(00:00:00) Many of you have met our regular guests Kathy Heidel on these broadcasts before she's the naturalist with Hennepin Parks who comes in several times a year to answer questions about wild plants animals and birds and those of you who've had a chance to listen to Minnesota public radio's noon our broadcasts during the week. May also have caught some of the on location recorded programs. We've done with Kathy over the years. We use high quality stereo microphones and recording equipment to pick up bird songs and other sounds of the natural environment and that's what you're going to hear today a recording with Kathy Heidel down about 10 days ago at Carver Park Reserve where she is a senior interpretive naturalist. We've done other tapings in Carver Park during the winter late summer and fall this time. We'll find out what's happening after a warm dry winter and an early spring now, it was pretty windy the day we were out and you'll hear some objectionable wind noise at the very beginning of the program, but mostly we found protected areas from which to talk this walking tour. Ends at the Lowry Nature Center which visitors encounter at the end of the long drive way into the park. And here's Cafe Heidel identifying the bird songs that are audible under our voices right now. We're hearing some of the (00:01:12) sounds of the ribbing black which those piercing calls and then there's a warbly sound right now in the tree and that's the sound of the rose-breasted grosbeak, which is just come back from the south. (00:01:26) I think people might also hear a few children in the background. What (00:01:29) are you doing out here today? Well, Laura Nature Center is committed to Environmental Education outdoor Environmental Education for for use as well as for adults. And today we have with us about a hundred fifty school children. Most of them fifth graders various schools. We might get a chance to maybe see what some of them are doing as we wander around the park today and maybe even ask him a question or two of things work out (00:01:56) right Kathy just to set the scene. Where is Carver Park Reserve? In the Twin Cities (00:02:01) area Kyra Park Reserve is in the southwestern section of the Twin Cities area. her on Hennepin, and we I swear in the city of (00:02:11) cherry adjacent to (00:02:13) the city of Chanhassen and about five miles from the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. We are accessible by State Minnesota State Highway seven and state highways (00:02:24) 5 and if you're coming from st. Paul, it seems like you're halfway to South Dakota website. What do you got in mind first? What you going to show us today (00:02:32) Kathy because Have an interesting spring that looks almost like summer this year. I thought it would be fun to go out and explore the sounds and sights of spring take you listeners on a walk into the woods area go down by the marshes that are a little bit dry this year because of the drought listen to some of the sounds that you find in these various places. Maybe we can go to our new Campground which we haven't seen before there's an owl that's nesting right adjacent to the campsites and and I'd like to take you on our bike trail in one of the most wild parts of the park. Where the Wood Thrush nests and where the Osprey is this year setting up its nesting (00:03:15) area. Well, it sounds like fun. Let's get (00:03:17) going. Okay. Well, we'll do that (00:03:19) then. (00:03:25) We are on our way to our went down one of the trails Kathy. This is very close to the building. What is going on right here, though. (00:03:33) We're right here adjacent to the building and you probably will hear some of the school children because they're having lunch in there out here doing their studies, but we're right here at now is the bird feeding area. And also where we put out some of the corn to attract the deer in for viewing in the wintertime. We've been putting corn on the ground these days to bring in some of the geese so we can do goose watching and we've been watching Chipmunks and and ground squirrels backwards are all sitting up in the trees right now probably swearing at us because we're right here to keeping them away from their bird (00:04:05) feeder. Well, there's a lot of activities that one bird feeder over there what we're going in (00:04:09) there. Let's go down there and see what we can we can get any better sound from over there. Watch out for the goose (00:04:15) droppings caution slippery area. (00:04:23) Now we've got about 13. He's coming up every afternoon to nibble on the green grass here. And also to get a little bit of a car on grass is what is it prefer right now rather than the corn and then occasionally a pair of nice with youngsters will come up and and the nibble on the grass and they sit down and they are very proud of what where they go to the bathroom. It just drop it in your place and that in turn is fertilizer for the longer. (00:04:47) One of the things about this early spring is that the leaves of just suddenly come out all of a sudden (00:04:53) full have you felt the difference? Yeah just came out of the sun. We were standing in full sun folks and we've just walked into the maple Basswood forest and the temperatures dropped about 10 degrees and the sounds are closer to us in here. We can also hear the sound of the wind and the Treetops. (00:05:13) These are fairly young trees are than I (00:05:15) yes when I came here almost 20 years ago. This was fairly open with just a few small seedlings about knee high with a few bigger ones. Mostly Oaks the big trees in here are big old Oaks and they cast enough shade for these Maples and these bastards to get going. Going to head on down now towards a little Pond area which is right out in the open and it's has been one of our rearing areas for the Canada geese this year. Sometimes we hear a lot of goose commotion lot of talking because there are the young birds that are not of braiding age that are trying to hang around with the old parent birds from the old parent birds. Keep trying to chase the teenagers off. So sometimes we hear a lot of gue stock up. Look what we've got here going off the trail to this little pathway of the woods. That's an awfully Narrow Path. It's only about a foot wide kind of snakes through the trees. Who do you suppose made that path? Oh dear probably a deer trail. We have quite a few deer coming into free told on the on the food at the fears and they come