get this picture.  :)  I could see the moon for the trees so I had to go upstairs, pop out the screen, and hang halfway out the window to snap this shot.  I am probably getting quite a reputation with my neighbors.  I cranked the ISO up to 3200 which is why it is so pixelated, but that was about the only way I could get a shot.  By this time the moon had risen pretty high in the sky, when it was just coming over the horizon it was huge!  Try to spot it tomorrow at sunset as it comes over the horizon, you will not be disappointed!

Posted in: Hunter's Moon

Moments in between

We're at a moment in between seasons, where mother nature hasn't quite let go of summer yet. I went on a little walk today and found a little bit of summer, a little bit of fall...

A wild flower still giving food to beautiful green bees (Halictid Bees):


Black Walnuts all over the ground:


Leaves still changing colors:


Hedge apples all dropped from the trees:


And Goldenrods that have lost their color. Which many of us are grateful for so we can stop sneezing.

Sabine's Gull

A few weeks ago, one of my flickr friends, nsxbirder, discovered a rare gull in south east Ohio! Looking for a new adventure, I decided to drive up there on Oct. 22, 2011.

The Sabine’s Gull is a small gull, discovered by Sir Edward Sabine, an explorer & astronomer, while on an arctic expedition in 1818. This bird breeds along the northern coast of Alaska. They are also known to nest in Greenland, Norway & even Russia. So you can see why this gull is such a rare sighting in South east Ohio! Here is a link to an awesome map, courtesy of natureserve.org that shows the normal migratory pattern of this gull to South America.

They have a black, white & gray triangular pattern on their wings, apparent in flight, that helps give a definitive ID.

This particular visiting gull is a juvenile. The adult breeding Sabine’s Gull has a charcoal-gray hood ringed with a thin black line at the base. They are also only one of two gull species with a yellow-tipped, black bill & a notched tail. Click here to see further information about Sabine’s Gull on Whatbird.com

While visiting East Fork State Park, I also got to observe several other gull species, including, Bonaparte’s, Ring-billed, and Laughing gull. Another birder mentioned that there were two loons out in the middle of the lake, but they were too far for me to get a good look.

Bonaparte's Gull

Juvenile Ring-Billed and Adult Laughing Gull

Juvenile Laughing Gull

Adult Ring-Billed Gull

Posted in: Bonaparte's Gull,East Fork State Park,Laughing Gull,Ring-Billed Gull,Sabine's Gull

American Crow

Happy Halloween from Louisville Naturally!

Posted in: American Crow

Louisville Birds

The weather is starting to change and I've been seeing a few different types of birds around Louisville, but I've only been able to get pictures of the most common birds!  Oh well.  In the last week I've seen several species of sparrows, such as: White-throated, White-crowned, Swamp, Vesper, Lincoln's, and Chipping, along with several Dark-eyed Juncos.  Also saw a Northern Harrier for the first time this season.  So lots of movement lately, especially with the sparrows.  Here are a few of the most common birds in Kentucky I've seen this past week.

Song Sparrow

Mourning Dove

Northern Cardinal

It is getting that time of year when the berries are becoming ripe on the exotic honeysuckle.  I've read where the berries offer very little nutrition for the birds but they sure seem to devour it and defend their honeysuckle patches with determination.  The two Northern Mockingbirds below were fighting over a small patch of honeysuckle berries.

A Northern Mockingbird on his territory...

...a rival is eying his honeysuckle patch...

...they take turns signaling to each other by flashing their tails...

...and when that doesn't resolve the problem they take to the air and battle it out.  These two birds were fighting for some time before the challenger decided it wasn't worth it and flew off. 

Posted in: Mourning Dove,Northern Cardinal,Northern Mockingbird,Song Sparrow

Common Sunflower

Most of the Common Sunflowers have shriveled up and been devoured by American Goldfinches by now, but there are just a few that continue to bloom as if it was the middle of the summer.  This Common Sunflower in particular was going strong despite the cold and the wind, ignoring the fact it is almost November.  Look closely and you can see there are still buds getting ready to bloom.

Posted in: Common Sunflower

Shepherdsville Birds

I took a trip to Shephardsville to visit the Cedar Grove Industrial Park a couple weekends ago to scout for birds for my upcoming field trip this Sunday.  I found a few birds that were nice enough to come close for photographs.  It looks like the weather is going to be colder this weekend so I don't expect to see too many warblers on this trip.  Usually I can count on a couple Palm Warblers or Common Yellowthroats on the trip, but this year it is later than usual and the cold weather will likely encourage any remaining birds to flee south in search of warmer climes.  There should be plenty of sparrows as usual.  Last year we saw dozens of White-crowned Sparrows and in years before we have logged White-throated, Savannah, Swamp, Vesper, and more.  We could encounter some Dark-eyed Juncos as well.  Some come on out and get your FOS sparrows with me and the Beckham Bird Club.  Without any further ado, a couple birds from my scouting trip.

American Crow

Northern Mockingbird

Common Yellowthroat

Posted in: American Crow,Cedar Grove Industrial Park,Common Yellowthroat,Northern Mockingbird

Immature Horned Lark

 

Posted in: Horned Lark