(00:00:00) Good afternoon. It's now afternoon at 12 noon. I'm Paula Schroeder. And with me today is Kathy Heidel and a very appropriate person to have here today with the weather having been so nice the past couple of weeks. We're getting outside and walking around and opening our eyes and seeing what's going on in our world. Kathy is a naturalist with the Hennepin County Park Reserve District and she is here to talk about some of the things that we're seeing around our area this spring. Thank you for being here today (00:00:28) Kathy. You're welcome. Glad to be here. (00:00:32) I've been seeing a lot of birds. I guess that that's one thing that we all notice the for one of the first signs of spring is oh the robins are back and there are lots of robins around now, what is what is the pattern of migration for Birds if we can get into that are is this the time of the year when we first start to see some of the more unusual Birds passing through here? (00:00:55) Well, this is the time when we start seeing some things I usually start listening looking. For listen, mostly I guess but I start looking for the spring migrants around the beginning of March. I usually expect to see red-winged blackbirds about the 6th or 7th of March this year that didn't come until the end of March. So we are a bit bit later than we were last year. We also watch for the robins the mail Robbins come back first and they start looking the area over but we really watch for is and you should watch for to is the female Robbins. They don't have quite as dark a black throat. They're just a lighter colored bird all over the female Robins came back yesterday. We had our first sightings yesterday. So that's really exciting ducks are coming back. I noticed I think it was three days ago. I had the first wood ducks in the pond at my house and Greenwood. We had a first snipe coming back yesterday and you can go outside and listen for these early in the morning. If you want to they'll be moving northward on these nights are we have winds from the south of the or the We have lots and lots of birds funneling into the state They Ride North on the south breezes and most songbirds in an awful lot of waterfowl migrate at night and then they'll drop and you'll see him in the morning all of a sudden they're there and you get out in the morning and you can listen for the white-throated sparrow is when they be coming through soon and fox sparrows are here now and the Snipes with their winnowing that whoo sound that they have up in the air. So yeah, there's a lot of neat stuff happening and you just get out and you'll you'll see all sorts of things going (00:02:30) on. Now, of course in February, it was it was fairly warm for February for a time and I saw wood ducks on a pond. It was about middle of February and somebody here I think told me well. Yeah, sometimes these ducks and various species of birds send out scouting parties to see what it's like. I didn't know whether to believe them or not. Is that true? (00:02:55) I expect it does occur with some water fowl that don't sound winter. From much farther south from here. We know in Canada geese. For instance our Canada geese from the metro area most of them winter down in Missouri and Arkansas. And when you get conditions there that said to the Canada geese migrate, they'll go north and they can get here in in one 24-hour period or overnight they arrive here and at the conditions look good like they did in February. They'll stay if you get a situation where they arrived and it's all snow covered in Frozen up and doesn't look hospitable. They can turn around and go back the songbirds. Don't do that as much but we can we see that some of that can occur in waterfowl February was great things that had been in the southern part of the state or hanging around down in some of the river valleys where there was a pit shell bit more shelter started coming out of the woodwork. So this Beacon we had red-winged blackbirds in February. We had a few Robin cited in February, but then we had March which was cold and we didn't see any Numbers we didn't see. In fact we saw fewer Birds says the cold March progress. So we think they were birds that were basically in the state somewhere and just kind of moved into an area when the weather was good in (00:04:12) February. We should mention that if I our listeners have questions of Kathy Heidel, the number to call in the Twin Cities area is 2276 thousand and outside the Metropolitan calling area one 865 297 hundred course Birds aren't the only things that are coming out this time of year. We're seeing I imagine that spring is a good time to see baby animals. Are there any kind of species that are having babies at this time of year? (00:04:40) Well, the great horned owls have babies right now. Of course, this is a bird again, but it's an animal and I think it's really kind of exciting. It's our very earliest nesting bird. We know that the great horned owls and Carver Park were I regularly spend most of my time have young because both parents are out hunting in the evening for Dude, we have about four nests identified that we know where the birds are now feeding their youngsters. We think that probably squirrels have young already or will very shortly. That is the gray squirrels will have young and I don't think it'll be very long before raccoons will be having youngsters. I think it's a little early for some of these mammals but it won't be long woodchucks are out looking for mates right now and minks are out looking for mates or kind of at the end of The Mating Season the the dear those are pregnant. I am watching the deer in the evening at Lowry Nature Center and I recognize some of my my friends that I've seen over the years old crip and Trace and limpy and they're getting swollen up sides. And sometimes if I look very carefully in the light is red. I can actually see the fetus inside kicking against the side of the mother. They'll have their young sometime around the middle of May until sometime in June. (00:05:56) How can you get that close to a deer or you sit (00:05:59) ins you sit? Side Lowry Nature Center building in a comfortable chair behind the table and there are about a hundred feet out in front of you eating the corn treats time foot out. It's (00:06:09) great. Oh how an enticing do they have speaking about sitting in the Lowry Nature Center. We should point out that the Hennepin County Park Reserve does have several parks around the county and to all have facilities such as that (00:06:25) each facility that we have a slightly different way of Richardson Nature Center in that West Bloomington and we have Eastman Nature Center up now Creek Park Reserve near Osseo and The Visitor Center at Coon Rapids Dam. Each facility is slightly different. It's aimed at helping people to get in tune with that resource than that Park Reserve. But yes, we all have places where you can sit and watch the out of doors and you can go out on trails and explore the parks and you can attend Nature Center programs conducted by naturalist. So in that way, we're common. (00:06:55) Okay, we have several callers waiting on the line for questions. Let's see. To come up with your first go ahead, please. Yeah the first observation regarding when the