in out of the woods and walk up these Pathways. So we don't encourage people to walk on the deer Trail's they usually have quite a few wood ticks on them (00:06:31) suppose if there's poison ivy on (00:06:33) Yes, there's a lot of poison ivy back in the woods. So we just when people come to visit our Parks, we encourage them to stay in the pit trails that we've developed for people. It's safer all the way around. (00:06:43) When did the geese come back this year? Kathy (00:06:46) the case came back. Some of them came back the end of February and most of the Kim them came back in early March just about when they normally do the geese could respond to the weather that they had in Missouri where they spend the winter and actually it was warmer and dryer here than it was in Missouri and Arkansas, but they did come back about I would say probably about a week and a half to two weeks early. So consequently, we've had some young Gosling's this year that we're actually hatched out in late April. (00:07:18) Well, I see that pond is is not very it's not very high. (00:07:24) No, we've had a really dry year that a (00:07:27) lot of looks like a lot of algae around it too. (00:07:29) Well, you know that that green stuff (00:07:31) you're referring to right the green (00:07:32) stuff that's floating on the surface of the water around the shoreline. Yeah, it's if you see a floating on the surface and it doesn't look all bubbly and slimy it's not algae. It's duckweed, which is what I call Duck sandwiches. It's a little floating plant that has little roots and it hosts a lot of little Crustaceans and other kinds of insects and the ducks go around and Dabble in that stuff and they literally are getting vegetables lettuce and the meat and everything all together when they eat in that the algae they don't feed in very much and that's usually underwater where you've got to what our that's really pretty warm. But most of that green stuff out there is duckweed which is a healthy situation if it isn't totally covered. I see a few gaze out over on the shoreline. They look to me as though they're doing something called preening their rearranging their feathers. Probably oiling them. They have an oil gland on their back with the tail. And and I see that one out over there. That's that's been fluttering its wings a little bit. Now. They're bobbing their heads up flapping its wings back and forth. (00:08:36) Talking talking a little bit. Yeah, (00:08:39) how does how they're shaking their heads back and forth. It's a way of saying to each other. Well, should we move from this place? Are you paying attention to me and whatever else (00:08:49) they lose the capacity to fly at some point during the season don't think (00:08:52) yeah, Ron along about the end of June all of their long Wing feathers will fall out at once and so they will no longer be able to fly then they end the young birds will go into hiding in the long grass and you won't see them again until sometime about the middle of July during that time. They're very vulnerable to predators and they're also vulnerable to human beings and that's basically why they get out there and hide all the while they're eating grass and putting on weight. Can you imagine getting nice and big and plump from just eating grass the kind of like cows of the bird World? Well, I think that we could walk a little bit further into the woods just briefly to get the sounds of Little deeper woods and we'll get farther away from the Nature Center and then we'll take it to another area in the park. I also want to introduce us later on in this broadcast to one of the little Raptors that we have here at the Nature Center. So we'll come back to the nature center after we've explored some of the other parts of the park. Okay, let's just keep walking on now and and oh, look at this little Pond right here. It's really low. This is probably been a prime mosquito Hatchery and other years. This is one of the bonuses of this dry year Bob. We really had not very much rain a grand total of about 2 inches of water since the season began which was last fall I guess and so a lot of the areas where mosquitoes normally hatch out are dry and as a result getting out here and wandering around is really pleasurable this year because no mosquitoes are out to bite us. It is even reduced the number of wood ticks so you can walk around here and look it up. Get bitten not a bit. No, that's true that it's not all here. We are in the Shady Woods as happy as a clam. (00:10:53) Getting a little deeper into the woods now Kathy occasionally is see a little purple flower off to the side. What are those? (00:11:00) I see a few right over here amongst these big Maple Leaves. Oh my goodness. There's a spider sitting on the maple leaf. I suppose it's getting whatever insects that can the right behind these Maple Leaves is that's kind of a pinkish lavender flower, isn't it? Look how it's got all little fuzzies on the inside of the flower and then long things sticking out (00:11:21) about a quarter of an inch (00:11:22) with little dark dark ends to it. Those are the answers the male part of the flower. This plant is the Virginia Water leaf, and I think it's called water Leaf because if you look at the leash, they look like they've been water spotted the little (00:11:38) light dots on the Green Leaf When the Virginia Water Leaf comes into bloom. (00:11:45) I usually look at the plant community and say my goodness, it's summer because this is one that blooms with the Columbine and While geranium and the showy orcas and the yellow lady slippers, they all come in bloom normally an average year in the first part of June here. We are little bit earlier than that not very much and they're In Bloom and I think it's this year because we've had a warmer season a little earlier on (00:12:13) I see all these low growing plants that you know, you mentioned a maple leaf and things like that. I think this would be prime deer (00:12:20) browse. Yes, especially right along the trail here. You see all these young maple trees and all this nice new Lush growth. And if you look back on some of them like this one right here in the middle of this tree right here. You see where these little (00:12:34) ends and sure (00:12:36) cut off and the side branches are coming out and giving the length of the tree. This means that a deer came along in the winter time when they were still feeding on tree (00:12:45) Buds and (00:12:46) bark and just nip those