Bright Lights

The nights are getting dark enough again that we are able to spend time out at night watching the stars and if lucky even see a display of Aurora Borealis over head. The weather had been raining with a few snow showers mixed in earlier in the day as a strong east wind swept across the prairie. In the late evening we got a slight break in the weather and the low clouds rolled back and the stars came out. After midnight a faint glow of Aurora started to show and by 0130 hr there was active displays that lasted till 0300hr. Some of the stars came out a bit fuzzy even on a tripod the wind gusts were shaking the camera some (30 knots).

Besides the normal bands and curtain formations, there were several aurora bursts straight over head and I was able to capture a couple of them. One other aspect of viewing the northern lights early in the year (August-September) is the sun isn’t that low below the horizon so you still have some of the brilliant blue sky to go with the pale aurora colors.

The picture with the cabin in it has a touch of purple to go with the lime green of the main display.

In the center left you can see the constellation Taurus and the bright star Aldebaran. Just to the left of Taurus is one my favorites, the Pleiades cluster.

The second photo shows a nice Aurora Burst.

Photo three shows another Aurora Burst that has more purple around the edges.

This afternoon I was entertained by the female Short-tailed Weasel that has been living around the house for a couple weeks now. She was catching Tundra Voles in the tall grass and one of the voles was so big she had to drag it in backwards. When she tried going forward under the willow pile where she was hiding them, she would trip on it.

Vole is wet from all the rain and very wet grass.

She is not sure what I’m up to and trying to make up her mind to continue hunting or go hide for awhile.

Weekend Banding

For one reason or another my blog has suffered over the past weeks, as I haven’t posted any new updates for some time. Hopefully I can do better in the weeks ahead.
This past weekend was the start of the summer banding for some of the breeding birds in the local area. Due to high winds out of the NE that were gusting near 30 knots, mist nets were not an option, so I used only a couple of walk-in ground traps. I used a small 18” square funnel trap and a small Potter trap baited with millet, which the birds were used to eating at the feed stations. Using the traps, I caught three species of birds, listed in order of abundance caught: Lapland Longspur, Snow Bunting, and Common Redpoll.
The totals for the longspur banding was 51 new birds and 6 recaptures from previous year's banding. Of the new birds, 22 were adults and 29 were juveniles. Most of the adults were showing various amounts of body and wing molt, with some adults having no tails and only the outer two wing primaries at full length. With most of the adults in some stage of molt, this made three females I banded stand out, in that they had no molt signs and still had fully developed brood patches. So it would appear they were working on a second brood, either because of a failed first clutch or a second brood after completing the first. Perhaps that is why we see more male longspurs feeding begging juveniles up around the feeders earlier on. Of the recaptured longspurs, the oldest was banded as a juvenile in 2005, making it just over 4 years old. All the others were banded in 2007.

  Juvenile longspur fluffed out on a cold windy day.

 

 

 

 

Male longspur with his tail and some of the wing primaries missing.

 

 

 

 

Juvenile longspur checking out his bands.

 

 

 

 

The banding totals for the snow buntings were about half of the longspur numbers, reflecting fewer around and that they are less trusting and don’t go into the traps as readily as longspurs. This makes it hard to catch some of the prior year's banded birds, as the adults become trap shy quickly. Of the 30 new bandings, only 6 were adults, and three of the four females had brood batches, indicating they had double brooded this year. The adult snow buntings were not as far into molt as the longspurs and still had their breeding colors. Two of the oldest juveniles were loosing their gray first plumage and going into the prebasic to replace the body feathers and acquire their brownish winter plumage.

 

Juvenile snow bunting still in first plumage gray.

 

 

 

 

Juvenile bunting showing start of prebasic molt of the brown winter plumage starting to show.

 

 

 

a summer worn male snow bunting, just starting molt.

 

 

The only other birds banded were three juvenile common redpolls. These are some of the young from at least two successful nests around the lodge.

 

Photo shows older sibling giving a younger one a treat while waiting for one of the adults to return. 

Now I just need calmer weather so I can try my luck with some of the shorebirds that are around the lodge and edge of our lake.

Cool Weather Continues-Barn Swallows

The strong northeast to east winds continue with low clouds and low temperatures with frost some nights.  The three broods of Snow Buntings that are out of the nest boxes are having a hard time of it.  The adults are not having much luck finding insects to feed their young. They have been falling back on what is in the feeders I have out. The real young buntings don’t seem to do as well on just a seed diet as when they have plenty of insects to start out on, and a couple youngsters haven’t survived the cold conditions.

Two of the female Snow Buntings have started hauling fresh grass up into their nest boxes getting ready to lay eggs for a second brood.  Hopefully we will have warmer weather when this batch of eggs hatch and the parents will have a easier time feeding the little ones.

The two Lapland Longspur nests close to the house still haven’t fledged, but they are getting close.  There are at least 20 pair of longspurs coming and going from the feeders all day and must account for several hundred trips over that time period.  I’m sure they are working the feeder overtime too with the shortage of insects about.

It was a surprise to see the two Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) resting out of the wind the other evening.  We usually don’t get swallows around during a strong east wind, as most arrive on south to south-west winds.  With a south wind the temperature would be much warmer and there would be insects buzzing about for the swallows to eat, not so with this strong, cold east wind.