birds come back doesn't hinge on food supply what food supply that species requires whether they can make it in our neighborhoods. (00:07:19) Well, if the bird is for instance of the bluebird is down in Kentucky and the food supply is adequate there. He would be advised to stay there and yet on the other hand, there are some other thing that triggers that migration northward bird migration is being very very diligently studied at Cornell University in New York. We think that that migration is triggered to in some ways by the day length and an inner biological clock the Orioles in South America don't know anything about the food supply Minnesota when they set out on their Journey they have no way of knowing if they're going to be adequate if there's going to be adequate food here or not, but they set out anyway because something else triggers them. (00:08:05) Okay, we have another caller on the line with the question for naturalist Kathy Heidel. Go ahead, please uh, good afternoon Kathy have a question concerning the leopard frogs in there croaking at you here so commonly in the springtime. Have you been doing any observations as far as when they usually occur when that starts to happen in relationship to birds arriving? (00:08:26) Well, if you're talking about the birds arriving right now, we've had the female Robins just come in and the Snipes are back. The cricket frogs are out there calling or the northern chorus frog whichever you wish to call them as soon as you get an edge around the edge or on a lake that's open or upon that's open. The ice is beginning to melt back the leopard frogs. The ones you're speaking about are going to be active. We had a report last week by one of our park rangers that he saw leopard frogs coming out of the water and crawling around on the ice at the edge of Ramesses Lake and right County and I got a report yesterday from Jim Gilbert at it. Logically Laura Nature Center that he said that the Frogs were present in the ponds as yet. They have not begin begun calling. The calling is a part of the territorial Behavior to advertise. The presence of the mail. The females will be in other areas and they listened for the sound and then they follow the sounds to The Ponds and that's for copulation occurs. I expect that the leopard frogs will be starting to call as soon as the pawns are out of Isis out in another couple of weeks. We'll expect the frogs and the Toads to both be singing about the same time. The same time the wood ducks are going to be courting to (00:09:38) could be a noisy next couple of (00:09:39) months. I tell you I live right next to a pond in in Greenwood. And when the toads are calling in the cricket frogs are calling and the leopard frogs are calling it is an absolute din. I have to close my windows because it can't stand it. (00:09:55) Another caller has a question for Cathy Heidel. Yes. I have a question about squirrels and about acorns. I live in a very heavily wooded area that has more chipmunks and squirrels and we usually can handle this year. I've seen none except a couple of red squirrels and a related question and wondering why and wondering whether it's because the acorn Supply last fall our oak trees and we have many of them have practically no acorns on them at all. And there is a lot of heavy spraying for mosquitoes around here. I wondered whether that It's related and wondering how it Carver The Oaks fared in their acorns last fall. (00:10:41) So you've got lots of good questions. Okay, I'll see what I can do. It corns the ones most of the acorns that you're speaking about mature every other year. There are always acorns maturing every year. There will be some on the tree that the blossoms come one year and then you'll have a currents but by and large the majority of the acorns on the tree or on the trees in your neighborhood. Most of the flowers will pop be pollinated in one year be be mature in one year. So next year you are this year probably in the fall. You would expect a large a corn crop in Carver Park last year. We also had a fairly small Acorn crop. The year before was a real Bonanza crop. We have also experienced fewer squirrels this year and I think that the squirrels and the food supply go together, they'll have to disperse over the landscape when there isn't enough in one area and go to another Area now it may be that you had a poor a corn Supply in your area. But maybe there was a good a corn Supply 50 miles or 60 miles away. It is not unheard of that a squirrel can go that distance. So that is a bit far. Why the red squirrels in your area Reds are opportunists and you may be undergoing a habitat change as well. If you have any evergreen trees at all in in somewhere in your area. You're likely to get some red squirrels. We noticed that too when there are fewer Greys than the Reds will come into the area even though our red squirrel population is lower to (00:12:12) okay still another questioner has a question for Cathy Heidel. Go ahead please my question is about purple martins. I understand they send out Scouts. And later The Colony comes now. I want to know what time is the latest set of Martin house could be put up and expect to have a chance of capturing a (00:12:39) colony. You could be putting your Martin house right up. Now you could be waiting until you actually see the first Scouts before you put your house up. My father usually always waited until he saw the first birds come back before he would make the house ready for them to go into that way. You could keep the starlings in the house sparrows from getting in now. If you happen to have a house that you can keep the the entrance closed until you see the first Martin's then you should keep that closed that will definitely keep these other words from trying to get in we expect to see the purple martins coming back fairly shortly. I would expect the purple martins to come back before the end of April and here we are the beginning of April. So get your house ready within the next week or two and then keep your eyes open for the scouts. The Martins don't really send out the scouts. I don't know that they they got that kind of an organization. I suspect the probably birds that have nested in the area before are the ones that come back before. The Offspring of the previous year come back or if the females come back we know that that's true with red-winged blackbirds. The male's come back first. So I think that's probably what's happening and if you have a suitable habitation or if they've nested in your area, they're most likely going to come there. If you've never had a purple martin Colony before in your area chances of getting one are very slim unless you're an absolutely perfect habitat, which would be near water. I would say though that you know, put a put a house up chances are that there will be some youngsters that come back who are not going to find a housing area in the hand the box where they hatched out and then they're going to go looking for something nearby there. Your chances will be of their other Martin houses in your neighborhood. Then your chances of getting Martins are pretty good (00:14:31) when you say to get the house ready. What do you mean? (00:14:35) Well if you have a Martin house up all winter and you