[mou] Outrageous Birding

[Thomas Maiello]

Wow!!  Here I  am 54 years old, birding since my 1976 summer Oklahoma  
University Biological Station ornithology class on the Texas/Oklahoma  
border and bubbling with 17 years of new birding in Minnesota - and I  
still get excited and see lifer birds when I put just a little effort  
out and try new things!

Since I have put my water feature out and jazzed it up with a rock  
edging and various bathing areas, added a meal worm feeder, toss out  
seed around the edges all beneath a crab apple tree and bird from my  
kitchen window - I have added the following species since about two  
or three weeks ago in my yard:

Nashville Warbler (several hanging out)
Orange-crowned Warbler (lifer)
Tennessee Warbler  (several hanging out)
Common Yellowthroat
Yellow-bellied Sap Sucker
White-crowned Sparrow  (several hanging out)
Lincoln's Sparrow  (lifer - several hanging out)
Indigo Bunting
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Palm Warbler
Western Tanager (lifer)
Song Sparrow
Rusty Blackbird
Golden-winged Warbler (lifer)
Ovenbird
Black and White Warbler
Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Plus my regulars noted in past emails.

Then, yesterday, I efforted to leave my kitchen window and cup of  
green tea to go adventuring out to see some of the other unique  
warblers reported on the net.  So I went out for a two and a half  
hour drive and walk to Wood Lake and Murphy-Hanrehan - mostly for the  
exercise and to pry my way away from my home (despite rumors - I am  
not a hermit).  So over the course of that brief window of time -  
driving all the way from just south of Blaine along University Avenue  
- here what I added got to see and to add to my life list:

Black-throated Blue Warbler (lifer)
Blue Winged Warbler (lifer)
Clay-colored Sparrow (lifer)
Missed the Cerulean (aw shucks! still a lifer opportunity)
Hooded Warbler (probably same one from last year)
Magnolia Warbler
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Yellow Warbler
Eastern Bluebird
and a host of the usual suspects

I remember my first summer in Minnesota in 1989, I had taken a job  
that had me measuring depth-to-water in some monitoring wells on  
Grand Forks AFB.  It was a hot, hot May (not compared to Oklahoma but  
that was what I was told for here) and it had just rained the night  
before.  As I stood alone in a remote part of the base, a Long-billed  
Dowitcher landed a few dozen yards from me and was probing the sand  
puddles for food.  I froze at this incredibly unique bird for a guy  
from the southern plains.  I dared not move as the bird actually  
began working its way toward me.  I wasn't even breathing as it got  
closer and closer - sewing machining its way through the puddles -  
until beyond all belief it actually worked its way right between my  
legs in the puddle I was standing in.  I almost needed to change my  
clothes from disbelief!  It was from that moment on that I knew I  
wasn't in Kansas anymore, Dorothy and it has been a wild birding ride  
ever since.

Thank you Minnesota, MN birders and the birds who bless my eyes!

By the way - If anyone wants to know the where abouts of Scissor- 
tailed Flycatchers or Painted Buntings or the like in Oklahoma - just  
ask.  Most are just a few miles off I-35 south of OKC on to the Texas  
border.  I always detour on my sojourns home to see them in the summers.

Thomas Maiello
Spring Lake Park