Pasque Flowers Bloom For First Pollinators

With the last two warm days the Pasque Flowers have recovered from last weeks 8" snowfall and popped out of the leaf cover to bloom. 

Yesterday, these native prairie wildflowers were starting to open for the first time shortly after sunrise, one week earlier than last year.

 By 10 AM several of the flowers were completely open and enjoying the bright sunsine and 60 degree temps.

 By noon the flowers were pointing straight at the sun and withstanding the stiff breezes of the day.

Some of the flowers are more tentative and only opening a little, while several are still waiting for a bit more confidence that the warm weather is here to stay.




As I was taking these pictures I was surprised to see a small wasp show up and get completely covered with the pollen of the flower before flying off to look for some other early flowers.

Pollinators get to work as soon as the first flower opens up.  

Red Winged Blackbird And Pussywillows

 As I write this blog post it is snowing heavily outside my window, but yesterday the sun was shining, and the Red Winged Blackbirds and the Pussywillows were thinking spring.

The Red Winged Blackbird in this picture likes to sit in this Pussywillow bush at Springbrook Nature Center and make his spring territorial calls.  It makes for a nice spring-like setting. 


Male Red Winged Blackbirds arrive from migration here a few weeks before the females.  That gives them time to stake out territories before the arrival of the females. 

The calls and the brilliance of the red and yellow "shoulder patches" are their calling cards.  The females then just pick the one that has the best area for her nest, in her opinion.

The male Red Wing below has a more open spot further along the boardwalk at Springbrook.

Downy Woodpeckers Begin Making Nest Cavity

 The Downy Woodpeckers at Springbrook Nature Center have started excavating their nest cavities in some of the dead trees in Springbrook's woods. 

This male approaches the nest hole he has been working on. 

These woodpeckers are shy and do not like me stopping to photograph them, even though I am standing on one of Springbrook's trails while taking this picture.

 Both the male and the female have been captured and banded in the past by Springbrook's bird banding program.  The band is visible on their right leg.




The male here is about to begin another work session where he uses his beak to break out small pieces of wood to shape the cavity the correct size and depth.

I would need lots of tools and rulers to make this, but he does it all by "eye."

Here he is at work.  He seems to just be getting started, as he is not going in very far.













The female is always close by, as can be seen below.

The female does not have the red on the back of her head, but otherwise looks just like the male.

Her leg band is very visible here.









She seems to be casually looking for food in the bark of the tree as she watches the male working on the cavity.


I was surprised to hear her "drumming," which is the way woodpeckers declare their territory areas.  I had thought only the males did this.

Here she is "drumming."  Her head is a blur but her feet are still as she hammers on the dead tree.

Migrating Birds Confront April Snow Storm

 Yesterday's serious snowstorm had some of the newly arrived migrating birds, and some regulars, inventing new ways to find food fast.

This Common Grackle has just arrived, and in the middle of the storm last night and this morning he discovered the seed tray other birds were using.  He is a fast learner, and stepped right up.

 Grackles will be staying here to nest, and need energy to set up territories, as well as to recover from the body fuel drain caused by migrating.

Snow is not their normal habitat.

 This Mourning Dove has been here for several weeks, and has already started to nest.  It has been calling with a mate for two weeks now.

But the snow kept it close to the feeders.






In the picture below it is easy to see that Doves are not made for really cold climates, as parts of this one's toes have frozen during the cold and left only stubs with no toe claws.

 This Starling learned to get some calories from the suet feeder.  He is in his spring colors, with the bright yellow bill and speckles all over.

His legs were not made for holding onto a wire cage, so he would often drop into the snow below to retrieve fallen bits of suet.  But how to find them in the snow?

 Here he can be seen grabbing mouthfuls of snow in the search for bits of suet.



Sometimes he found some, but the expression on his face below sems to suggest that he would like an easier way the find food.

Spring Robins

 Flocks of Robins arrived on migration last night and were actively eating last fall's crab apples off the tree in my yard this morning in the mist. There were often eight ot ten in the tree at once.

Many other Robins were flipping leaves in the garden where the sun has melted patches of snow, giving access  to little creatures hiding under the leaves waiting for a warm day.

Additional Robins were under the crab apple tree eating the little apples that fell off.

It was a busy place early this morning.

 The little crab apples are small but nutritious, causing the Robins to sometimes fend off what they saw as competitors for what they felt was their food find.

 There were many Cedar Waxwings feeding on the crab apples as well.  Most of them have been here all winter, so why they waited until the Robins arrived to try this food source is a mystery.

Both male and female Robins seemed to be in the flocks of newly arrived birds, so nesting will probably begin very soon.

Crows

 Everyday this winter in late afternoon hundreds and hundreds of crows fly over my house on their way back to their communal roost in Minneapolis. Many thousands roost there where safety in numbers allows most to survive predators like Great Horned Owls.

 The lighting is usually poor, but it is a great opportunity to try to photograph them as they pass by at full speed, talking to each other.

 They often have little bits of something in their mouth, like this one has.  Perhaps a midnight snack.

These crows spread out every morning in every direction from downtown Minneapolis to forage for French Fries and other suburban food, then return at dusk for the night.

But very soon now they will break up into pairs or family groups to set up territories in our back yards and begin building nests for this year's young.

Ice Caves at Apostle Islands Lakeshore

 My photography is usually of living things, and mostly at Springbrook Nature Center, but the rare opportunity to walk out to the ice caves at the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore was too good to pass up.

The caves along the shore of Lake Superior in Wisconsin are under red rock cliffs and so normally inaccessible in winter unless the lake freezes.

 Lake Superior has not been freezing in recent years, but this year froze completely over, making the caves accessible after a hike of a bit more than a mile over the ice and snow.

The ice forms from crashing waves that hit the rock, turning to many forms of ice in the extreme cold. I took these pictures on Sunday, March 2nd, with temps below zero and strong winds adding to the adventure.

 The caves have been formed over thousands of years of wave action on Lake Superior, and stretch for 2 miles along the shore, facing west, so late afternoon sun lights up the different ice forms.

It is hard to get a sense of the size of the ice and caves without people in the pictures, so some of these pictures have people for perspective.

 It is hard to understand why there are ice formations in some places and not others within the many caves.  Is it wave water leaking down from above, or just the way the waves hit the walls in each cave?

Some of the caves are quite large, and others very small, and all sizes in between.

 The floor is very slippery ice in all the caves, and often looks as though a wave just froze in place.

The rock in this cave had tree-like rings around the domed ceiling, causing these rounded bands of 2 and 3 foot long ice cycles to hang from the edges of the rings. 

 This same cave had beautiful, mounded globe-like sculptures with a floor of frozen waves.

There were different colors in the ice in different places.  This spot had very green ice, lit from a small opening in the cave to the outside

These caves are beautiful to see, in winter as well as in summer.  The only way to see them in summer is with a canoe or kayak on a calm day. 

The walk to the caves will still be open while the ice lasts, which could change any day, so plan a visit very soon to enjoy this rare chance to visit these caves and their ice formations in the winter.