haven't closed the doors the entrance hole. Was covered over with a piece of metal or something. Maybe put a big plastic bag over the house or something to keep the house sparrows out. The house will be full of house sparrows. They'll have every compartment filled up with grass right up as far as they can and then they'll sit there with their mean little beaks pointing out of the hole and purple martins come back. They have no chance against those house sparrows. And so when I say get it ready, I mean get out there and clean out all that garbage that's in there and then put a plastic bag over the top of the house until you see the first Martin's coming back to keep the house barrels from going in again. If you have a house in your yard that has had a covering over then you'll have to take the covering off when you see the first Birds coming in. (00:15:24) Okay, it's 15 minutes past 12:00 noon. We're talking today with naturalist Kathy Heidel about various happenings in nature this time of year the number to call in the Twin Cities. If you have a question is two two seven six thousand in outside, the Metropolitan calling area of the number is Nine 700 before we get too much further here. I know that Kathy does want to talk about a serious problem. That's affecting the hummingbird population. And what is that (00:15:52) Kathy? Well, we expect our hummingbirds to return sometime around the first part of May and I just got the news letter from Riverbend Nature Center at Faribault and they have an interesting topic in that newsletter that came from National Audubon Society. I'd like to share with you what they're saying is that the new farming methods of holding cattle and Fields employ the use of electric fences and one of the newest things that they use to keep the fences from grounding on metal fence posts is is insulators and the newest insulators on the market appear to be coming out in lovely hummingbird attractive colors red orange and yellow the insulators are short and when the hummingbird comes to investigate the red color because they feed out of red colored flowers and they don't know that this And the flower they come to investigate it invariably what happens because the insulator is so short and not very far from the post. The hummingbirds tongue will touch the metal post or some part of its body touches the metal post and it electrocutes and then so we're having a hummingbird's dying all over the country by being electrocuted and if you have an electric fence with these colored insulators the suggestion from the national Audubon Society is that you can spray paint the insulators you already have on them to a gray or brown or some other color not attractive to hummingbirds or take off the red yellow or orange ones and replace them with some non attractive colors and to hummingbirds and just don't buy red orange or yellow insulators. If you can help it maybe we can get the the market the people who are making insulators by writing letters to them or doing something like this to get them to change their colors if they understand I think the Of all people. (00:17:43) All right. We have more callers on the line with questions for Kathy Kathy Heidel. Go ahead please with your question. May I ask two questions? And I might say I'm just devastated to hear the sad news about our hummingbird because your program is one of the most delightful on either radio or television today. I wonder if you take speaking engagements elsewhere in the state. (00:18:09) I do occasionally, but I don't do it for free. I don't imagine if you if you're interested in talking with me about this kind of a possibility contact me at Laura Nature Center over the Hennepin County Park (00:18:21) Reserve. I just think they're so delightful to ask you also if you had ever found for the year the bird feeders I use my Country Place some disposable aluminum pie tin things on each post of a patio with the always mixed grains and so on corn included. That they feed not only the birds but I have had flying squirrels and they just the regular squirrels and Chipmunks and the deer come in and eat out of them (00:18:52) that's been my observation to we mentioned earlier about the deer coming in the lower Nature Center and they a number of years back used to come and they would lick out all the excess seat at the end of the day of the bird feeders and we found out that we were spending so much money on sunflower seed which is their favorite just as well as the birds and the squirrels favorite that we had to go to some other means of saving the feed for the birds and the squirrels and and now we've tried to reduce the amount of food going down the squirrels gullets as well. But yes, you're right. They are all attracted primarily to sunflower seed with the secondary seed being most attractive being the corn and so you put a feeders out that are accessible to squirrels and dear pheasants or whatever you're going to get them because it's the easiest way for them to find food in a time when Them when they're going to have to work harder elsewhere. (00:19:44) Is it a good idea though to put out (00:19:46) food? Well the whole idea about putting out food is because you like to watch the animals and you want to get them up close so that you can see them better. They don't really need it animals were on the landscape long before we human beings began really feeding them. We didn't really start feeding Birds until in the late 1950s and early 1960s, then it became trendy to do that. And these animals have been doing well for a long time. So if you're going to have birdseed out there it's for your enjoyment. And the only thing you want to remember is that you keep it from fermenting in the spring keep your feeders cleaned out. I put a screen in the bottom of some of the feeders or else drain holes so that they don't get molded that the seeds don't get moldy because that can be make some of the animals sick. I believe (00:20:34) do they come to depend on that food (00:20:36) though in the wintertime. You can build up an abnormally large population of animals if you have regular Feeding and then sure if you quit in a Strife time of strife while when you have really cold temperatures and they couldn't go elsewhere. You could have some mortality. That's true. (00:20:53) Okay. Another question for Cathy Heidel. Go ahead, please. Hello. I'm more likely to hear birds than to see them. And so what what what is the bird that goes? Just two notes this anyway, it's an octave higher. That's right. It's the chickety (00:21:10) chickety. That's the black-capped chickadee and he usually starts singing that to actually both of them do it. Sometimes we hear them as early as in December, but I feel that that call is associated with getting ready to establish territory and to Proclaim that you're in the breeding condition and whatever else the bird gives a very loud ringing rendition of that call that you just did from January February and March and then when the birds start looking for nesting holes, which is what they're doing right now. I've been watching chickadees checking out Nest holes when they establish a whole as their nest site then they do that same call but much more quietly and it doesn't register very far away. So