Checkerboard County Park Bird Walk

Beginning in May, Wild River Audubon has held bird walks every other month.  Our third walk of the year took place on Saturday, August 21 at Checkerboard County Park.  This 79-acre park is located on the east edge of North Branch and just west of the North Branch of...

The American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla)

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...

A Dickcissel Year

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...

Summer Solstice Bird Walk

While it was not the sunny solstice evening hoped for, that did not stop a group of hearty birders from enjoying a stroll around Allemansratt Park’s Anderson Peninsula on June 20th.  It was baby bird season and goslings and ducklings were parading on the lake, a...

Dayle & Bonnie DeClerq Memorial Bird Walk

We could not have asked for a more beautiful spring day on which to resume our Wild River Audubon bird walks!   On May 15th a group of 12 birders explored the Amik’s Pond loop at Wild River State Park. Migrating warblers were anticipated and they did not disappoint...

Great Blue Heron (Ardea Herodias)

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...