North Minneapolis Heron Rookery Turmoil
Will eagles kick out the heron rookery?
Birdchick Podcast
Sharon Stiteler, the Birdchick, talks about the latest in birding news.
Latest episodes
Disapproving Rabbits Return
Dragging out Disapproving Rabbits to resist federal overreach.
Party Pants
A screenshot of Party’s stats from the Denali website. “The thing I love most about Denali is that it turned Sharon into a dog person.” Katie Nyberg. For the record, I was always pro dog. I love dogs, I love my friend’s dogs. I just never saw myself as having the sort of life where I could live/commit to a dog. I never wanted to live with a dog, until I met a government dog. When I blew up my life…
Red-bellied Woodpeckers used to be called "Chad"
I have a robust collection of bird books and some that are over a century old. I was recently looking over B irds of America originally published in 1917 but I think my copy is from the 1930s. I was just doijng some casual browsing about woodpeckers and came across the section of other names for red-bellied woodpecker: Male red-bellied woodpecker. Zebra Bird (looking at their backs, makes sense)…
Hummingbirds in Late Summer
Hummingbird coming in for nectar as I put this post together. It has been a crazy ruby-throated hummingbird summer for me. And I’m grateful. Even as I type this on a Thursday evening in August on my deck, a ruby-throated hummingbird is hovering close to my nectar feeder while trying to decide if I’m a threat. Ruby-throated hummingbird nest digiscoped with my phone and spotting scope. I was walking…
Fall Migration Is On
I really missed fall migration while living in Alaska. Yes Alaska has fall migration, but it was all too brief. In Minnesota migration lasts months with shorebirds popping up as early as late July. But really it starts in August and depending on when lakes and rivers freeze it can least into early December. While birding at Westwood Hills this week with my friend Kara, we watched dozens of common…
What? I'm Out of Alaska? Yes
Did you catch me on Almanac tonight? Confused because you thought I was in Alaska? Life is weird and if someone told me on January 1, 2019, “Hey, you’re gonna get divorced, live through a pandemic, and then live in the remote Alaskan wilderness but be back in 2024,” I’d have thought they were nuts. But here we are. Denali was a great time but I now have a job with the Forest Service that puts me…
Whimbrels of the Sub Arctic in Denali
What, this blog still works? I know, I blew up my life, moved to Alaska and now all of my writing and creativity goes to a national park. There are so many birds that I’ve seen and enjoyed over the years, but in many ways I didn’t truly appreciate them. There was a conversation between two men where one said that the outdoors is so much more enjoyable when you what things are. The other man got…
My Latest Book: North American Birdwatching for Beginners
Last fall I got an offer to write a book. The money solved a financial problem for me and I agreed to it. I wasn’t sure that the world needed another beginner bird book, but it needed to be written, the process intrigued me, and I’d had a serious case of writer’s block during the pandemic and was finally crawling out of that hole. I like deadlines, they give me focus. But like any writer, there…
Snowy Owls on Breeding Territory
Female snowy owl perched on a building at the MSP Airport. How I normally see them every winter. Snowy owls are something I regularly see in Minnesota. The Minneapolis/St Paul Airport gets a few overwintering every year. I’ve always wondered what it was like to see them on their breeding territory up in the Arctic, especially as I’ve followed Project SNOWstorm and all they have learned about snowy…
Snow Bunting Nests
Snow buntings flying around a remote road in Aitkin County, Minnesota. Snow buntings are a fairly regular appearance in Minnesota in winter. It’s one of the birds I will watch for on the way to the bog or birding in the southern part of the state. They are generally in large flocks, skittish, and far away. You’re basically driving down a country road and a bunch of white birds with patches of…
Birding The Park Road in Denali National Park
Three-toed woodpeckers were regulars outside of my cabin. I paused my bike ride for some grizzly poop on the Park Road. Denali National Park and Preserve is about the size of New Hampshire and has one road known as the Park Road that’s about 92 miles long. Most of it is accessible only by transit or tour bus, foot, or bike. I biked some of it while I worked there last summer. One day while I was…
A Toast To Curt Rawn
Curt always ready with a camera and occasionally a beer. My friends, let us toast Curt Rawn and his desire for human connection, his love of birds, and his love of getting other people to enjoy birds. I started Birds and Beers in Minneapolis on July 17, 2007. The intent was to have it once a month, but my travel schedule didn’t always allow for that. The following spring I was working a bird…
Driving From Minnesota to Alaska