I think that the ringing aspect of the the call is done earlier just to say I'm here in this is going to be my area and then later on its it has another another aspect another reason. (00:22:05) I think if that goes on long enough you sometimes want to say to that bird don't you know anything (00:22:09) else? I think they're a lot smarter than you think they are just being aggravating (00:22:16) you have another caller with the question for Cathy Heidel. I attended your lecture the 27th of March at Richardson and want to thank you very much for the suggestion and watching the Woodcock display. My husband and I have watched the woodcock's in our Meadow up north of Crosby for for many years. And this is the first year that we on your tip moved in close to the launching pad while he was in orbit and when he came down he was perhaps ten feet from us and we got just an absolutely excellent view of him his Hiccup and (00:22:50) everything. Oh, that's great. For those of you who don't know what we're talking about here. The Woodcock is a long beaked bird that frequently is found in woodsy swampy areas comes back. March this year they came back a little bit later, but they're here now and they usually sit around at the edge of a Swampy Marsh advertising their presence. The male Woodcock has a little tuft of grass that he kind of stamps around he walks around in circles and he utters a strange little call from time to time as he's wandering around in this little circle and goes beep bait and then after he's in a bunch of these painting as we call painting calls on the ground, which is supposed to be attractive to female woodcock's and call them in this is his little lek and if she finds him there then they copulate then they'll set up business of housekeeping. Anyway, he does this around this little circle on the grass. And then from time to time he gets motivated to get up into the air and so on whistling Wings he achieves a circular orbit overhead and circles and circles and circles in a Wide Circle and ever-tightening. Sometimes it'll be several Acres over which he will fly before he starts to. I'm back and and just before the Woodcock comes back down to the ground. He goes Jib Jab jab jab jab jab jab jab and while the bird is up in the air, if you know approximately where that beeping was on the ground you sneak up as close as you can to where you think he was and then you sit down. So make sure you're not silhouetted against the sky and if you're real quiet and don't move a muscle when that bird comes back down. He met almost land in your lap. That's what happened to me Saturday night when I was out and cover Park trying to find what Cox and it's really exciting to be able to get that close to the bird. (00:24:38) You have to be very patient (00:24:39) to him think that's true. We have several Woodcock watching programs coming up in the Hennepin County Park reserves Eastman Nature Center has one coming up in May Coon Rapids. Dam has one coming up in May. I have one that I'm going to be doing next week Tuesday or Wednesday evening at Laura Nature Center and there will be other areas under nature centers around the state that I'm sure have Woodcock watching programs to because it's such a popular thing to do so Your local nature center your local park or even the state parks and see if you can find a place where somebody's leading you on a woodcock walk. (00:25:13) Okay. Another caller with the question for Cathy Heidel. Go ahead, please. Yes. I'm calling from Eden Prairie and our home borders on a marsh and we feed birds you're around because we enjoy watching them. We noticed this winter there were weeks at a time when we didn't have any births at all because of the extreme cold. Where do they go and what do they eat particularly the Cardinals now that it's warmed up we have large quantities again of birth, but we did question is to what happened to them during the extreme cold, then the other thing that I would like to ask is we put us author of cracked corn out on our deck for the squirrels and during the day we get large quantities of bees that hover over the corn what benefit are they getting from the corn (00:26:03) good questions. Thank you. Those let me ask answer the last one first the business about putting out cracked corn. We are seeing the same thing occurring at Laura Nature Center right now. We put cracked corn out during the day in the bird feeder and the bees are are in there. And if you watch very carefully the bees are gathering up the very fine corn. I we call it the corn dust when they crack to the corn at the Milling facility. It had some dust in there and the bees can't tell the dust from pollen. And so what they think they're getting is flower pollen and they're carrying that back to the hive and that they're doing because there aren't enough trees in bloom right now. There's just nothing blooming even the pussy willows aren't blooming and so there's no available pollen. The temperatures are such that the bees are active and they're out foraging in this is what they're finding as far as I know it's not going to really do them the same thing that pollen dust because the corn doesn't nearly as high in protein as pollen is your second question about Where did the birds go when it was really cold and this applies to the month of March? Because that's when it was really cold and they had been quite active in February. We're not sure what happens to all of them. I'm sure that there is a fair percentage of birds that die. I just think that there is a fairly High mortality with some kinds of birds in terms of the Cardinal that you mentioned Cardinals can go into thick evergreen shrubs and a lot of birds and really cold days restrict the amount of activity that they have because activity uses up energy in the food supply is short then more flying around and going to hither and yon is going to use up that energy. What do they eat? They eat whatever they can get hold of and a lot of them are seed eaters. So in this case, they often times go to bird feeders see what they can get from bird feeders. They'll be picking along roadsides going wherever there's some bare ground and if you have a snowstorm Like we had a few snows and then it fought off right away. And you had the fields that were opened again. They're out in the field. At least a lot of the metal birds are out in the fields eating natural weed seeds (00:28:17) on this along the same line in during the summer. Of course, we get some pretty good thunderstorms with a lot of wind and I've often wondered where the birds go then to are they protected enough in the trees from that severe wind. (00:28:29) Well, I've watched cedar waxwings going in underneath oak leaves on trees when you have severe wind and right now we still have some red oak leaves on some of the trees and when you have a really windy situation, they'll be in there under the leaves and it's just like getting yourself inside the house. A lot of the tree leaves in the summertime are wonderful shelters, or they may go into the Lee of a building a crack in a hollow tree. There are where were there happened to be a little spots that can get out of the wind Robert McCloskey is running written a wonderful book. Children about I think it's