On my way home from viewing tundra swans near Brownsville, MN I stopped at Hok-Si-La park in Lake City, MN. Hok-Si-La is a great place to go birding in late fall and early winter, especially before Lake Pepin freezes up. On this visit I saw many of the normal birds that we see during the winter in southern Minnesota. I saw white-breasted nuthatch, chickadees and dark-eyed juncos.
With a lot of dead wood left to naturally decay in the park you can always find a few woodpeckers hanging around also. I saw downy and hairy woodpeckers and their was also a pileated woodpecker that has been hanging around so far this season.
Unfortunately this was the closest shot that I could get of the pileated. He was very skittish and each time that I would get in range to take a shot he would take off to a new tree. Its a good thing that it is not usually necessary to see a pileated to know where he may have flown. With their distinctive call and the thunderous pounding that they give the trees all that you have to do is look with your ears. I also found a red-bellied woodpecker and he was a lot more cooperative.
While I was busy shooting juncos he flew into a bush close by and began to feast on berries. After a few berries, and some acrobatic moves, he finished desert and headed back to the large deciduous trees prolly in search of more protein.
The big draw of Hok-Si-La, at this time of year, are the eagles. Right after I parked and headed down my first trail I spotted an eagle perched on a branch overhanging the lake.
Since eagles in the wild can spend around 80% of their time perched on a branch surveying all of the life below them I decided not to hang around. I figured that I would go check out the nest that I found a few weeks earlier. When I arrived at a location that I could see the nest it did not appear as though anyone was home. But as I followed the path around an eagle popped his head up out of the nest.
A few minutes later, to my surprise, a second eagle took off out of the nest. It goes to show you just how big that the nests are. Two eagles can sit low enough in the nest that neither can be seen from the ground. At the
National Eagle Center in Wabasha, MN they have a picture of a bear hibernating in an eagles nest on the upper peninsula of Michigan. I stayed with the nest and took a few more pictures of the bird that remained including this one showing the nictitating membrane.
The nictitating membrane is like a partially transparent second eye lid. It is common on birds as well as sharks, some reptiles and even a few mammal species. The purpose of the nictitating membrane is to protect the eye and keep it moist while at the same time allowing the bird to continue to be able to see. Eagles are very dependent on thier sight.
It was getting late and I was having some issues with my breaks, they told me at the dealership that they would need to be replaced soon, so I headed off home a bit early. On the way back I stopped at the rest stop at the north end of Lake City to use the facilities. This rest stop is one of the nicest rest stops that you can find any where in the US. It has modern facilities, it's always clean and well kept and it has a killer view of Lake Pepin. 
If you are lucky you can also find eagles perched in, or flying around, the large trees that line the shore. This immature was one of a group of six that was visiting the rest stop at the same time as I was. Where else can you find a rest stop with eagle facilities?
Chipping sparrows were fairly numerous around the park. The top picture was taken on the bank of the Madison River on a snowing Wednesday morning.
Earlier in the week we photographed a chipping sparrow in the same area only the weather was a bit better.
We also saw some white-crowned sparrows. This one was watching me from his perch on the Blacktail Deer Plateau. Although white-crowned sparrows do not usually spend a great deal of time around home they do pass through the state in the spring, on their way up to their Arctic breeding grounds, and in the fall, on their way back to the southern US and Mexico where they winter.
Even though I have photographed white-crowned sparrows in Minnesota before this was the first white-crowned sparrow that I ever photographed on bison dung. EWWWWWWWW!
In Minnesota we also get red-breasted nuthatch like the one above, although the white-breasted nuthatch is much more common in Minnesota. I found this bird in the woods on the shore of the mostly frozen Lake Yellowstone.
We saw quite a few of these birds through out the park. At first I did not know what type of bird that it was. Although it did not look like any of the birds that I had seen around home it was in fact a bird that is very common in northern Minnesota in the summer and the southern part of the state in the winter.
I found out that this is a dark-eyed junco. Dark-eyed junco are a lot like red-tailed hawks, in that they have a number of variations that occur, depending on what part of the hemisphere that they live in. In Yellowstone the dark-eyed junco are of the pink-sided variety. In Minnesota we mostly see the slate-colored variety, which tend to be darker and have grey, slate, colored sides instead of pink like the ones above. There is also an Oregon variety, which looks like the slate-colored type except they have a darker head, and the white-winged variety, that look like the slate-colored type with white wing bars. 
Black-capped chickadee
Black-capped chickadee mooning me.
An American crow getting a leg up on the competition.
A downy woodpecker instead of the black-backed or three-toed woodpecker that I was hoping for.
White-breasted nuthatch. With the holidays coming up I will try and work on getting caught up.
Every once and a while a different type of raptor would fly by like a harrier, eagle or turkey vulture.
How cool it is to hold a bird like this in your hands? I wish I would have had an opportunity like this when I was a boy. The smile on his face says it all. I did not need any more persuading. It is easy to adopt a bird at Hawk Ridge all that it takes is a donation, which is used to support banding and educational programs at the ridge. Adoptions start at $20 for sharpies and go up to $200 for eagles and gyrfalcons. I gave them $100 and asked for the next bird that they had no matter what the type, although if they got an eagle I would have had to add another $100.
She was trash talking and even went after the handlers fingers while she was doing a short educational talk about sharpies.
I loved her spirit and even though I had donated more then the $20 required for a sharpie I was happy to adopt this bird.
So I released her and as soon as I 
If you are ever in the area in the fall I would 
Since it was already early evening it looked like the Marshland Center building was closed but since I was already parked I decided to take a look around the grounds. I started by going around the south part of the building. In the back was a small patio surrounded by bushes filled with black berries. I sat and waited a few minutes and soon a few yellow-rumped warblers showed up to feast on the fruit.
After watching the warblers for a few minutes I continued down the path, that ran along that side of the building, and I spotted a dainty 
The path led down to the St 
On my way back to the car I decided to take the path that went along the north side of the building. The first thing I spotted were several dark-eyed juncos 
A short while later I found a chipping sparrow that was willing to give me a great shot also. At least I think he is a chipping sparrow. It is still hard for me to ID sparrows in their fall plumage.
The last bird that I got a shot of was one that I heard before I saw him. I am not very good about identifying bird songs but the gray catbird is an easy one. It took a few minutes but I finally found a couple of them in the low brush and got a pic.
I was a bit confused by the eyes, which according to the field guides and pictures of other catbirds that I have taken in the past are usually dark. Maybe it was just the way that the light was hitting it. Usually you don't get the luxury of shooting