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Armed with new techniques from my Pete Dunne How to pish book and CD
picked up in a used bookstore, I headed to Aitkin County this weekend
to bust some atlas blocks and enjoy the comfortable weather. The birds
had other ideas. First warbler stop I heard an apparent Nashville,
pished and out of the forest came the Nashville, hovered once by the
car window and flew into the car, and proceeded to peck at the
windshield until getting tossed out of the car and back into the woods.
Next day I flushed an Osprey from a jackpine on the highest bluff
above Big Sandy lake. The Osprey didn't appreciate getting awakened
early on Sunday and let me know it with a series of loud calls and flew
out over the lake. End of story, well not quite. He turned and headed
right at me as I stood in the open on the bluff. Seeing a 12 inch tern
dive bombing you is perturbing but expected. Seeing a non-nesting 5.6
foot wingspread Osprey coming at you screaming at eye-level does not
jive with any literature I know and really wakes you up quickly. I
waved my hands which seems to work on black bears but he keeps coming,
turning away only after getting within 15 feet and having me wonder
what he'd have done with a nest nearby. Today I'm looking over the
Mississippi River from a downtown St. Paul condo when a large skinny
gray-colored swanlike bird floats down the middle of the river. After
watching it for 100 yards and mulling over what state record species I
have lucked into, the bird flaps and rises directly out of the water
and it's a Great Blue Heron! He flies back to Harriet Island and soon
flies out to the center of the river, lands and swims some more. Maybe
he's a visitor from one of the Wisconsin Dells waterparks but this bird
seemed to actually enjoy swimming and wasn't attempting to feed or
anything other than riding the current. Strange times. Bob Russell
- [mou-net] weird goings-on in the land of the 9 p.m. sun Robert P Russell
