Posted by Dan Arndt

While the weather last week was incredibly warm, and got even warmer as the week went on, Sunday morning was incredibly windy! We started at 8 AM and scoped out the reservoir and got most of our birds for the day, and then headed down into the Weaselhead just as the wind was picking up. I was originally going to title this post “A Junc-y day in the Weaselhead”, but I didn’t even get many photos of them, which were probably the most numerous bird of the day! Thankfully we had a few helpful mammal sightings to make the day more than worthwhile.

Weaselhead Natural Area – April 12, 2015

We had Dark-eyed Juncos everywhere. From the top of the hill near the parking lot to the far west end of the park, they were absolutely everywhere we looked!

Dark-eyed Junco
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/320sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 2500

Dark-eyed Junco
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 500

We also had a few chance encounters with a number of mammals. Both the Richardson’s Ground Squirrels and Least Chipmunks were making themselves conspicuous, and incredibly adorable as always.

Richardson’s Ground Squirrel
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/800sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 250

Least Chipmunk
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/800sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 800

Least Chipmunk in a can
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 3200

One of the challenges on a windy day is that the birds tend to stay low in the trees, and really don’t like to move around too much… and then when they do, they’re just gone. This Black-billed Magpie and American Tree Sparrow were just hanging out up in the trees and holding on for dear life it seemed!

Black-billed Magpie
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/800sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 800

American Tree Sparrow
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/800sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 320

There’s another particularly unusual feature of the Weaselhead that seems to have not much of a solution, but every visit to the west and northern end of the patch south of the Elbow River seems to be particularly unproductive, despite having tons of great habitat, dead trees for birds to nest in, and a fairly diverse understory. We did have a lone Downy Woodpecker along the west side, but we walked for a good half hour before finding anything else. It was so quiet I felt it was completely necessary to take this photo of the moon just to have something to post to the blog!

Downy Woodpecker
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/8.0, ISO 500

Half moon over the Weaselhead
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/1000sec., ƒ/11.0, ISO 1000

Back at the top of the hill as we ended our walk this Red-tailed Hawk decided to try to fight the wind. It flew as hard and fast as it could just to stay apparently stationary in the air above us. It did allow for at least a couple of nice photo opportunities before diving down into the river valley and disappearing out of the heavy and incessant winds.

Red-tailed Hawk
Pentax K-5 + Sigma 150-500@500mm
1/640sec., ƒ/6.3, ISO 400

Have a great week, and good birding!