Bird Walk at Koinonia

This morning I took a walk just before the sun had come up fully. These are some iris in front of the main building. I had hoped to see some birds and had taken my binoculars, but despite hearing many birds, I did not see a single one. Little did I know that I would have another chance - and a chance to see birds with the experts.



There are two other groups here at Koinonia with us - one is a group of Unitarians and another is a group of Methodists who had come to do some birding. They were being lead by Bob Janssen, who has written many of the most important birding books for the state of Minnesota! We were accompanied by a woman who introduced us to the local plants - so for me it was pure heaven!

Here are some of the sights we were fortunate enough to see. This is a wild gooseberry that we saw early in our walk.



This is Basswood a common tree for our area.



The yellow highlighting on this maple fascinated me.



Bob Janssen stands in front of a blooming pitcher plant.



This is the back of the retreat center.



Here is a closer shot of the pitcher plant.



This phoebe was sitting on the wren houses in the back yard of the Koinonia retreat center.



We were all curious about this tiny little white flower that turned out to be a Grove Sandwort.





This is the loon we saw at the end: