Birding

On Monday my birding class went to the Coon Rapids dam to look around. We saw an osprey nest on the Hennepin side of the dam. We found a great blue heron rookery down by Ceinako lake. We saw pied billed grebe and these look like ducks but don't have webbed feet so they're not actually ducks. They look like a duck and swim like a duck but not a duck. Grebes have the most amazing ability. They are divers. Unlike other diving ducks, they don't go down head first. Loons will raise themselves up and shoot into the water head first. Grebes sink straight down in the water like a submarine submerging. I've never seen anything like it before. Grebes have some kind of ballast system going where they can ride high in the water, low in the water (so only the top of the head shows), and completely under water. This morning I carpooled with a fellow birding student to meet everyone at the Sherburne Natural Wildlife Refuge. I rode in her car. She said she didn't mind driving her car. I asked what kind it was. "Mercedes," she answers. Suddenly the seat felt softer and the music sounded brighter. I don't know much about cars but I did notice how when she turned on the key her seat and the steering wheel pulled together to some preset position. So we rode in style. She says she knits. I tell her I knit. We talk about knitting stores and patterns. She says she gardens. I tell her I garden. We talk about perennials. She says she is in a book club. I say I'm in a book club. We talk about books. She asks me where I work. I say the Blaine Human Services Center. She says she works there too! "No way!" I say. "Way," she says back. We had a good time together. We met the others and started our tour. Lucky for us, the wildlife drive opened this very day for the season. The wildlife drive does not open until the eagle chicks have hatched and it must have just happened. We see cranes, geese, trumpeter swans, ring necked ducks, blue teal, buffle heads, coots, American kestrel, red tailed hawk, vesper sparrows, song sparrows, tree swallows, and a harrier. We watch a river otter frolicking in the swamp. In a thicket of woods, we see the first warbler to arrive in the spring - the yellow rumped warbler. See his picture at the top? His nickname is butter butt. These warblers are hard to see because they never sit still. As the group of birders stand at the side of the road looking at the cranes, teal, and buffle heads, an eagle flies up behind us and directly over our heads. The eagle makes a circle in the sky above our heads. Our birding expert tells us that Native Americans say the Great Spirit is giving us a blessing when an eagle flies in a circle around us. I feel very blessed today.