by Sue Leaf | Sep 29, 2021 | Birds
I was sitting on our back porch the fourth week in August, idly passing time and wondering what was in the surrounding woods. Unthinkingly, I began pishing, and was startled to immediately call in two immature American Redstarts that seemed to be traveling together. A...
by Sue Leaf | Jul 6, 2021 | Birds
Early one morning in June, I was cycling along Chisago County Road 20 and passed a pasture of singing grassland birds. I heard bobolinks, savannah sparrows, a single eastern meadowlark and, I couldn’t believe my ears, a dozen chortling dickcissels. I sometimes...
by Sue Leaf | May 3, 2021 | Birds, Environment
Leggy and elegant, the stately Great Blue Heron cuts a striking figure on Minnesota’s bird scene. We often see great blue herons wading in water on the edge of a pond, rapt and motionless, poised, it would seem, for a kill. Or they appear in the sky, necks drawn into...
by Sue Leaf | Mar 3, 2021 | Birds
We had two inches of fresh snow last night and the landscape is wintry as I write this, so it is hard to believe that in just three weeks it is likely we will hear the first Red-winged Blackbirds in local marshes. T.S. Roberts records the earliest arrival in...
by Sue Leaf | Feb 16, 2021 | Birds, Environment
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to view a short movie filmed by the University of Minnesota’s Raptor Center. The film showed a mature Bald Eagle writhing in the throes of a painful death from lead poisoning. Dr. Pat Redig, the director of the Center at the...
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