about some day in Maine or something like that. And when I was in my teacher training work years and years ago, I was very intrigued with that book because he asked the question. Where does it hummingbird go in in a rainstorm and I've been trying to find out so far. I don't know (00:29:28) another caller with a question for Cathy Heidel. Yes. I'm not from Minnesota. So there's some animals here that I've wondered if they're here for one thing. I saw it. I'm sure that I saw a buzzard on the 3rd of April. Is that possible (00:29:46) certainly is when you talking about budget, I suspect you're probably talking about the turkey vulture. We have migrations of turkey vultures through Minnesota and your timing was just about the same timing that other naturalist colleagues of mine noticed them. They're on their way North. We have a number of turkey vultures that The Nest Way up in northern Minnesota on the rocks in the Boundary Waters canoe area and Superior National Forest and then on up into Canada. They generally are going to be nesting in Rocky outcrops. (00:30:16) Did I call her have anymore? Oh, yeah, one point are there possums in Minnesota? (00:30:23) Lots of times people ask me that question. Yes. There are possums in Minnesota. The opossum is a little more Southern animal but the opossum is moving northward. The generally the range is extending northward when young possums get kicked out of the nest there will be more possums going northward that survive than not and it speaks to probably our climate has over the last 50 years been somewhat warmer than normal. We have had several not many but several observations of opossums in the metropolitan area. Now met opossums are much more common Southern in the southern part of Minnesota along the Minnesota River Valley and the Mississippi River system and down into those Southern counties of the state. (00:31:11) It is now 29 minutes before one o'clock and we're talking today with naturalist Kathy Heidel who can answer your questions about birds flowers animals. I don't know what else (00:31:22) just about everything except your gardening questions save those for someone else (00:31:27) we're talking about nature today. And the number to call in the Twin Cities is 2276 thousand and outside the Metropolitan calling area one 865 297 hundred and I'm going to ask another question that I know that you had some concern about and going back to the fact that there are some baby animals starting to be born. What does a person do if you find some cute little baby rabbits in a nest all by themselves or something and there's no parent around (00:31:59) more often than that. You won't find the baby rabbits in the nest. What you'll find. Is that your dog or your cat has brought baby rabbit home because they've been out hunting around the Art or the very first time you mow your lawn. You will mole over a rabbit nest and then you wonder what to do. My suggestion. What what to do is to Simply leave the animals out in the yard mother is probably frantically waiting on the sidelines for you to get away or for babies to come back in most cases by the time you find baby animals in the backyard. They are on their first legs. So to speak they're out trying out their skills and they're trying to climb trees or get down out of trees or in the case of rabbits wander around the yard and well-meaning people on oftentimes children will bring them in and say what do we do and they assume their orphaned don't assume their orphaned leave them out there baby birds falling out of nests often times. The nest is getting to too tight. And the babies are at fledging age baby birds when they get out of the nest have the ability to climb Back up with tooth and nail. So to speak don't teeth Just Nails told that the toes they grip they're setting themselves up on the branches of bushes and climb right back up into the bushes. And then Mom and Dad will come and feed them because they give a distress call which says help I'm hungry and then they'll get taken care of if you take him into the house and try to care for them. You are creating an animal that can fit neither your world nor his natural world for the most part because chances are you're going to give it a lot of attention. It's cute and you like to pet it or hold it and you're going to humanize it we have every year cases of people saying we've got these baby raccoons. We had we don't want them anymore because they're starting to bite now or we have these baby rabbits and not we can't keep them and we want to know where they can get rid of them and they either they consult us or they don't consult Us in The Parkers are as 9 times. Out of 10, they dump them in the Parks. And so here you are you're coming up to the park to walk down a hiking trail or to go biking or something. And here's this cute little raccoon comes up and crawls up your leg. You're scared to death because you think maybe it's got rabies and you're going to be bitten and whatever else you don't know whether it's wild if it's sick or whether it was a tame animal and you can't take the chance. And so I'll tell you frankly what we do with the wild animals that people bring out then they dumped up at the dump off or it can adapt. We shoot them. And that's it's a terrible thing to do you'd be better off to let the animal died in the beginning or stay wild with its parent. If you truly have an orphan somebody brings your baby squirrel, which happened to me you have a long-term engagement. You have probably got two to three months of parenting and trying to teach the animal to be wild when I had the squirrel I had to Each the squirrel how to go from liquid food to solid food. I had a teach the squirrel how to climb how to LEAP how to get down from trees. You didn't know that the same thing was true and I raised raccoons. Meanwhile the tear up your house chew up your window sills crap under your bed chew up your food and just make General nuisances out of themselves and very very difficult to get them back to Wild population. So Nancy to question Paula leave them and if they die, they get recycled nothing in nature ever gets wasted. (00:35:43) All right hands off the animals another question for Cathy Heidel. Go ahead, please I was going to ask about the electric fence post insulators and you've already given us the news about those. It's the news I didn't want to hear. I'd like to comment that fiberglass post and black insulators are Over on the market. Both of those things would help to eliminate the problem. I'd like to ask. When do you put up your hummingbird feeders? And the second question. I'd like to ask is how long should we keep feeding sunflower seeds and official seeds. We've been feeding all winter long and we have quite a bunch of birds that are still feeding. Thank you. (00:36:38) Okay, the humming birds will come back sometime during the first part of May that into the second week of May and so you can wait until then to put out your feeders when you feed hummingbirds be sure that you clean out your feeders at least once a week now don't clean them out with soap and water because you'll have a residual film an oily film left on and that will cause the hummingbird feeder to leak. So just rinse them out with hot hot water. And