February 13-15th, 2015 ~ Sax Zim Bog Birding Festival, Minnesota

I’ve been leading trips the last couple of winters to the Sax Zim Bog in northern Minnesota, and they have been some of my most successful outings, hauling in great experiences with northern owls for small groups of people. But this year, I had the chance to lead tours for the Sax Zim Birding Festival, and my gosh it was an absolute hoot! It is a great festival in a great location; any day in those frigid spruce lands is a real treat, but I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to get so many people on some great northern birds!

I was pleased to have a well-rounded schedule for the weekend. Each day I got a lead a tour in a different location and first up was my morning tour in the Bog itself. It was cold start- as always the Sax Zim is some of the coldest birding I do all year. But right off the bat we nabbed a Northern Goshawk (the only one of the weekend!) and it was barely an hour later that we were enjoying amazing looks at a Great Gray Owl! This profound creature was very cooperative and we got some great pictures, but decided to move along before too long to give the owl a chance to feed before the predicted winds and snow kicked up. The rest of the afternoon, while brisk, was productive with great looks at Boreal Chickadee, Evening Grosbeak, Gray Jay and Black-billed Magpie!

The next morning was the Duluth/Superior Wisconsin tour. Perhaps the coldest morning yet, that didn’t stop us from finding several Snowy Owls within the first hour of the tour. We stumbled by not being able to locate a Gyrfalcon that had recently set up shop along the industrial shipyards of Superior, but a very rare-to-Minnesota Common Eider was attempting to overwinter in the Park Canal of Duluth. Hard to complain about the cold when having point-blank views of this robust sea duck that normally spends it’s winters in the Bering Sea! The afternoon did not produce a staked-out Harlequin Duck, but two different Northern Hawk Owls was more than enough to keep smiles on a bunch of happy birders all the way back to the banquet hall. That night Greg Miller (of the Big Year lore and fame) presented his talk, that of an ordinary birder on an extraordinary journey. Greg didn’t use slides or a powerpoint; he just told his tale and I hung on to every word. I do love a good story!

The next morning, Greg co-led the trip up to Lake County on the edge of the legendary Boundary Waters and our target was to see if we could locate an early morning Spruce Grouse gritting on the remote highways at dawn. It took a few passes, but sure enough I spotted a group of four males up ahead! Like all “Fool Hens”, they were tame and everyone got their fill of photos. Having a gang of Boreal Chickadees and Red Crossbills around just sweetened the morning that much more. We tooled around that afternoon, trying for various finches. Sadly a Hoary Redpoll could not be found, but a rare wintertime record of a Red-winged Blackbird was hunkered at a feeder in Ely and we ended our day with a huge flock of Bohemian Waxwings feasting on berries.

It was a great weekend, and somewhat of a rare treat to hang out with so many birdy folk for a few days in a row. Hopefully I will make the Sax Zim fest again next winter, it is certainly worth the effort and the cold! Oh and lucky me, as I drove home back to the UP, I made one more stab for the Gyrfalcon and all though brief, was rewarded with a look at one of the coolest avian predators there ever was!

June 23rd, 2014 ~ Peshekee River Grade, Marquette County

A nice opportunity to guide popped up recently and I was able to take someone up the Peshekee Grade this week. This was great because I was able to get some field time in one of my favorite birding spots, and in the last few years, it’s  tended to be a winter birding run for me. This was a great reminder that summer birding the Peshekee is awesome! The place is a breeding bird factory. This healthy watershed has some high octane (and at least for Michigan, high elevation) boreal birding. There is extensive spruce forest as well as patches of pine forest, northern hardwoods, grassy creek marshes and Canadian Shield lakes.

I’m always struck by how birdy the Peshekee is during the breeding season. I was really impressed by the number of Winter Wrens we heard; this species has seemed real scarce to me elsewhere this summer, I have been wondering if Winter Wrens had been caught in one of the many late season snow/cold snaps we had this spring and many didn’t make it. This does not seem to be an issues up the Peshekee. Its possible that the snow melted so late up there that many wrens simply didn’t try setting up territory later then normal this year. Also heard in high numbers were a personal favorite of mine- Blue-headed Vireo. There were at least 20+ of these sublime birds whistling up the Peshekee canyon all morning long.

Warblers were plentiful, and we tallied in 16 species here, including a shocking 19+ Cape May Warblers. These handsome tigers can often be found up the Peshekee, but this may the most I’ve recorded in a morning. I’ve had a few scattered across the rest of the UP this summer, but this was delightful.

However, the main target as always when going up the Peshekee are Gray Jays and Boreal Chickadees. Both these species can be a bit tricky in the summer, and seem to be quite stealthy this time of year. But fortune smiled on us and we encountered 4 Boreal Chickadees in three spots, a series of exciting June finds! Equally exciting was a robust family group of Gray Jays with five young! The young jays were quite noisy and chattery as they explored the spruce bog, learning the lay of the land and begging from the adults. A single adult jay was seen lower down the canyon as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Mid-June update, 2014 ~ Wolves, warblers and whining

So… many… mosquitoes!!!