tips off. (00:12:49) Now the deer aren't feeding on the leaves so much the more they're feeding on grass and other succulent plants that are like these flowers. We've (00:12:56) just been talking about (00:12:58) Hmm. This would appear to be a spider's web (00:13:01) here what we have here probably hanging from the tree. It's a very interesting thing folks. We've got this long strand of (00:13:09) silk coming out of nowhere just hanging down from higher tree and caught in this long strand of silk is a dried-up flower of an oak tree (00:13:19) and the strand of silk was probably (00:13:22) put down by category. Pillar caterpillars are up feeding on the tree leaves (00:13:27) and they all have the capacity to spin out a strand of silk when they (00:13:30) want to get away from danger and then they just kind of crawl down and then they'll crawl back up again. And sometimes I just leave their their silky strands behind. So it looks like a caterpillar. It looks like a spider. It's just a leftover. (00:13:47) Well, I think what we'll do we walked along we've got a little dried-up Pond over here on our left and we've got lots of leaf litter normally if you were walking in the woods we listen you'd really quiet if it were in in the late evening or late afternoon early evening. When here the earthworm's actually moving all the leaves here in the forest is that right is that they are the I was supposed to set of garbage men of the forest. They come out of their little holes and they pull the leaves into the holes and then they rustle and so it sounds like the whole Forest is rustling but in midday, which is This is midday. The earthworm's basically are not as active and so you don't hear these sounds but I encourage you folks to go out and stand in the woods even in parts of the Boreal forest where you get the aspen trees go out in the evening and listen for the rustling. It's just it's not like little group group group as either an animal walking in the leaves, but it's just an indiscriminate continuous wrestling and that's the sound of the earthworm's (00:14:49) I would assume there aren't as many of them around now because we haven't had as much rain is that it farther down further down we have (00:14:55) this little we've had a few little Spritz is Now and again a little bit of showers from time to time not many but it's been enough. Let's just walk over here. See if we can find anything at all. You move aside move aside the leaves in the soil is fairly dry, but here and there we can find here's an earthworm right here. There's one and here's an earth worm hole where he goes on down if you look really carefully you can probably even find where they've drawn some of the leaves together. Here's an earthworm midden. If you look at this, this is the leftovers from a previous lunch if pull all those Leaf stems up and right there is the hole that he goes in and out. There's even an oak flower down in that hole at risk from had to have pulled it down. The whole flower didn't just fall in there by itself. (00:15:47) How far down do you suppose? They go typically (00:15:49) all sometimes if it's a really a dry you the go all the way down several feet sometimes three feet that go below the frost line in the wintertime and now they're just stay up within the As far up as they can get and still stick keep their bodies moist. Well, I think we ought to go to another part of the park. Now what say you I say, that's a good idea. Okay, then we'll we'll probably just take a slight break and we'll go up here in another (00:16:12) location back with Kathy Heidel then in just a second or two. We're on our way by Van to another part of the park. But we stopped along a little Pond area and there are a lot of geese out there Kathy. (00:16:30) We're at the shore bird sanctuary which is at the beginning of the driveway into Laura Nature Center. And this is a good place for for viewing Shorebirds. Those are those long-legged. There's some long-legged Birds right in the shallows along the edge of the pond here. They have some of them have long beak. Some of them have middle-sized beaks and some are really short ones. But the feature that special about them is they have really long legs and they pick along in the water probably stirring up some of the insects and they eat dragonfly larvae or nymphs and and mosquito larvae and stuff like that. But we also find that this area is very attractive to the Canada geese and I see over here that we got along flotilla Mom and Dad Goose moms and front probably dad's behind and in between Well, let's see. We've got 2 4 6 8 10 12 13 babies now. My guess is that probably is the youngsters from two or three different parents and their once they all hatched out in the same area that the youngsters link up with several different parent groups. And these are probably more or less babysitting extended family here, but a little Gosling's are I would say probably about two weeks old. Is that right? It is a little fuzz balls. (00:17:52) Yeah, but they're swimming just like big (00:17:54) he's in the grass the walking up towards the dandelions and the Green Grass and and their little ones are just pick pick picking as they go so our mom and dad right now and that they eat a lot of grass as they be under along the edge. How long will it be until (00:18:13) those Gosling's are full-size (00:18:16) By the time the parent birds get their flight feathers back in the part of light part of July. The Gosling's will be as big as the parents and look almost like them by August you won't be able to tell them apart. We have to take advantage of a spontaneous spontaneous happening Bob. Well, right. I don't know if you'll be able to see it or not, but I describe it for the listeners. We have a big Hawk that is just hovering here in the in the wind. Oh, yeah, right above almost above the geese. It's not likely that the hawk would try to get any of the geese because that Hawks major food is mice but it's out here just looking over this open field and along the edge of this pond. It's got a nice reddish brown tail and a nice white breast and it's probably larger than a crow. I would call that a red-tailed hawk and we have several red-tailed Hawks nesting here in the park. We have a lot of open field and a lot of mice and that's Prime food for these. Have really good habitat for Hawks. I'm hoping that I can show you a wooded area where I know there's a hawk on a nest right now. In fact, it's probably that one's