Spring Pond and Waterfall Start-ups in Minnesota Put on Hold!

Birds Feeding by water feature

One thing I LOVE about birding is that no matter what the weather – birding is almost always enjoyable.  When the warm sun is shining in the sky you can get lost in a woods for hours.  Then when an ice/snow storm arrives in Minnesota the bird feeders are rocking!

The Spring of 2013 has shown to be an interesting one for pond ownership and birding.  Last year at this time we were already on our third week of Spring pond cleanings and start-ups in Minnesota.  This year we have not been able to start a single customers water feature.  We are itching to get out there!

Song Sparrow at with Juncos

While we wait – why not make the best of Spring snow storm by recording all kinds of exciting birds.  The cooler temperatures and northern snow pack have left many birds “stacked up” while they wait to push on further north.  There is a large overlap of birds that come to Southern Minnesota in the winter and birds that come to Southern Minnesota for the Summer.  This has created an abundance of species and many of them you would not normally see side by side.

Red-winged Blackbird comes to feeders

On April 10th 2013 a major storm system moved into southern Minnesota.  We noticed the outside feeders were being heavily used by ground feeding juncos and sparrows.  After spreading out more white millet, cracked corn and black-oil sunflower seed the news seemed to spread around the bird world fast.

On April 11th about 2 inches of snow along with ice had fallen and the birds from the 10th were back.  The large bird activity seemed to create a vortex that attracted double the amount of birds from what was seen on the 10th.  We shot this short video of the action: