[Mnbird] Nesting Season, Dakota Co

[Miller Johnson]

I'm excited to announce that one of the Black-capped Chickadee families nesting on our property safely fledged yesterday! I first saw them excavating a hole in a really dead stump on March 3rd. A second pair started excavations in a different area on March 7, but abandoned that site; a third pair, which I first noticed excavating on March 18, is still feeding nestlings; a fourth pair is currently building a nest in a nest box.

Meanwhile, the Hairy, Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers are all feeding nestlings. A second Downy pair is taking suet north towards our neighbor's property, so we should have some fun times coming up as the kids start to come to our feeders, too.

The Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are weirdly behind everyone else. I first noticed their hole on March 23rd, but they dilly-dallied until much later. They didn't do much excavating until the beginning of May, but it appears they are finally incubating eggs. They seem to be on schedule for themselves based on the three YBSA nests I've watched over the last two years, all of which did their most rigorous excavating starting in May, but compared to the timing of the others, they seem late.

The House Finches have started bringing their noisy, "devil-horned" fledglings to the feeders.

The White-breasted Nuthatches were thrown out of their nest knot-hole by a gray squirrel, and I haven't found their new nest site. I believe it's over in the east neighbor's woods.

Sadly, the Northern Flickers and Pileated Woodpeckers we had coming to our feeders all winter abandoned us. Hopefully they found great places to nest and will visit again this winter. They really do make winter bird-watching more enjoyable.

Molly Miller
Inver Grove Hts
Dakota Co