mate. She's over at our Campground. (00:19:26) Okay, so you mentioned earlier talking about the geese losing their ability to fly in later on in June who are their predators. (00:19:37) Well the Predators when they are not able to fly can be I suppose a fox might be able to get a youngster but youngsters grow up pretty fast owls. Not even in this park not Hawks. Their main predators are probably free running dogs and human beings. They really don't they don't have a lot of predators here in this park the nature probably they were coyotes and and farther north wolves and around here dogs for the most part. One of the things that I the reason we're taping here in the van is to fold once big one because it's very windy but also because by sitting here in the van, we're not disturbing these birds out here and when people come to the to the park and they come to the show bird sanctuary, we encourage them to use their cars as a blind a place where they can sit inside the getting get as close as they're going to get you get out of here and you try to walk towards them and they'll be in the other side of the pond right away. So this is a real good vantage point. We can see the black birds picking around in the grass and the geese are walking on farther down along the edge of the pump. And then I see these swallows these Greenback birds with the white bellies and they kind of flutter and flitter around in the wind and every now and again, they dive down to the water surface and what they're doing is they're actually picking off the water surface the midges or the mosquitoes or the dragonflies of the damselflies before they have a chance to get up in the air and fly away. So they're feeding them once in a while even scoop up a snail. It's feeding right at the surface. And when I am going to take you to one of the boxes were some of these birds nest and when I opened up the boxes to check on the condition of the baby, sometimes I will find snail shells in the bottom of the nest course, they don't the youngster don't feed on them, but the birds do pick them up. (00:21:29) Well, they've got incredible I say that they can see a mosquito from the height their (00:21:32) ad. Really are remarkable. Well, we could stay here all day. But why don't we go on to another place? Let's do that. Okay. (00:21:44) Natural is Kathy Heidel is with us. We are at the Carver Park Reserve in the western part of the Hennepin County (00:21:51) here. It's just sitting in Carver County but it belongs to the Hennepin Park system. Okay. Alright. So for (00:21:57) those of you who are just joining us. We're on location today. Kathy is with us out here at the park not answering your questions by phone today. We'll be back there again with one of those kinds of programs. I suspect before the summer is out Kathy. What's going on right here? We're at the entrance to a campground. Are we not? (00:22:11) Yes. This is a new Campground. A lot of people perhaps don't even know it's here and I wanted to stop right here and take a look at this Woods. We have beautiful Maple Woods in an interesting thing has happened. We have Woods on both sides of the road here and red-tailed Hawks. Remember the one we just met over the show bird sanctuary. Well that red tail hawk has had this territory probably for 10 years and this year the great horned owl that also is in this area. Took over the red-tail hawks nest down here in the campground area nested already or was about mid-February that that all was on the nest and the Red Tails came back and that's was taken and they flew around and flew around and I think they were kind of hoping that the owls attempt at raising a family would fail the last two years the Hawks (00:23:06) took over after the owls nest (00:23:08) failed. Well, I took a look at the owl. She seemed to be pretty good and I thought well, maybe she won't fail this you maybe she finally got her smarts together and she she knows how to raise a family. So one of my volunteers built a big nest platform out of grapevines and we put it in this Woods opposite where the owl was thinking that maybe the red-tail hawks would take that. Well, they (00:23:33) didn't they didn't they went and they built one on their own right in the (00:23:37) middle of the woods. And of course it was late in the season and she's on that Nest right now. We're expecting her. Probably to hatch those babies somewhere around maybe the third week to the fourth week of May close to Memorial Day weekend right about now then right about now, then they're right about now, they should be coming up and and we just find this interesting that they both have the same territory. What I want to do here then is to you know to take our trip from this woods with a red tail is nesting and go down into this Campground and we'll see if there any campers in the campground will describe what the campground looks like. It will just keep our eye out in case we might see the great horned owl. I don't promise anything folks, (00:24:23) but we know they're here but let me ask you one thing first. You said that the when the hot came back and discovered that they all had taken his nest where had it (00:24:30) been. Well, if sometimes they'll stay all winter, but for the most part the Hawks go down as far south as they have to get beyond the snow line where they can get available food and in many cases we think Probably go to Iowa and probably all know and maybe even Northern Missouri. This pair of hawks did not stay in cover Park this winter. We had another pair of hawks that did but this pair came back sometime about the first part of March. (00:24:58) Okay, let's go see if we can see some holes. Okay. So here we are at the (00:25:08) campground. Yes. We're right kind of in the middle of the lake Auburn Campground. We're surrounded by lakes to Lakes Auburn on either side and we're here in a lovely little Maple Woods. And as we look ahead of us, we can see the campsites not very many of them are occupied right now, but they will be later on today. You probably have lots more in folks are probably out enjoying the Nature Center and they're out in other parts of the park. Lots of maple trees nice shady area. And right behind us is the beach we have a beach here for the campers. We don't have lifeguards on duty at as is true with most of the parks in the area because well we might have maybe I don't know. We usually put them on around the first part of June and here we are Memorial Day weekend. It