Adam Birding Conservancy

06/05/2026

The prairie is sizzling with dickcissels! Check them out. If you get to a ten count, make your partner buy you an ice cream cone. But before that, stop at the Blackbird blind to hopefully catch glimpses of the trumpeter swan and wood duck families (the latter two bird pics courtesy of Cory Christensen whose photos are simply fabulous!)

And as they say on Monty Python, for something completely different, note the side scraper flake found on the prairie this week in a frontal and backlit view.

06/01/2026

Steph Foley took these nice Trumpeter photos yesterday. The family may have moved their nest already. Check the blind side of the pond to the west if so.
The rest of the photos are mine...you can tell by the big step down in quality as I was spraying invasives...southern blue flag iris, two turkey nests, red headed woodpecker by the Bark River and a wood duck family.

05/30/2026

05/30/2026

Saw seven swan cygnets swimming Saturday. Blackbird blind; nest behind cattails, roughly one o'clock from center of blind on opposite side of pond. The youngsters have not taken their 'swim in a line' lesson yet, so I couldn't get all in one pic.

Osprey off and on the south pole; spiderwort, purple stemmed angelica and wild indigo also popping up.

05/25/2026

I'm negotiating with Santa, offering him the North Poles at the ABC if he permits osprey on the South Pole. It worked today with a pair of osprey on the new 70ft pole most of the morning.

05/23/2026

Plants, deer, oak rough bulletgall wasps, an artifact and some waterfowl from the ABC for your Memorial Day weekend viewing pleasure.

There were a pair of osprey placing twigs on the new southeast pole last weekend. Sadly, I've not seen them the last few days.

05/16/2026

Thanks to my brother Mike for leading the 7th annual Natural Resources Foundation hike at the ABC this morning. 60 species, including a Henslow Sparrow and a good variety of warblers in the woods. The bobolinks showed up on the hill behind the parking lot after everyone had left but me. Honestly.

Submitted by Mike Adam.

05/13/2026

The impact of the fall drone spraying (and spots that were not sprayed) is evident in the cattails and sandbar willows and makes the yellow-headed blackbirds easy pickins'. A few pics from yesterday's trip and one more swan reflection. Trails have dried out for the most part. Lessor Yellowlegs on the spur by the Bark River.

05/12/2026

Collection of trail cam shots from the last month. Facing east to the Blackbird blind pond.

05/03/2026

The Channel Islands between France and England was the only British territory taken by the Germans in WWII. The island of Jersey has creatively rewilded an area around a former German pillbox that now serves as a bird hide (blind).
These graylag geese are out front of their cousins at the ABC by a few weeks with lots of goslings about. I turned off the audio as at both blinds I frequented, the normally reserved Brit birders were chatting nonstop.