Cold Birding Trip

Every year for the past dozen or so years a friend have I have a winter tradition.  When it's my birthday, I get to choose an activity and when it's her birthday (February) she gets to choose an activity. This year I chose a bird trip down by her house.  We had lunch at Panera and then met a group of birders at the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife refuge in Shakopee near the intersection of Hwy. 169 and County Road 18.  I think it's called the Wilkie Unit.  Unlike other bird trips I've been on, we went a long time before we saw any birds, we walked a long distance, and the footing was treacherous.  A national ranger was our guide.  He hoped we would see three things - a shrike, a long-eared owl, and a harlequin duck.  We saw a lot but we didn't see any of the three he mentioned.  He took us through some woods near the parking lot where the owls and shrike hang out.  We hiked through the woods down to a lake.  Sometimes the snow was shallow and the walking was easy. Sometimes the snow had a hard crust on it and we could walk on top.  Other times the crust was strong enough and we would step, step, sink.  Step, step, sink.  That is exhausting!  I stayed in the footprints of the person ahead of me.  I had to really concentrate on where I was walking because you never knew which direction your ankle would roll.  Sometimes I am sure I looked like I had been drinking too much as I tried to keep my balance.  I never looked up when I was walking until the entire group stopped.  At one point another birder chided the three of us at the end for not keeping up.  I had no idea we were behind.  I had my eyes on the feet of the woman ahead of me.  I'm glad it was her fault and not mine.  We hiked to a lake that was partially kept open by the warm water coming out of the Blue Lake water treatment facility.  We saw a trumpeter swan who seemed to be struggling.  The swan had blood on it's back. Was it attacked by a fox?  We saw a couple bald eagles across the huge valley sitting in a tree.  Many mallards flew overhead.  We saw one rock pigeon.  Our guide led us up a hill to a fenced in pond.  The Blue Lake water treatment plant was fenced in.  Inside the pond were a dozen or more small fountains of water bubbling inside the acre sized body of water.  We saw many mallards, gold eyed ducks, ring necked duck, canvasback ducks, gadwall (see photo), common merganser, hooded merganser, and some lesser scaup.  Gadwalls are pretty ducks; neutral yet attractive in shades of brown and gray.  We stood at the fence for a long time.  The ranger and another birder had scopes so we could see the ducks close up.  They looked happy out there. We were cold watching but they looked comfortable.  They had plenty of food to eat and were safe from hunters.  I thought it was ironic that we had this huge wildlife refuge to look at and most of the bird action was inside the fence of the water treatment facility.