might be I'll have to go down and take a look. I suppose we'd only way we've got the beach and we Nice places where people can use this area than they can go to other parts of the park to so lovely (00:26:13) Campground. We didn't have any luck seeing the owls (00:26:15) nest. We sure didn't but it's right back in here. Right off you go down on the beach. You might be able to see it. And if you're out here in in the evening, my guess is you probably could hear it because it'll be calling the youngsters are out of the nest now and the great horned owl which is the largest of our nesting owls here in the park has a very distinctive call. See if I can try to imitate it. I'm not going to play a tape recorder or anything. I'm just going to try to imitate the the Rhythm and then you folks are going to have to just get out and listen for the real thing. The great horned owl has basically for Hoops that you can hear from a distance. Whoo. Whoo. Whoo. Whoo. Whoo. Whoo and if you're a little bit closer you can hear. Whoo. Whoo. Whoo. Whoo. Whoo. Whoo, so there are few little subtleties in there. Sometimes all they do is The babies when they respond to the calling parents will do a kind of a whisper shrieking up. And if you hear that in the woods, then you know, you've got owls up in the trees and if you're just patient, you might actually see the parents come in and feed them. (00:27:35) Kathy Heidel playing the part of owls and other creatures on our broadcast today. (00:27:43) here at the This I wanted you to see this because it's a new feature of our Park. What I would like to do is to go to my favorite parked part outside of the Nature Center area. I'd like to take you to the eastern part of the park, which is very wild. We call it the East End and we'll walk the bike trail which is a paved trail. So you won't be hearing us walking very much and it's a place where we hear the Wood Thrush calling. There's a pair of barred owls nest in that woods and that's why I want to walk in their ways and see if we can maybe catch sight of them and we will also see if we can spy on the Osprey in that part of the park. So there's an oriole calling (00:28:27) right above your head (00:28:28) Bob. I don't know if we can pick that up or not if this wind Just giving a few Twitter's. One of the nice things about being in this park is it so quiet and so peaceful and it is in the woods and the state parks are or smaller Lee County Parks elsewhere in the state or in some of the nature conservancy places to so I guess by being out here on location today. We're just kind of encouraging folks to get out and enjoy the same. It's very peaceful and I think recreating if nothing (00:29:08) else What's that bird cawing after I left her hearing out there is what used to be called the short build Marsh run now known as the sedge ran and I'm so delighted to hear it though, because last year we didn't have any in the park at all. And now they've just come back I have this is just back since oh a couple days ago and it's on territory in this long marshy grass out here at the bottom of this hill Oh, I can just see it. It just it cocks its little tail up and it's just in amongst the yellow grass out there. It's only about 3 inches long. And what that little male bird is probably doing is checking up possible sites where it could make up globular baseball-sized. Grassy nest and he'll advertise like that until I female comes back and then she will probably select one of his little Nest attempts and finish it off and nest in it. (00:30:24) We have come to the East End of the park like you were talking about earlier and the calling that we hear is after I left but to our right is the stand where the Osprey (00:30:37) are. Yeah. Let's see if I can describe what we're seeing here to the listeners a little bit. We're parked on an interior Park Road that we don't normally have open to the public. It's a way for us to get to some of the Interior areas and we're looking across a little tiny Marsh that probably is no more than about an acre in size and there is a small Mound in the middle surrounded by a very shallow amount of water last year. We had a pair of Canada geese nesting out here and this year. It's too too dry for them to be nesting and then beyond that we see a big hill sort of gradual Hill sloping off towards Lake zambra, which is over here on my right. It's all covered with a brownish grass, which we call broom grass and on the very far side of the hill. We see a big looks like a power pole which is what it is. It was donated to us by the power company and on the very top of the power pole is a box. I just a flat platform widths maybe small sides on it and a couple of braces and in the Box are a number of sticks probably about thumb-sized to maybe an inch to two inches in diameter at the very most And if you I'm looking with my scope now, I look through my scope here. I can see a white head with a black line through the eye kind of slicking down the back kind of like sideburns more or less. And this is the head of the nesting Ospreys. She's down there in that Nest probably on eggs right now most likely she has three eggs and if we were to stay here long enough and watch whoa on to the bridge just came in. Yes. What is that exciting exciting? I'll bet he just brought in something to feed his wife. The male is feeding the female this time of the year. He fishes he's the Fish Hawk. And he dives into the water and grabs the fish that he Dives on and then brings them back and presents presents her food as well as feeding himself. Oh, this is exciting. (00:32:56) Now what kind of fish do you suppose? He's (00:32:57) catching probably crappies and and other kinds of pain fish occasionally. Both bass evidence of bass being brought up into the nest itself. What's so exciting about this folks is that Hennepin Parks is embarked on a reintroduction project of Ospreys Ospreys were basically lost to the southern half of Minnesota with the settlement of people and agricultural practices. And mostly they were shot. They were they were mostly shot out. Nice big Target and they're not afraid to come near fishermen Hunters. So they were basically extirpated in the southern half of the state and we realize that we have lots and lots of good clear water in the metro area and especially in our Park system, but all over the metro area with lots of fish in them. And so we thought that maybe we could reintroduce the Ospreys and Northern Minnesota