"Everyone has talent. What's rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads."
― Erica Jong
A remarkable winter finch irruption is one of the more interesting avian phenomenons occurring this fall. Last weekend at the UW Arboretum Pinetum I was able to find both White-winged and Red Crossbills. As previously mentioned in my Red-breasted Nuthatch post, these irruptions are primarily driven by a poor seed cone crop in Canada. This year's finch explosion is unique in that it also appears that Evening and Pine Grosbeaks are also heading further south than usual. Reports on eBird indicate Evening Grosbeaks as far south as the Carolinas. So far in my neck of the woods there are a few sightings Dane, Sauk, and Jefferson Counties. I haven't seen either of these species since taking a boreal bird excursion in the early 2000s, so it would be a real treat to see them this winter.
I spent most of yesterday birding and hiking around the Middleton area. Stops included spotting scope scans of Lake Mendota for waterfowl and hikes at Pheasant Branch Prairie and Pope Farm Conservancy. At Pheasant Branch, I found my first Northern Shrike of fall. The bird was aggressively hunting a line of vegetation in the center of the prairie.
As the shrike made its way northward over and into the habitat, it flushed out American Tree Sparrows, Horned Larks, and Lapland Longspurs. The tree sparrows hunkered down to hide, but the larks and longspurs flew erratic loops around the prairie sounding alert calls. Danger! Danger!
American Tree Sparrows on high alert!
The ominous predator looking for the sparrows ...
Like some sentimental nature documentaries, this time the sparrows evaded capture and death, but it would have been great for the hungry predator to catch a meal. Anyway, the shrike retired to a tree branch to survey its surroundings for a time, and eventually took flight over to the north side of the drumlin. I didn't see it for the remainder of my hike, but it's nice to know there will be at least one shrike at the prairie parcel this winter.
In astronomical news, our solar system's planets are visible at fairly convenient times. You can see Mercury and Venus before sunrise, and after sunset Mars is in the east while Jupiter and Saturn are visible in the southwest sky between Sagittarius and Capricornus. Here are photographs of them taken through my Celestron 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope:
Pretty cool, eh? Even with a small spotting scope you can visually make out Jupiter's north and south equatorial belts and the four Galilean moons. Saturn's rings are angled toward us right now, so it looks like a little white eyeball against the blackness of space.
All images © 2020 Mike McDowell