Afton - Busy Weekends and Stealing a moment with the sky.

This last weekend a double whammy was in play as we got yet another snow storm on Saturday with 5 or 6 inches of snow and terrible conditions. I opted to use the morning hours to get started with Peter Nichols on our presentation for the MOU Spring Primer being held March 31st at Carpenter Nature Center. This event is in it's second year and I had the good fortune to spend a few minutes last year in encouraging people to use eBird. This year Dr. Nichols and I will be talking about our Washington County Big Year in 2017 and specifically looking at ways to help others increase their County Bird Lists. Very fortunate and humbled honestly to be on an agenda featuring the likes of Kim Eckert (Highest State Species List), Bob Janssen (Highest County Tick Total), and John Richardson. Peter and I spent about 3 hours talking about details and a possible framework for our presentation and ended up talking on the phone on Monday night for another hour and a half working out more details.

Sunday we had plans to host Melissa's family for a post birthday celebration. With that going down at noon, it really locked down any chance to get out to any further flung State Parks on the day. Additionally the joys of home ownership came to town needing to install a few new curtain rods for our bedroom.

Even beastmodebirding yields to weather and domestic responsibility. So on Monday after work with the sun shining and low 40's I raced home from Plymouth and got some gear and on and drove down to Afton State Park intent to see something with wings.

I set up shop near the visitor center and worked the paved path along the upper picnic and prairie spaces that overlook intermittent views of the river valley below. My interest was to see if any waterfowl were moving around this evening and maybe work on snagging flight pictures of these potential birds to work capturing viable shots when it would count the most a few weeks from now. The moon was out early over the river and I stood on a bench for many minutes looking hard at the horizon and scanning for birds.

A large bright moon hanging over the St. Croix River Valley.

Me standing on a flat bench facing the river valley and being drawn upon a Cedar Tree by the sun.

The action was predictably slow, but I did spot many area Canada Geese moving around and was eventually rewarded with some fly by groups of Trumpeter Swans likely moving to their night time roost locations from day time feeding grounds.

A few flight shots from my Nikon P900, that is definitely not an ideal camera for birds in flight. Canada Geese on top and 2 groups of Trumpeter Swan below.

This upper prairie area is a nice area to watch bird flight as it does have a lot of open sky available and the river valley shared with Wisconsin presents a generally South and East view ideal for migration. I'll look to use this space again during the weekdays this spring as a way to snag at least some fly over waterfowl at a park that has little viable landing habitat for such birds.

A few woodpeckers and nuthatches also put in appearances with a Pileated flying past at one point making sure I got another sighting of my big year avatar bird.

White-breasted Nuthatch working for some seeds along the trail.

I'm starting to mentally gear up for some serious spring action as I'm nearly at the end of my rope for how much winter I can put up with. Part of me thinks I need some additional northern trips for specialty birds, but my brain has checked out of winter pretty hard lately.