has in some places a surplus of osprey so they were Sting on power poles and shorting out the electricity lines. And so we've been working with the power company. They helped us get the young birds in July. We bring them here just before they're ready to feed themselves and P put them up in a special tower called a hacking Tower and we started our project three years ago. And last year. We had one of our teenager males come back and two wild females were attracted to him and they nested on that Tower way at two female Ospreys nesting on six eggs on this Nest site over here and the male would sit in the nearby trees. Well, he wasn't old enough the eggs weren't fertile. Now this year, we've had three birds back again, but the third bird has gone off and is working on another Nest site. We don't know if it will be successful since she doesn't have a mate over there, but this pair is definitely They're in business and business and we are really hoping this year. He would be old enough. He's three years old. If it is the same bird as last year and we're hoping that the eggs will be fertile. And for the first time and in this Century, there will be baby Ospreys and Southern half of (00:35:15) Minnesota. When would the one of those eggs (00:35:17) hatch well, Lee my guess Exactly. We're talking about this being Memorial Day weekend. I would guess that we would be able to see whether or not they had babies about the middle of June. (00:35:38) Well, they're both sort of moving around up here right now. That's what they're (00:35:41) doing. They may actually be exchanging us. They're going to be exchanging places. The female is coming to the edge of the nest and the male is now hunkering down and I think he may go down to sit on those eggs for a bit. Isn't that amazing? It's really interesting. He's darker than little darker than she is. Well, he'll have a wider breast. She has a little more brownish on her breast. (00:36:05) Well now is that do they sort of divide that responsibility equally or is she on the on the most of the time then he spells her on occasion so she can get up move around a little bit or (00:36:12) what. I don't really know for sure. My guess is that She's got to get out and maybe hope she's back down again. He didn't really leave her after all at least. I think she went out. Well, it's hard to tell who went down with his one back down on the eggs, but I would guess that she'd probably have to get out and take a plunger to into the lake just to wet down those feathers so she could keep those eggs moist because it is pretty dry weather and we don't want now they don't want the embryos to dry out. So she would have to moisten her feathers just so that she could keep those eggs Moishe also has to turn them and I would expect that that they would take turns but I don't know whether it's an equal amount of time (00:36:55) spent. You know, how many eggs are in (00:36:56) there at least? Well three would be maximum number of eggs in clutch size. That's what Ospreys normally lay is three eggs, but well, I suppose it could be two up she's back up and I think that bird is turning eggs. Oh, it's down there kind of Standing up on the edge of the nest and it's it's got its head down and it seems to be moving in a little bit from side to side occasionally. That would be my guess and it's turning the eggs. No, it is the other bird that just went down the one that came in and the other bird is standing on the edge. I can tell there's a slight difference in the color on the backs of the birds. Well, at least it gives a the other bird a chance to get up and and relieve itself and stretch those muscles. You can get pretty sore just sitting still like that (00:37:49) pretty doggone interesting stuff. All right. (00:37:52) This is something that a lot of people will probably want to be wanting to see because it's kind of special for this part of the state. When you see those a spray up there. You will also notice that they appear to be inside of a large fenced-in area. And I think this is interesting to share with the listeners we have here what is known as a deer exclosure. We just put it in this year. It's an electrified fence that is enclosing this huge area in which in which the Ospreys are found and we're planting seedling trees up at the kinds that were trying to reforest all these Open Fields with your in the Parks and it'll keep the deer out. Maybe we'll be able to effectively reforest a little bit faster. The deer are so numerous in our parks that in many cases we plant the trees and then they just chew mole off (00:38:44) Billy just about anything that's green. (00:38:46) What they yes, they will and in the wintertime they like those young (00:38:48) trees. Oh look at those Honker going by Canada geese Now, is it possible we're going back to the Osprey just for a second. Is it possible that if people got too close to them they could be frightened (00:39:01) off. I would guess that it might inhibit the behavior a little bit. That's why we suggest that during this period when they're nesting that people stay a fair distance away, but we do know that Ospreys are quite compatible with fishermen that fishing activities near the nest and on the Lakes were Ospreys are hunting doesn't appear to adversely affect them at all. I know that last year when these two birds were on the nest I walked within about 200 feet of the nest and it didn't seem to affect them. But I was one person and if we had lots of people coming out and they were not on regular use Trails where the birds are used to seeing people it could affect the behavior (00:39:45) because we must be how far from them, you know, maybe a quarter of a mile or something like that (00:39:49) say about a quarter of a mile almost. (00:39:53) We're looking at them through binoculars and a powerful telescope. So people kind of have to know what they're looking for and bring something with them so they can see them because with the naked eye, it's pretty tough to pick it (00:40:03) out. We could go a little bit closer, but I think we've seen a wonderful show from right here. The one bird has left the nest now. Did you happen to see it? When it I'm (00:40:16) down I missed it. I think it might have been well as geese were going by. Yeah, we were just trying we're looking at the (00:40:21) geese on the Osprey slipped off probably go fishing again. So where you taking us next? I would like to take you Into the Woods where the barred owl lives. It's