Crow looking at LynnThe hearing before 3 judges in the Judicial Building went well, our attorneys said. We’ll get the final verdict on that within 90 days.
GrackleNext door to the Judicial Building is the Minnesota Department of Health where epidemiologists are providing information for the Ecology Hall tick exhibit. We’re bragging on good information from our local health clinic, the Minnesota Department of Health, and the National Center for Disease Control, that the Ely area is a safe area in regard to ticks. The black-legged ticks (deer ticks) that spread Lyme disease are not established here. The fairly harmless dog ticks that spread disease in some parts of the country are common but safe here. No one can recall a case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever or Tularemia within 65 miles of here. We talked about ecological reasons that may explain it, which we’ll have in the Northwoods Ecology Hall.
American RobinNext stop was Artworks where they are printing pictures 23 inches tall and up to 8 feet long for the upper walls of the Ecology Hall. They are coming out beautiful. We gave approval, and they are now mounting them on hardboard.
Robin in crabapple treeA dentist appointment got me out of the office and away from the computer at a good time on this sunny beautiful day. On the way to Ely, a turkey vulture gave me a chance to snap a picture for the exhibit “In Admiration of Turkey Vultures.”
In town, a crabapple tree in a yard near home had 29 robins eating in it and under it. I had to snap a couple pictures. I had never really paid attention before to how robins react to things around them. They quickly got used to a parked vehicle with a camera looking at them but flew when a man walked by with his dog across the street. 
Common Merganser MalesThey also flew at the first glimpse of the neighbor letting her 3 poodles out. The male robins had their beautiful bright breeding feathers while the females were demurely drab.
At the Bear Center, the huge aquarium that Director Scott Edgett ordered is sitting next to the platform built for it. Out the viewing window, Holly was playing with her tub, and Lucky was eating new blades of grass.
Turkey VultureA detour past Eagles Nest Lake on the way back revealed that loons are back, that a group of common merganser males were without mates, and that the rock island was beautiful in the afternoon light.
At WRI, the one habituated crow kept an eye on me as he ate outside the window by my desk. The first grackle of the year landed. Both crows and grackles look black at a distance, but grackles turn into beautiful purple and bronze birds in good light.
Island in the afternoon sunI learned that Senator Matt Schmitt, author of SF1303, plans to let the bill go through with the ban on bear-feeding in it and let the House and Senate battle it out in conference at the end. The bear-feeding language is out of the House version, and the two versions have to read the same at the end. A supportive article in a Twin Cities newspaper is at http://www.northernwilds.com/pages/Explore/perich/points-north-when-big-brother-comes-to-call.shtml
Thank for all you are doing on this, and it was great to be surrounded by Lily Fans at the appeal hearing yesterday.
Thank you for all you do.
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
All photos taken today unless otherwise noted.