when you make your hummingbird solution of one part of sugar to four parts of water heated up bring it to Boiling and then put as much as you need in the hummingbird feeder and store the rest in the refrigerator. And then every time you have to refill the feeder just rinse it out before you put new hummingbird food in it. If you want a color that water with red food coloring, it'll make it more attractive to hummingbirds. I wouldn't put those feeders out until I see them back sometime in May you can put the same sort of stuff out for Orioles, but you're going to have to get your oils as customed to coming to a hummingbird feeder by providing them with orange halves at first if your oils aren't hooked on that in the answer to your question about how long to feed sunflower and thistle to the birds that are coming to your feeders. Now, you can feed year-round. If you want to have the birds there to watch you can cease feeding them. If you don't want to feed during the summertime, I would suggest that you as the grackles increase in. Members taper off the amount of food that you put out each day because you're going to have zillions of grackles in there hogging the feeders and that makes lots of people unhappy I guess. So what I do is starting about now, I put some feet out in my feeders late in the evening so that it's there for the Cardinals and some of the other songbirds that that you enjoy watching early in the morning and then I put another Supply out late in the afternoon, but I leave my feeders empty during mid-day when the when the grackles are heavily feeding. (00:38:42) Okay good tips from Kathy Heidel. Another caller has a question. Go ahead. Yes. I'm calling from Glenwood Minnesota and my question concerns The Loon population of Minnesota last spring we heard that the loons had been affected by some type of virus or parasite and cause the many of them to die in Florida, and I was wondering if they had determined what it was that actually killed them because of the time They really didn't know and it seems to be affecting only The Loon population and part two of the question was has it affected the number of wounds that are coming to, (00:39:23) Minnesota. We don't know is yet what the effect will be on the loons coming to Minnesota because Minnesota loons basically aren't back yet. We expect to have the loons come back sometime from mid-april until early May when I talked with some of the people in Carroll Henderson's office at the Department of Natural Resources. They said that this year it might give us some idea of what the effect of that die off in the gulf coast of the United States would have on Minnesota's population. There was only one and maybe two I think there's just one loon that had a Minnesota it would have been banded in Minnesota that died in that net population of birds have died in Florida. We don't know how many more Minnesota loons actually died that weren't didn't have bands on them. So I will have to wait through the breeding season this year to get a handle on this information as far as what killed them. I'm not absolutely sure it was it was a think of bacteria or virus but something to do with snails when the Level got a little bit low. If you really want to know more particulars about this. My suggestion would be that you call the Department of Natural Resources here in Minnesota and talk to you the Carol Henderson or Leaf annual book Finland leave found Miller. Both of them can give you good information about what they've learned so far on the loons when I last talked to them a few months back. They still hadn't gotten all the results in from their testing and didn't have all the information but they might have it now do the same loons always come back to Minnesota. That's one of the things we're doing a lot of work on that's why we're doing such an intensive attempt at trying to ban them the birds because we're trying to find out just exactly what the the migration route is if they go south to both males and females winter in the same places, or do they separate and do they come back to the same places in the state? We suspect that that in many many birds that come back to the same places where they learn to fly. That's kind of (00:41:25) home. Okay. Another question for Cathy Heidel. Go ahead please we recently bought a lake home in the wooded area and would like to put up a wood duck house and would like to get Kathy's comments as to the type best type and maybe the best location for such a house. (00:41:44) Okay. You can start putting your Wood Duck Boxes up now because the first our early arrivals of wood ducks are back that is the older females and their mates are back on the territory. Basically where they learn to fly, they will make the first selection of a suitable cavities and let's be frank about it. They prefer something out of wood to something out of metal or plastic. They will be looking in available tree cavities. A lot of those tree cavities are presently being used by squirrels or raccoons and therefore are unavailable to wood ducks and with the with with the practice of taking down. Dead and dying trees that have holes in them. We're having fewer and fewer sites for wood ducks to nest in. So yes putting up a would dock box is a really good idea. You can put up a wood duck box made out of wood. Make sure that the hole is the right size and the cavity is the right depth and unfortunately, I don't have at my fingertips right here the dimensions of a wood duck box. Bulletin 77 that is published by the Minnesota DNR is available to you upon request. And in that bulletin, there are the dimensions for a wood duck box along with information on suitable habitat. You can also get plastic Wood Duck Boxes and you can also get metal wood boxes from various people who have them and I don't know right now who I could tell you to go to for that information, you might contact your local Garden store or something like that and see if maybe they might have a resource person for you. I know there's a fellow in Brooklyn. I think it's Brooklyn Center who Some Don helmick makes metal wood boxes, and I'm trying his style out when you put up a wood duck box. Make sure that there's no obstruction for the duck to get into the hole. You don't put a perch on the box. So the bird is going to have to be in the water and she usually flies from the water right up into the hole. So all branches between the water and the whole or above to the side or below the hole should be gotten rid of so that the duct can get into the box just by flying right into it. Sometimes the fly to a nearby branch of a tree and then fly in but mostly they fly from the water right up into the hole. So you have to clear that area as far as height is concerned, I think probably 10 15 feet at least off the ground or above the water if you got it in the tree, I usually try to put it up about that high, but you can put them on posts right over the water and then they can be much closer to the water surface. Clean your Wood Duck Boxes, or at least a replenish them with cedar shavings each Spring right about now when the woodchucks are coming back. In fact before they just start start to investigate them be sure you get new nesting material and cedar shavings that