[mou] St. Louis Co. Spruce Grouse + More

[Michael Hendrickson]

I finally added Spruce Grouse to my St. Louis County bird list!!

Details on spot 1.

-Drive north on Hwy 53 to the town of Cook, Minnesota.
-Drive another 7-8 miles north of Cook on Hwy 53 to Hwy 73.
-Take a left (south) on Hwy 73 and drive for roughly 5 miles or so.
-Take a right on the Olson Road.
-Take a left on the Chisholm Road
-Drive north on the Chisholm Road for 2.0 miles

* Saw a male and a female Spruce Grouse gritting on the road.

Details on spot 2.

-get back on Hwy 73 and head south from the Olson Rd intersection.
-Head south on Hwy 73 to the Lind Road.
-take a right turn on the Lind Road.

* Saw a female Spruce Grouse gritting on the Lind road no more than 60 yards from Hwy 73.

** What I like about these spots is that there is no worries about logging trucks or commuters flushing the grouse off the roads. These roads are very quiet roads in the early morning hours.

We left Days Inn in Duluth at 6:00am and arrived at the first grouse spot at 7:45am and arrived at the second grouse spot at 8:30am

To get back to Sax Zim Bog:
-Take Hwy 73 through Chisholm and Hibbing.
-After driving south of Hibbing for about 9 miles take a left (east) on the South Townline Rd (Co. Rd 442)
-South Townline goes through some great Black Spruce Bogs and some farm lands. County Road 442 is 10 miles long and has a lot of potential for owls and other Minn.specialties.
-S. Townline Rd comes out to Co. Rd 5
-Take a right (south) on Co. Rd 5 to Toivola
-Take a left on Arkola Rd (Co. Rd 52) and head east.
-Arkola Rd will take you right back into Sax Zim Bog.

>From the Lind Rd/ Hwy 73 to Owl Ave/Arkola Rd is roughly a an hour drive.

* Saw the Northern Hawk Owl on Co. Rd 7 / Zim Sod Farm area. Still hanging around in those lines of snags just north of the sod farm and on the west side of 7.

* Put up the large suet feeder on the Arkola Rd at diversion canal spot on Arkola Rd. The back hoe is gone but its very ovious where they are digging out the ditch.  The feeder is on the south side of Arkola near the road and along the south ditch.

Wisconsin Landfill:

My group along with Chris Woods and WINGS were joined with Peder Svingen at the landfill. Peder located the Slaty backed Gull at the landfill and by the time the two groups arrived the gull was no longer at the landfill.

We did see some Glaucous Gulls and a Thayer's Gull.

Tomorrow were in Tamarack and then back at the landfill to relocate the gull.

Mike Hendrickson

 
Mike Hendrickson
Duluth, Minnesota
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/mmhendrickson/
Blog: http://colderbythelakebirding.blogspot.com/


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