a different kind of wooded area than we've been in before we're going to walk on the bike trail, which is a paved trail. We can also go hiking on it. You can people go roller skating on it too. It's really a fun place to walk but I would like to before we get out into the woods itself. I'd like to explore the world of the bluebird. We have several blue birds nesting in some of the boxes. You've seen quite a few of these nest boxes along our roads here in the park and I'd like to open one of the boxes and describe to you folks what the nest looks like inside and just to check to see how far along they are. We We labor under a misconception that if we have if we look at an ester if we touch the babies that the mother will abandon the nest and this is not true. What we do is every week. I have volunteers come out to open the boxes up and see what the progression is inside to see whether house sparrows might have gotten in and destroyed the eggs or started to Nest over the top of the bluebirds nest and we try to keep the house sparrow population within control so that the bluebirds will be successful and it's working. We have more blue birds nesting than we've ever had nesting before in the state of Minnesota. We are not only doing it in the Parks. The Department of Natural Resources is doing it along our highways as well. And I want to just share that with everybody. All right, let's go find them. Okay, we'll do that. So here we are at this bird box, but we just came in. We've got a couple of birds flying around as we just stopped here beside the road. We have one of these slanty roofed Peterson style nest boxes and there happens to be a bluebird. I was here a little earlier this morning and there happens to be a blue bird with a family in this box and I thought it would be fun. Hope there's the female she's sitting right there on the stop sign next to the bike (00:42:17) trail. She's got a big full of (00:42:20) probably. Yep. She got too warm in the beak small one that must mean the baby's inside must be pretty small. Let's open it up and find (00:42:26) out he wants to get in here and feed him. (00:42:27) Well, we want to hurry up and check this and then we'll leave. (00:42:31) And let her come and feed she will not abandon the baby. (00:42:35) Let's get the nail out. (00:42:38) Oh my word. What do you see in there? Bob see a (00:42:40) little baby birds (00:42:42) their little itty-bitty that just fuzzy. They just got a little black fuzz (00:42:46) all is actually probably blue but it's hard to see the records were in the shade right here. My guess is that those little babies are probably about a week old. They're more than three days because of three days they're still naked and they're not doing much moving but the the nest is really a pretty nice. It just all grass. It's only about two and a half inches deep and there's this neat little cup in the Middle where the little babies are are lying my mom and dad are getting real impatient to get in here and feed them. So I think what we'll do is we'll close the box back up and then we'll leave this box by a different route so that if a raccoon or cat follow our trailing here, they will not stop at the Box. We'll just keep following our scent Trail away from the box that will safeguard the Box, okay. (00:43:31) I'm going to (00:43:31) close it back up now. They're much it's Mom over there in the stop sign. She's and the bike trail. She's just waiting patiently for for us to (00:43:40) get out of here. They're not going to abandon this Nest, you know, we've been here (00:43:43) long as they've been babies in there. We've been doing this checking for years and we found out that it's definitely effective. And as long as we can keep the house sparrows out, we will be lucky and raising more and more boo birds in this state. Okay, let's just pack ourselves up right now and we'll walk out through this field back to the bike trail and we'll go to down into the woods and where the owls are, okay. We're on the bike trail now walking (00:44:17) and the East End of Carver Park Reserve would just about to enter the deep dark woods, but we're right at the edge of the woods where there are some Oaks. all we have sounds of Orioles here some red-winged blackbirds and back behind me is a nice thick at where the trees are growing in underneath the old oak trees new bass woods and Maples are coming in and I can hear I don't know if we can pick it up folks. It's a there's the creep creep creep again of the Crested Flycatcher, but I hear the blue-gray gnatcatcher, which is almost as small as a hummingbird back here in the woods going. And what they do is they are right now nesting they take the blossoms off the oak trees and they gather spider webs (00:45:10) up there in the oak (00:45:11) leaves and they fashioned a little Nest that is very small maybe only an inch across and maybe only an inch deep (00:45:18) and they stick it on the branch of an (00:45:19) oak tree out here at the edge of this little Marsh (00:45:22) the edge of the woods. This is where the blue Granite catches like to nasty (00:45:26) also in this same Woods earlier this morning. I heard the Wood Thrush calling now being that it's middle of the day. It's usually time for Wood Thrush has to be feeding or maybe even sleeping in our chances of hearing a Wood Thrush are pretty slim but in evening, they have this wonderful wonderful flute like call they they sound like somebody playing a flute with multiple tones at the same time. We're going to walk a little farther down this Trail Bob and we're going to explore the thicker Woods where the barred owl lives and I'm going to call the barred owls call in hopes that we can. Maybe get a (00:46:04) response. Okay, Kathy. Heidel is with us naturalist at Carver Park Reserve. (00:46:11) What a nice to be out in this quiet place. Even though the wind is blowing a lot. It's part of the whole thing. (00:46:23) So we moved in a little bit further into the woods and the temperature has dropped again it in the shade. That's about 10 degrees cooler. (00:46:28) Yeah, we are in the In the territory of a cardinal and we may hear it sing it starting to sort of chirp a little bit. We're getting closer to the place where we have. the garden was where the barred owls have nested and we've so I'm going to give the call here so that we know what we're listening for and I maybe do it several times as we approach the Bartels territory. It may be that the bird will come