you can buy for at any pet store will work. Just fine. (00:44:44) Okay. Another caller has a question for Cathy. He'll go ahead I had three questions about birds two of which have been answered since I came on the line, but I did want to talk to you about third. I wanted to tell you first how much we are impressed by the tremendous breadth of your knowledge about Wildlife. My third question was about a friend of mine who has a girl Yankee feeder. She lives in a nursing home near a wooded area and during the winter all of a sudden the bird simply stopped coming and she was very unhappy not to have anything to watch. I gather this may very well have been firmly extreme cold, but I'd like to hear a little bit more about that. Can you tell me Might have caused the absolute disappearance of those birds in its it was for several months. Now. I'm not sure where they've come back yet. (00:45:31) I can try to give some insight into that situation. We have several drill Yankee feeders at Lowry Nature Center as well. And we also noticed that from time to time nothing is using the drill Yankee you have to you have to kind of get a handle on what were the birds that was using it to start that we're using it to start with where they chickadees were. They not hatches or were they likely to be finches goldfinches purple finches siskins all these little Finch like birds just really enjoy going and sitting on the purchase of one of those types of fears these birds do move around the countryside there rather erratic in their flights. And when the natural food supply on the landscape is covered by snow. I believe that these Finch like birds move around until they find a spot where there is a Natural food supply available or where there happened to be a fair number of good bird feeders that they can get to by no stretch of the imagination. Can they get all the food they need from the birdfeeder because these birds usually flock and fairly large flocks. And so I think what happens is that when the weather changes from warm to cold and cold to warm they move around a lot looking for available Natural Food Supplies. I also feel that goldfinches who are often very common at these kinds of feeders move north and south. They're here all year round. We just don't notice that they're in they're pretty yellow colors. We always see them in the spring. And so we think they're gone and a lot of times they're there but they just they're not the same color as you expected to see and I really think the movements around looking for available food is the largest reason why your feeders when (00:47:14) empty okay. You are next with a question for Cathy Heidel. Yes. I have two questions. I worked on by the river and we get a lot of visitors and I do my best to point. The Eagles and Hawks in the area when people are around. First of all, I want to know is there a sherbet way to tell the difference between like an immature bald and a brown eagle? And also we receive biannual newsletter from one of the eagle watch organizations and they have noticed a marked difference in immature Eagles around lately. I know from personal observation through the last 00 12 to 14 months down at the river. There has been substantial drop and immatures that I've noticed personally. Do you have a hypothesis or an explanation for this Mark drop? I the newsletter offered none at the time. I'll listen. (00:48:04) Thank you. Okay. I don't know whether you meant that the immatures were just recently dropping off a numbers or whether it has been over some years. I wouldn't I believe she said in the last year or so. Okay, I is observed. I wouldn't know what to say regarding the Or the the loss of numbers and immatures except to say perhaps they have found a new wintering area or that we hope this isn't true but this could very very likely be true that Eagles aren't having successful fledglings of young birds on the nesting areas that perhaps there aren't as many good nesting areas for Eagles that's always the possibility. When you see a reduction in a population of birds that they could not be bringing as many young off the nest and surviving through to breeding age that that would be a thing that I think would want some good study. The other thing is that if it would just be a recent thing then eagles are in migration right now. The adults are going back onto the nesting territories and we've been seeing Eagles moving through the area most of them have been adults and they're getting back into their breeding territories where the youngsters go until they begin to start breeding is Thing that is open for observation. They don't begin breeding the second year and they don't really begin reading until they think they've got the white head in the white tail which occurs at 4 to 5 years of age. So where do the youngsters go? Maybe the dispersed widely has two other species of birds how you tell a bald eagle from a golden eagle or the brown eagle? And the immature stage is very very difficult for the layperson to do when the bird is a long ways away from you. It's very difficult for professionals to do as well. And I think I would not be able to give you specific enough information over there to really say how to do that. I know how you might do it in the hand. But basically when when you see them in the air in an area where you could have both immatures, it's pretty pretty risky to say. Oh that's a ball two. That's a goal and you're better off to just say eagle. (00:50:20) Okay another question for Cathy Heidel. Go ahead, please. Yes, thank you. Have a kind of a two-part question for Cathy. I'm calling from Red Wing Minnesota. And I live in a residential area and every winter I put out several bird feeders and attract a great number of birds but no matter what kind of feed. I put out all I ever seem to get as sparrows and things of that nature and I was wondering if there is a certain type of feed that a person should put out to attract things like blue jays and Cardinals and song birds and things like that and secondly someone once told me that if you put out this whole seeds the birds being somewhat wild and indiscriminate eaters, if you want a great crop of thistles in your Lon that's the way to do it is put out this whole seed for the (00:51:08) birds. This will see that you buy to put in your bird feeders is really Niger seat. It's not a native to North America. It is native of Ethiopia and it's also grown in India and I believe that at present we import most of our niger seed from India night recede or thistle CDs are called will germinate in your lawn. It will grow it doesn't look like you're ordinarily ordinary bull or Canada thistle the kinds that we all think we don't want around it's not particularly like that at all the end. The fortunate thing about it is that they don't bloom or if they do Bloom they don't actually are growing season isn't long enough for them to produce seed. So you're not going to have a great thistle patch growing up in your yard from year to year that you're going to be sold out of house and home. You can mow over those things and you won't have to worry about them really coming back because they will just get nipped in the bud so to speak Um, but no you're not going to have both thistles or Canada