[mou] Birding Sat & Sunday

[Michael Hendrickson]

The last two days with John Baker of Illinois.

Sat: 1/5/08

Lake County 

NO BIRDS!  Well except 4 ravens but no birds. 

Duluth:

-Bohemian Waxwings There were about 75 birds feeding behind Homecroft School. The school is located at the intersection of East Calvary Rd and Howard Gnesen Rd.

Sunday: 1/6/08

Aitkin County

Barred Owl at 7:40am one mile north of Palisade on Co. Rd 5.

NO Great Gray Owls on Co. Rd 18

St. Louis County - Sax Zim Bog

- Great Gray Owl 1.3 miles east of Co. Rd 7 on Nichols Lake Rd ( Co. Rd 232 ). This owl was briefly seen at 11:55am on a sunny day!!

Highlights for the trip  1/3 - 1/6

-Great Gray Owl
-Northern Hawk Owl
-Barred Owl
-Sharp-tailed Grouse
-Am. Three-toed Woodpeckers
-Black-backed Woodpeckers
-Gray Jay
-Boreal Chickadees
-Common Redpoll
-Hoary Redpoll
-Pine Grosbeak
-Evening Grosbeak
-Northern Shrikes
-Snow Buntings
-Bohemian Waxwings
-Glaucous Gulls
-Iceland Gulls
* John saw a dark mantle gull on 1/3 at the Wis. Landfill and it might of been the Slaty-backed Gull. I did no see it among the 900+ gulls that were in the air when a eagle spooked them.

Lake County was extremely quiet and if you make a trip up there - beware! LOL

I put on about 500 miles or so of driving around and overall the birding is really slow! I saw three flocks of Redpolls away from the Blue Spruce Rd feeders! I saw very little Pine Grosbeaks away from feeders. No Crossbills!  The owls are extremely difficult to find!  I made 6 passes for the Northern Hawk Owl and finally found it on pass #3 on the second day!  We made at least 8 passes for the Great Gray Owl on the Nichols Lake Rd during the 3 days of birding and finally saw it by extreme luck!  We searched for the Great Gray Owl on Co. Rd 47  3 times and saw zip!  Made 2 passes for Great Grays Owl on the Hedbom Logging Rd and saw zip!  We saw woodpeckers only on one day and on other days in areas of where there were signs we heard nothing. I also heard no one has yet reported the Snowy Owl in the Duluth Harbor and the Snowy Owl at the intersection of Co. Rd 18 and Co. Rd 5 in Aitkin Co. was not refound as well.

So overall the birding up here is very difficult and challenging.


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


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