In February, I was down round the Texas/Mexico border. By May I was in Alaska. This year was so weird and filled with so many delightful surprises. I never imagined I’d find myself driving from the lower 48 states up into Canada to get to Alaska, but that’s what happened. I know many birders do big years and drive all over the country, but that’s not my style. While I was working from Alamo, TX…
Getting My Nemesis Bird
My former nemesis. If you’ve spent time with me in person then you know that spruce grouse is a big nemesis bird for me. Big. Huge. GINORMOUS. For those new to birding, a “nemesis bird” is a bird that you try to see and never get. You’re always arriving as someone says, “It just flew off, like, five minutes ago…” Spruce grouse is particularly galling since they breed in Minnesota and yet I still…
Sounds of Willow Ptarmigan
What does a willow ptarmigan sound like? Utterly bonkers! When you work for the federal government, you occasionally have opportunities to apply for “details.” If you are permanently stationed at a park and another park has a temporary staffing need, you can apply for it and work there for a few months. This is meant to help out a park as it rehires a new position. It also gives the person who…
My Lifer Texas Blue Bunting
There are life birds and then there are LIFE BIRDS. Taking a trip to a new state or country can yield you dozens of new birds in a day. But then there are those birds that catch your eye in a field guide or bird magazine article and you think, “My gods, I want that so much, I need to see it so badly, shut up and take all my money. Show me that damn bird.” Generally, I prefer to get birds where…
Cicadas
Parents (or heck, adults who want a fun project on their desk while working from home) this is something fun and safe you can do with your iPhone. Dog day cicada freshly emerged from its exoskeleton. The wings and body will get darker as it dries out. I got a bit obsessed with insects this past summer. Not traveling and moving to a home with a backyard gave me the opportunity to really study and…
April 2020 Transforming A Yard For Birding
Let me tell you, moving during a pandemic…don’t really recommend it. But in April I moved right in between the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to a town called Falcon Heights. Some would call it a suburb, I call it convenient. And before any wiseacre asks are there any falcons in Falcon Heights, it is robust with merlins. So much so that in April not only did I show merlins to friends who…
I Guess I Am A Diamond Painting Artist Now?
Seriously. It’s official. I’m an artist. I’m part of an exhibit with MIA (aka Minneapolis Institute of Arts). I entered a Diamond Painting of one of my turkey vulture photos into their Foot In The Door Exhibit and made it in. The Foot in the Door Exhibit is basically a once every ten years event where anyone can enter art in it and MIA will put it on their walls. Normally it would be on their…
Skunks and Skulls March 2020
“I’d really love some quality time with a skunk,” I said to a person I’d been dating casually. (And they didn’t flee in horror.) “Let’s go to my cabin,” he said. I’m not sure if it was because Julie Zickefoose had shared a skunk on social media about the same time or if it simply dawned on me I hadn’t really watched a skunk the same way I watch other mammals, but I was really in the mood to see…
Frontera Audubon Turkey Vulture Roost
Inca dove chilling at Frontera. While I was visiting the Rio Grande Valley with a friend with an eye on potential retirement spots I made sure to hit my favorite places. And one of those is Frontera Audubon . This is a tiny little park and every time I go, I get a gem. You can, of course get the Valley specialties, but every time I go there, I get a good bird, whether it’s a bird I don’t see all…
February 2020
This Altimira oriole’s face kind of sums up my thoughts on the year. Divorce just blows. There’s no other way around it. It’s not fun and it’s certainly nothing like the booze filled Divorce Train to a ranch in Reno that was featured in the 1939 classic movie The Women . But if there is any upside to suddenly being on your own after twenty years of shared decisions…it’s that ALL THE THINGS are…
January 2020...Birding Unfettered
I this meme posted on social media and it took me a full two minutes to realize that people were making a joke that one shouldn’t 30-40 olives directly from a jar for dinner. I’ve done this more than once and have no regrets. It’s kind of the same way I feel about popcorn for dinner. Don’t get me wrong, I love to cook, but I hate doing dishes. Possible dating profile picture…one should know what…
January 2020 My First Birding Event of the Year
That awkward feeling when you write about your relationship a lot on the Internet and incorporate them into storytelling shows and then that relationship ends and you really don’t want to talk about why, but feel you kind owe people an explanation and well, you get booked for storytelling shows…and one of the first for the year is where that relationship started. I knew this year was going to be…
Birding around Budapest
I love a trip that give me a good sentence. I was editing some photos and enjoying a drink in the outdoor cafe of my hotel in Budapest when a fox wandered in, looked at us and then went about its night. And that is one of my favorite memories of a trip to Hungary a few years ago, I love the random and unexpected. I loved that fox on that trip. Well, that fox and the very distance ural owl we saw…