thistles from feeding thistle state in answer to your first question of what to feed in you put on your feet or so that you don't get sparrows go easy on the Millet and don't feed who eat or oats if you buy your birdseed in a grocery store or in a discount House of one sort or another prepackaged mix they are very very heavy on what I call trash seeds seeds that are very very much attractive to sparrows and things like that. So what I do is I've come up with a bird mix that I think really doesn't cater to sparrows very much. I feed poor for parts of sunflower to one part of white Millet to one part of cracked corn and during the seasons when we don't have things like juncos and tree sparrows around iei feed even less Millet and less cracked corn. The house sparrows than just don't find that much available form. However, if you live in an area you say you're from Red Wing. If you live in an area where there are lots and lots of sparrow roots and Sparrow nests sparrows are extremely aggressive birds and they can drive off the other songbirds. You may just have to quit feeding for a while sparrows. Go to go to roost very early in the afternoon. And and then I would suggest that you put your food out after 4 p.m. Cardinals and juncos and blue jays and things feed later in the day and they feed very early in the morning. And if you get the food out late in the afternoon early evening and then have it available at dawn you may get those other species in. All right, we have time (00:53:55) for at least one more question for Cathy Heidel. Go ahead, please. All right. Okay. I have a question about you referred to grackles and I'm wondering if that's the same thing as starlings or if those are something different because I have a real problem with those in my yard. As far as replacing other birds in my yard (00:54:14) grackles are not the same as starlings. The grackle is a native North American Blackbird. The Starling is a European Blackbird of sorts. The Starling has a yellow beak in the spring in the Greco has a black or bluish. I guess it's a black beak grackles have a very long wedge shaped tail. They have kind of a bluish greenish iridescent on the head. They have yellow eyes starlings have kind of a speckled modeling over them, especially in the winter time and they're very short tails. Both Birds gather together in rather large flocks of Starlings nest in holes in trees and holds and buildings grackles like to Nest an evergreen trees and they're starting to go through courtship behavior, and they'll be nesting within the next couple of weeks. If you have starlings, they're not the same as the grackles they have Different needs but they can both of them be absolute pests at a bird feeder. That's why I don't feed in the middle of the day because if I do I get starlings and grackles almost completely. (00:55:19) Okay. Let's try one more question. I have a question about birds on first of all, you talked earlier about the hummingbirds. I'm wondering what their habitat is and what your chances are of getting them right in the city. If you've never had them before in my other question is about tree swallows. I had a pair last year and they left in July when it got real hot and I'm wondering if there's something that I could do this year to avoid having, you know, if I do get them back to avoid having to leave as a possible that there were too many other bird houses around and I'll just hang up and listen. Thank you. (00:55:48) Okay, it is possible to get hummingbirds in the city. If you have water nearby hummingbirds from my the ones that we get here, which are primarily the ruby-throated hummingbirds like to Nest near water and my experience in looking at hummingbird nests is that they're often in big old trees like a big oak tree or a maple tree or something. That out on a branch sort of near the edge of the canopy about half way up the tree and they will be within sight or close flying distance of water hummingbirds have fairly large breeding territory. Sometimes as large as a square mile or more, but if you have water in the vicinity your chances are better as far as tree swallows leaving in July Teresa follows. Basically Nest from Lake met in through June and they're going to be finished with their nesting by the time July Rolls by and they're going to be on the wing out foraging over the countryside. They won't stay in the same nesting area. So if you had them in a nest box and they brought off young what they're doing is they're just getting out and going all over the countryside looking for midges and all kinds of other things to eat. (00:57:00) We've been talking so much about birds this hour that we failed to mention the fact that wild flowers are starting to bloom. What's the best time to get out and walk? On the woods and see some (00:57:11) blooms the best time to get out and see the wildflowers will probably be towards the end of April and on into may I had a talk with or arrested from Faribault the other day and he said to let people know that Minnesota's rarest Wildflower probably are one of our rather unusual flowers is the dwarf trout lily and it only grows in Minnesota nowhere else in the world that we know of this is what we call an endemic. It's very special thing and it's only found in rice and good heel counties Riverbend Nature Center at Faribault has quite a number of the dwarf trout lilies blooming in the peak period for them is somewhere around the 22nd to 24th of April. So if you want to get down to Faribault and walk the trails at that nature center, you may have a chance to see our very special Minnesota Wild Flower you can go to see wild flowers also the Eloise Butler Wildflower garden and worth park in Minneapolis, Minnesota Landscape. Arboretum has wonderful Wild Flower Show. Some of your National Wildlife refuges your state parks your county parks even private property areas, you know some of you live out State and you're not going to be able to get into the or need to come to the metro area to look at wildflowers. You might call The Nature Conservancy and find out where their properties are around the state and visit some of those tracks if you want to watch Prairie wildflowers. Oh you have some wonderful opportunities in Minnesota for that (00:58:37) you spoke of The Nature Conservancy. Is that a DNR (00:58:41) department or know the nature conservancy is a private organization that is dedicated to saving Parcels of property that are in their native state or something and usual about them that we've lost through farming practices and through development of cities and those sorts of things. And so the nature conservancy has an office here in Montana in the metropolitan area and they hold over 70 various tracks of land throughout the state of Minnesota that are dedicated to saving them in their natural. Habit an average natural state or habitat and you can visit some of those. (00:59:14) Okay. Thank you very much for being with us today Kathy Heidel a naturalist with the Hennepin County Park Reserve District. I'm Paula Schroeder. (00:59:21) This is the news and information (00:59:23) service of Minnesota Public Radio. Ksjn Minneapolis. St. Paul. It's one o'clock in the Twin Cities at last report 49 degrees under partly sunny skies.