out. And take a look because barred owls do come out in the daytime. They don't particularly hunt and bright Sun but they can see and with another owl calling that may think it's a rival owl then again. They may know that it's a human being (00:47:10) to it may say, oh there's Kathy again. (00:47:13) Anyway, the barred owl has a two-part Collies has who cooks for you who cooks for you all. Now I don't do it a hundred percent the way the owl doesn't but I did teach about (00:47:36) all the call that way once upon a time when I raised one. Did you really? Yes it is and the baby owls of the barred owls even though they're not quite old enough to be out of the (00:47:45) nest will later on to the same kind of call that the great horned owl babies did that. But so far as I know baby barred owls are nowhere near ready today to come out of (00:48:01) the nest. I suspect maybe in another week (00:48:03) or two. (00:48:06) Well that Cardinal is certainly being (00:48:08) and the in towards Russia (00:48:09) singing back over here on my on my (00:48:12) right. It may be too far away to pick it up with Mike sounds like a flute. It's kind of the essence of wildness. So let's go on and see if we can find an owl (00:48:39) a few years ago. When I came down here in the evening with a group of people and an owl walk. I saw in these bass wood trees right in front of us. It's a fairly open area in the woods not a whole lot of undergrowth here and I saw in some of those far Basswood trees to little sort of white fluffy baby outlets. And when I looked around with my binoculars and did the imitated the call one of the parents actually came up and sat in his tree right above us here. So this is a this is a good spot. We know the owls are back here in the woods again this year because we've seen them and we've heard them in the evenings our volunteer Raptor Searchers have basically got them pegged down to this area. But since they nest in the cavity in a tree Finding the nest is pretty difficult. So we're going to wait until probably about the third week of June and then we'll come out here in the evening and we'll listen for the baby owls and hope that maybe you can find it. But I'm going to try that call again and let's just see if you spot anything moving through the woods look, you know, look a fair distance away. Look look back maybe (00:49:50) a couple of feet couple of (00:49:51) hundred yards 100 yards about see if you can spot something moving through because they'll say that far back. We'll see what we come up with. I don't expect much folks, but you never know. Oh Is to sound like a mope. I just saw a bird fly through. But was it an all it was? Just came right out of this went back into those picture. He's back there. Let's see if I can sound like a mouse and maybe get it to come closer. (00:50:46) No all is coming. But there are 50 cats heading towards radio speakers. (00:50:53) Well, sometimes sounding like a mouse does work to drop up and now and this is a really good spot. If I had enough time with you folks. We'd sit here and we would wait for 5 or 10 minutes and I'm sure that an owl would come out we would be able to see unfortunately. You don't see the way same way we do with our eyes on radio. So you have to depend upon the descriptions here. But if you get into a nice mature Maple Basswood woods with not very much undergrowth where the owls can sit up high in the tree branches and wait for the squeaking mice to come out at night. They do most of their hunting at night. They'll drop right down on (00:51:31) those mice they hunt by (00:51:32) sound actually hear them scampering around in the leaves and they could distinguish between a earthworm in a mouse you easy and then drop down and they'll pick them up have lunch. (00:51:43) Cathy we're just about out of time surely head back to the Nature Center and take a look at a little friend of yours back (00:51:49) there. That's right. Let's do that and I will leave this wasn't go back. (00:51:52) Okay. (00:52:00) Well here we are back at the Nature Center and Kathy. You have a little bird on your hand there on a gloved hand. (00:52:08) Yes. I'd like to (00:52:11) Go back and remember that (00:52:12) we met the great horned owl via the call and we talked about the barred owl and I imitated both calls. Now. I'm holding on my hand the smallest owl that we have in Minnesota the little soft wet towel. He persists. I'm looking away from you. Yeah, but this way we call him clarkie because he clocks can hit a clacking. Oh, yeah Clacks his beak when he's Disturbed all owls do this. Oh, come on, sweetie. Okay, let's hear you this way, but as a software towel and they normally nest in woodpecker holes in lowland forests, and I've we found them along the Minnesota River and along the Mississippi River up in the Noka and I've also heard them up along the Gunflint Trail in the Superior National Forest, but this little (00:52:58) bird what probably flew into (00:53:00) a an object and dislocated it swing and it was taken from the location where it was found in Alexandria, Minnesota to the Raptor Rehabilitation. Center in st. Paul, University, Minnesota And then the they were not able to rehabilitate the (00:53:18) wing just couldn't get it to function. So we are a foster care facility for this little owl. He's on loan to us as long as we can care for him properly, but it's a good way for people to see one of the most (00:53:30) elusive birds in the state and a good way to get across the idea that stewardship is important. We need to care (00:53:37) about our Wildlife. We need to care about our plants and care about our parks and Open Spaces because you know why it's really the Senate a for all of us keeps us all (00:53:47) healthy. But here's Clocky the little saw a towel if folks living close enough to the (00:53:53) metro area when I take a tour out to Carver Park Reserve to Lowry Nature Center, (00:53:57) you can come out and see him because he lives here (00:54:00) Kathy. This has been great fun as always being out here with you. We've seen a lot of things and it's been just a real great treat. I've enjoyed it Kathy Heidel is a senior interpretive naturalist with the Hennepin Park system and (00:54:14) He'll (00:54:14) be out at Carver Park almost all the time our engineer for this broadcast Bill Paladino. This is Bob Potter speaking. He'll be out at Carver Park almost all the time our engineer for this broadcast Bill Paladino. This is Bob Potter speaking.