The Swarovski Digital Guide
I got to play with a prototype of a Digital Guide that Swarovski Optik is working on with Merlin from Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The video above gives you an idea of how it works. We demoed the guide with some birds like a mourning dove—mostly because the bird was super chill and not moving and it made a great show. I also tested it on green jays and pauraques. But I also took it out on some of…
An Ivory Gull Chase with Wendy
I think I talked about the ivory gull that was in Duluth back in 2016 when the podcast was going, but I never wrote up what a great day it was. This was back when my friend Wendy Cass lived in the same state as me. She was a regular to Birds and Beers and when the ivory gull showed up and stayed more than a week, she revealed that she hadn’t birded Duluth, Minnesota in winter and I decided it was…
A Legend of Birding is Gone
“My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.” Richard Adams, Watership Down This picture of all of us posing on a tank in Israel sits in my office. When work gets ridiculous, I like to look at it to be reminded of the good times and the many friends, including BT3 that I have on the road. Bill Thompson III aka BT3 was always someone I was happy to see. Years ago before…
Sax Zim Bog and Digiscoping
Hello! If you are here because of the KARE 11 or MPR segment, welcome! If you’re wondering about what the smart phone photography technique I was talking about, it’s known as digiscoping or phone scoping. It’s a way to use your smartphone with a spotting scope to take pictures and videos of birds and wildlife. You can learn more about the technique and the kit I use here . The case for my phone…
Birding Lake Mburo National Park
After we saw the shoebill , I felt a weight come off of me in Uganda. I really, really wanted to see that bird. Of course I wanted to see many things, but that was the number one hope and Bird Uganda Safaris delivered. Even though my first look was at a distance I truly felt that I could really enjoy anything and everything because I saw my most wanted and didn’t have to stress if I would go home…
How To See A Shoebill
The answer: head to you Uganda. I’m a big fan of bullet journaling—I’m by no means anything like what you see on Pinterest , I’m a bit more basic and I find that this form of tracking creates some sort of order to the chaos of my brain when it comes to writing. Since I am no Catherine Hamilton , I don’t do much of the artistic side of it but I will decorate mine with stickers…especially bird…
Wallcreeper on a Castle
You can’t trip without finding a castle in Europe. One of the best mornings I ever spent was because of a cheaper flight. Sometimes when flying home from Europe, at least $1000 can be saved by extended the trip an extra day (usually to fly on a Monday rather than a Sunday). Since we had an extra day we did some birding and for most of us the goal was wallcreeper. This is a mytical European bird…
Birding Ethics When Abroad
There is quite a bit to debate when it comes to "ethical birding." You can practically make a drinking game out of arguments of taped calls and bird disturbances on your state's birding group every winter. While taking pictures of feeding American Flamingos in Cayo Coco in Cuba, our guides told us they would be happy to make noise so the birds would fly off and we could get flight shots of the…
Noticing Birds
"I don't really notice birds." This was a recent confession from a very good friend who I have known for decades. I was baffled, how can you NOT notice birds...especially after knowing me? Haven't I told them a ton of interesting factoids? OK, I may have traumatized them when they told me they thought ducks were cute and I told them about duck anatomy. But I really thought they could handle that…
The "Famously" Inconspicuous Henslow's Sparrow
I've really been taking the " Year of the Bird " to heart. This year I decided to carve out some birding just for myself on top of the classes and events I host. It's been one of the best springs (of course, I say that every spring when there are great birds). This week has just been spectacular. I got my whole birding by ear class on this amazing Henslow's sparrow. I wasn't going to post this…
Reporting Owls
Snowy owl pellets have been documented to contain parts of herring gulls, double-crested cormorants, great blue herons, peregrine falcons, barred owls, mink and house cat...they are badasses who can deal with some of the toughest predators out there. They also can nest on the ground where wolves and polar bears are present. There was an interesting article about the p olitics of posting owl…
Birds In Cages
Home cooked meal in Honduras. One of the risks of traveling for birding is that sometimes you are going to see birds in cages and it's going to gut you. One of the most brutal examples for me was in Honduras. We had spent the morning in arid and remote habitat looking for the Honduran emerald, a hummingbird only found in Honduras. We saw several other species, but the day was hot and we couldn't…
