Annie and the stink bug

It was a draw.

We've relocated

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107013362562471418011.00047964b60d16d130156&ll=39.708243,-105.136414&spn=0.594795,1.778412&z=10

Now we’re at Jefferson County Fairgrounds. We’ve been at Chatfield State Park, but couldn’t get a reservation for the Labor Day Weekend. We had to move out for three days.

The Fairgrounds are not quite the same as the State Parks. That’s us in the back.

Monday we get to move back to Chatfield.

Along the way

Annie

August

 

Even though we roam the country, I still have a day-job, so there is a limited amount of time available for birding.  I walk an hour every day.  I take my binoculars with me and pay attention to the birds I see.  Once in a while we make a birding excursion, but mostly, our monthly bird lists are the result of 30 hours of walking.

 

The bird list for August.  Six states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, and Colorado.  107 birds.  2 lifers: White-winged Scoter and Purple Finch.

 

Canada Goose

Wood Duck

Mallard

Blue-winged Teal

Ring-necked Duck

White-winged Scoter

Common Merganser

Ruffed Grouse

Wild Turkey

Common Loon

Pied-billed Grebe

American White Pelican

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

Snowy Egret

Green Heron

Black-crowned Night-Heron

Turkey Vulture

Osprey

Bald Eagle

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Cooper's Hawk

Broad-winged Hawk

Swainson's Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

American Kestrel

Merlin

Peregrine Falcon

American Coot

Sandhill Crane

Killdeer

Spotted Sandpiper

Franklin's Gull

Ring-billed Gull

Herring Gull

Black Tern

Rock Pigeon

Eurasian Collared-Dove

Mourning Dove

Common Nighthawk

Chimney Swift

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Black-chinned Hummingbird

Broad-tailed Hummingbird

Belted Kingfisher

Red-headed Woodpecker

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Downy Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Pileated Woodpecker

Western Wood-Pewee

Eastern Wood-Pewee

Eastern Phoebe

Say's Phoebe

Western Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Warbling Vireo

Red-eyed Vireo

Blue Jay

Black-billed Magpie

American Crow

Common Raven

Tree Swallow

Barn Swallow

Black-capped Chickadee

Red-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

Marsh Wren

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Eastern Bluebird

American Robin

Gray Catbird

European Starling

Cedar Waxwing

Golden-winged Warbler

Tennessee Warbler

Nashville Warbler

Yellow Warbler

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Magnolia Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Black-throated Green Warbler

Yellow-throated Warbler

Black-and-white Warbler

American Redstart

Common Yellowthroat

Chipping Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow

Lark Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Grasshopper Sparrow

Song Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Northern Cardinal

Red-winged Blackbird

Western Meadowlark

Common Grackle

Brown-headed Cowbird

Orchard Oriole

Baltimore Oriole

Purple Finch

House Finch

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow

 

So far we’ve gotten at least one life-bird in every month this year, except June.

 

 

Who knew?

 

Our Allison transmission has 6 gears.  I always took that at face value.  Our Aladdin system has a digital display that shows what gear the transmission is in.  I can watch it shift from 1 through 6.  There is a letter that follows every gear; the letter “L”.  I took that to mean “Low”, and that maybe some heavier duty version of the transmission, for a bigger rig or maybe a semi truck-tractor, has a “High” range to go with the Low range.  But driving on a slow steep winding road to a campground, when first gear wasn’t quite getting it, I noticed that the transmission downshifted.  It downshifted from 1^st gear Low, to…. …what?  I switched over to the digital display to watch while I messed with hills and gears and figured out that there are two more gears than I knew about.  There is 1^st gear “C” and 2^nd gear “C”.  If terminology I remember from my youth still applies, that would be a compound low for first gear and second gear.  Our six speed transmission has eight different gears.

 

Who knew?

 

 

Colorado

Now we’re at Chatfield State Park, near Matt.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=107013362562471418011.00047964b60d16d130156&ll=39.738874,-105.015564&spn=1.189047,3.556824&z=9

Loons

 

One of the reasons we were up in the Great North Woods was to hear the loons calling.  Here is a link to a terrible video, we were in a canoe, but we got the audio of at least 8 Common Loons all having a conversation with each other at once.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz88vhZrGLI