I must admit, the bugs have been a little much this year… I’m going a little crazy from the constant whining hum of those blood-draining hordes hovering in my ear all day long. But my trusty headnet has not yet let me down and provides another year of excellent service. I hope I can keep it alive for another decade!

I’ve been doing a lot of work in the eastern UP this year, a combination of point counts in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, surveys for the Nature Conservancy and private guiding gigs- its been a busy few weeks! Here are a few pictorial highlights of late.

Wolf on 23 Jun in Pictured Rock NL

 

 

 

 

 

Kirtland’s Warbler on 10 Jun near Sawyer, Marquette County

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ram’s Head Orchid in Pictured Rocks NL

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spruce Grouse in Tahquamenon Falls State Park

 

 

 

 

Silver-bordered Fritillary, Marquette County

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUPER OWL SUNDAY at the SAX ZIM BOG, MN ~ Jan 31st-Feb 2nd. 

 

Only twenty-nine species! It is a pretty short list for almost three full days of birding, but considering what species were seen, Michigan Audubon’s first tour to the Sax Zim Bog in Minnesota was an obvious success! The Sax Zim Bog has gained a lot of notoriety in the last few years for being an excellent spot to see wintering boreal species, including some of North America’s most haunting species- the northern owls. Species that normally take up space on birder’s “Top ten most wanted” lists are seen near annually here at the Sax Zim.

We first pulled into the Sax Zim Bog a little after sunrise Friday morning to an impressive temperature of negative 27 Fahrenheit! But the game was afoot, and we were immediately greeted by a flock of Gray Jays. These cheery birds were all a twitter-pated, with their very early breeding season set to begin late this month, they were quite vocal and animated and spent more time chasing each other rather than eating the peanut butter at the roadside feeding station they were clustered around. These feeders are also a great spot for Boreal Chickadee, though we would not get good looks at this enigmatic bird till the second day of the tour. We were pleased to find a Snowy Owl by mid-morning, and a couple hours later had some fantastic looks at a Northern Hawk Owl that had taken up a winter-time residence on a road appropriately titled Owl Avenue. Our afternoon efforts also yielded a few small flocks of Pine Grosbeaks, this beautiful, but unpredictable irruptive species was in short supply compared to recent winters. It was a good first day, cold yes, but the clear skies and lack of wind made for an enjoyable time and the sunset over the peatlands was glorious.

If our first day out was good, our second day could only be described as fantastic! For a great day in birding, location is only half the mix; timing is just as crucial. And on this snowy morning in the Sax Zim, we were lucky to be there on a day when Great Gray Owls were literally falling out of the trees (on to unsuspecting voles…). It was pretty special. There were a few birding groups working the bog that morning and we all stayed in touch with one another. With so many eyes looking, every so often, someone would call in another sighting of a Great Gray Owl! It was a little hard to sort out how many Great Grays we saw that day (I know problems right?!), but at the end of the day, we felt that we had seen six different birds over seven sightings.  But the fun wasn’t just restricted to the Great Grays, we saw again both Snowy and Northern Hawk Owls, and added a few new trip birds like Snow Bunting, Evening Grosbeak and a calling Black-billed Magpie from within a tamarack swamp. Though as amazing as the Great Grays were, there was one sighting that I deemed the “bird of the day”. While it might not of had feathers, our extended look at a Gray Wolf slowly trotting down some train tracks in a fluffy-flaked snow shower was the crown jewel of the trip.

For our final morning out, we felt pretty satiated by the bog and decided to do something different and head up the North Shore along Lake Superior. It being Super Owl Sunday, we of course needed to start the day out right and made stops on the outer edge of Duluth where staked-out Snowy and Northern Hawk Owls were waiting for us on arrival. It never does get old looking at birds that cool! We meandered up the shore, it was quiet bird-wise, but the Minnesota coastline is some of the prettiest in the whole country. Tall granitic rock plunges down into Lake Superior, amidst a snowy forest of birch, pine and volumpicious Mountain Ash- it really is stunning country! Most of the lake was iced over, but in some of the open patches of water we had Red-breasted Merganser and Long-tailed Ducks. And yes, we did have one more superb owl sighting; along Highway 61 (yes, Bob Dylan’s Highway 61), we had our 7^th and final Great Gray Owl of the trip hunting in  grove of Paper Birch, a stunning visual against a blue sky. I do love a good encore!

 

 

 

The trip list:

Long-tailed Duck, Red-breasted Merganser, Ruffed Grouse, Bald Eagle, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Rock Pigeon, Mourning Dove, Snowy Owl, Northern Hawk Owl, Great Gray Owl, Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Pileated Woodpecker, Northern Shrike, Gray Jay, Blue Jay, Black-billed Magpie, American Crow, Common Raven, Black-capped Chickadee, Boreal Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, White-breasted Nuthatch, European Starling, Snow Bunting, Pine Grosbeak, American Goldfinch, Evening Grosbeak.