Cuban Parakeets Go Full 69
Cuban parakeet in Playa Larga. I've said it before and I'll say it again and again, there is nothing like seeing parrots and parakeets live and function in the wild--especially if you have ever been crazy enough to share your life with one in your home. Their bright colors, incredible brain and ability to mimic often overcomes our good sense to not have one in your home because of their…
Birding In Troubled Times
I'm not racist. I never imagined I would need to make a statement like that, but when the leader of your country says words and supports groups that blatantly are , I feel I need to make sure people know this. Especially the many friends I’ve made all over the world. The chestnut-sided warbler migrates to the United States to raise their chicks, then heads to "shithole" countries like Haiti and El…
Che Guevera's Cave and Ant Hatches
Cueva de los Portales in La Guira National Park One of the places I was most excited about visiting in Cuba was Cueva de los Portales in La Guira National Park. This was the headquarters of the Western Army and the hideout of Che Guevara during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. I was curious to see something that I'd read about so much in school. This is also the spot to get Cuban solitaire. I…
Las Terrazas Birding
After some fun times and barely birding in Old Havana, we met up with our main guide in Cuba, Hiram Gonzalez (pronounced "ear rahm" not they way we say Hiram in the US). Hiram is quite possibly one of the last people to see an ivory-billed woodpecker alive in Cuba. He's an ornithologist who specializes in endangered species on the island. If Zapata wren is your goal--he's the one you want to know…
Horned Guan Death March
This post was updated December 19, 2017 when I noticed many of the photos were gone after transferring the blog from Wordpress to SquareSpace. I also updated some of the text. It was originally two posts and now I've condensed it to one. This particular toy at the top of this post is a replica of a horned guan. You can get them from knock-off Kinder Eggs called Yowies —which for whatever reason…
Changing Binoculars
This summer I had the heartbreak many of us experience with our binoculars...moisture inside the lenses. Who knows when I did it--park service canoe program or on a plane coming home from Hungary. Considering they had been used almost daily since 2005 and I'm rough on equipment that was a hell of a good run. Fortunately, being Swarovskis they have a great warranty and something like this can be…
Birding In Havana
You get a special stamp on your boarding pass after you go through all the security hoops at the Miami Airport. I'm always excited when I travel but I hadn't had quite the belly doing flip flops feeling for getting to a location since my first trip out of the country to Guatemala. Cuba is something I knew covered only in history classes and locations in movies like the Godfather Part 2. Here I was…
Cuba Birding Trip Planning
Classic cars lined up in Havana. So you found a way to get to Cuba to do some birding! Awesome! Here are some things I learned that you might find helpful. In April I had the opportunity to visit Cuba and this article is about my general impressions. I'll get into more detail for specific areas in future posts. My trip was through Holbrook Travel and it was one of the best trips I ever took. We're…
Game of Thrones Birding
Trujillo Castle. When I was birding in Extremadura this winter I was informed of some filming locations for Game of Thrones season 7. I avoided mentioning any of these because I didn't want to get into spoiler territory. I'm generally ambivalent about spoilers for things, but I have friends who take it very seriously. I'm a big fan of Game of Thrones, the audiobooks got me through many a mile…
Betrayed By My Government Pants
It was the best of times, it was the moistest of times...2016 was a difficult year for me for a variety of reasons. Here's one of them. Warning, this post is quite possibly a little bit TMI. We get a good mix of people at the Big Watch event. One of the things that I love about my job is the opportunity to host a couple of big birding parties throughout the year. One is called the Big Watch which…
Birding Around Homer, Alaska
There is never enough Alaska to be had. I loved exploring Homer so much, I'm already eyeing a tour offered by Zugunruhe Birding to Barrow next year. Semi-palmated plover seen along the Homer Spit. Alaska is one of those states you can't say no to when it comes a callin'. It's so far from the lower 48 states I was the speaker in 2016 for the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival and it was a place I…
Monfragüe National Park, A Vulture Lover's Paradise
Let me tell you about about vultures...and Iberian ham... Birders looking badass as hell climbing up to Monfragüe Castle to do some birding in Monfragüe National Park in Extremadura. I recently visited Extremadura which is in the southwest region of Spain and bordered by Portugal. It's an "autonomous community" meaning that even though it's inside Spain, it governs itself. Extremadura is fairly…