An Ear For Birds : Carver Park Reserve in Minnesota
One morning this spring, I visited a favorite local birding spot. It is the Carver Park Reserve, located 20 miles west-southwest of Minneapolis (MN). For nature buffs, Carver Park ranks up there with the best destinations in the Twin Cities area. It’s a large preserve with miles of hiking and biking trails that wend their way through vast open fields and woodlands, and by several lakes. Boardwalks provide easy access to and viewing of several marshes. And for kids, a summer play area and winter sledding hill are available while all ages can enjoy nature and recreational programs throughout the year. As such, the park entertains a fair number of visitors, especially at or nearby the Lowry Nature Center building.
If you are like me, however, and prefer a little more solitude, trails at the park’s outer reaches see relatively little traffic.
On this morning I was toting my Nikon Travelite V binoculars. The model comes in a variety of designations. Mine are 10 x 25. I like it that they are lightweight, powerful, and fit snuggly into the glove compartment. When birding in places where I’m less familiar with the birds, I prefer a pair of Nikon Monarch 10 x 50’s, just for the edge they give me with the wider field of view.
In May, when spring bird migration is in full swing, I tend to want to check everything that moves and track everything I hear. Since birds tend to be most active early in the morning, I’ll show up then and stay through mid- to late morning. Things can really get going at Carver, so I don’t like spending a lot of time tracking a common (but stubbornly concealed) bird singing a tune I don’t recognize. This is where a practical knowledge of bird songs, especially of common local species, has saved me a lot of time and frustration.
I had planned for this outing to last about an hour and a half. I wasn’t having much luck with spring migrants – even the typically over-represented Yellow-rumped Warblers were absent — but I noted plenty of other woodland activity– Barred Owls trading barbs; a Wood Thrush singing its melancholy song; and a number of Yellow-throated Vireos offering their two-note blurbs. Birding is as much hearing as it is seeing, and I was having a fabulous time checking off these and other local species, one after another, without stopping to view any of them (The only exception to this is Chickadees. I always stop for Chickadees).
West of the park’s nature center, woods give way to rolling fields. Bobolinks take over this region of the park after returning from their winter grounds in Argentina. They had definitely arrived, ready for summer and incessantly chatty.
Listening for a few more minutes, I was clued in to other exchanges — an Osprey, one of a pair nesting near the park entrance, whistled at its mate; Song, Field, and Clay-colored Sparrows announced their presence from territorial perches; Common Flickers and Red-bellied Woodpeckers belted out their cries from nearby trees, interrupted by the urgent brrrr-eep! of a Great-crested Flycatcher; Common Crows protested the presence of an insolent Red-tailed Hawk; and a twittering, irritated female Brown Cowbird evaded the pursuit of several males. Meanwhile, an Eastern Kingbird took out after a Cooper’s Hawk making a low, ill-considered pass too near the Kingbird’s home turf.
Obviously, being familiar with bird songs has its rewards, a fact I’m often reminded of when observing individuals from any of several tough-to-ID bird groups. For example one such group, the notorious Empidonax Flycatchers, seems tailored to frustrate. Perhaps five diminutive “Empid” species occur in Minnesota during the spring migration and, except for a few subtle differences, there is very little to distinguish them physically. In cases like this, time spent with some recordings will help sort them out. A wealth of resources online and on CD and Video are available to help anyone improve their birding skills. These days, with the ubiquitous iPod and other such devices in hand, birders are carrying these recordings into the field.
So see some birds, listen in, remember your birding etiquette, and have fun.
Check out the birds at Carver Park Reserve. To start your birding adventures, or to pick up where you left off, follow this link for information on Carver and other Minnesota parks in the Three Rivers Park District:
http://www.threeriversparkdistrict.org/
Some bird song sites to start with:
http://www.birdwatching.com/tips/birdsongs.html
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Shop/AudioGuides.html
http://www.learnbirdsongs.com
