Minnesota Duluth/North Shore

Duluth RBA

Duluth RBA phone number: 218-525-5952

Previous reports: January 20 27 , February 3 10 17 , March 9 19 23 25 30 , April 6 13 .
Other Hotlines: Minnesota Statewide | Detroit Lakes

-RBA
*Minnesota
*Duluth/North Shore
*April 13, 2000
*MNDU0004.13

-Birds mentioned

Harlequin Duck
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Northern Harrier
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Rough-legged Hawk
Golden Eagle
American Kestrel
Merlin
Great Gray Owl
Boreal Owl
Bohemian Waxwing
Snow Bunting
Common Redpoll

-Transcript

Hotline: Minnesota, Duluth/North Shore
Date: April 13, 2000
Sponsor: Minnesota Ornithologists' Union (MOU)
Reports: (218) 525-5952
Compiler: Kim Eckert (kreckert@cp.duluth.mn.us)
Transcriber: Kim Eckert (kreckert@cp.duluth.mn.us)
Re-transcriber: David Cahlander (dac@skypoint.com)

This is the Duluth Birding Report for Thursday, April 13, sponsored by the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union.

Spring migration in Duluth and vicinity continued to be mostly uneventful again this week, but there were a few species of special note reported recently in NE Minn: a pair of HARLEQUIN DUCKS and a calling BOREAL OWL in Cook Co, and a GREAT GRAY OWL seen and heard in the Sax-Zim Bog.

Last weekend Bill Marengo and Esther Gesick of the Twin Cities heard a Boreal Owl calling on territory along the Sawbill Trail, or Cook Co Rd 2, about 16 mi N of Tofte. The exact location was 0.2 mi N of where Forest Rd 170 turns E off the Sawbill. Also last weekend they found a pair of Harlequin Ducks on L Superior at Paradise Beach, which is 13 mi E of Grand Marais. And on the evening of April 6, Dave Benson's birding class located a calling Great Gray Owl along St Louis Co Rd 202, or (appropriately enough) Owl Ave, at the intersection with Co Rd 980; this location is 5 mi N of Meadowlands, or 4.5 mi E and 2 mi S of Toivola.

Even though in a normal year mid-April sees the arrival of several new migrants in Duluth, this week not a single new migrant was reported here. Of course, this has not been a normal year, and this literally may be the first time ever a week in April has passed without any reports of newly arriving species in Duluth. At least there was some migration of species previously seen, primarily hawks passing by Frank Nicoletti's Enger Tower hawk lookout on W Skyline Pkwy. Frank's best day this week was today, the 13th, with a total of 778, and these included: 323 TURKEY VULTURES, 9 NORTHERN HARRIERS, 9 COOPER'S HAWK and 25 AMERICAN KESTRELS -- and these are all record high one-day totals for this site. Also counted today were: 17 OSPREYS, 32 BALD EAGLES, 128 SHARP-SHINNED HAWK, 204 RED-TAILED HAWK, 26 ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK, 1 GOLDEN EAGLE and 1 MERLIN.

Also seen this week in Duluth were a flock of SNOW BUNTINGS last weekend at Park Point, and both BOHEMIAN WAXWINGS and COMMON REDPOLLS which continue to be seen at various locations in Duluth as of today.

The next field trip of Dave Benson's birding class will be on Saturday, April 15, meeting at 8:30 AM at the Endion Station visitors information building in Canal Park. For more information on this class, call Dave at 728-5812, or e-mail him at . Also note that Dave will be updating this Birding Report in my place during the next 3 weeks. And finally, it's not too early to start thinking about our annual St Louis County Big Day and Hawk Ridge Birdathon which will be held on Saturday, May 20. For more information on this important fund-raising activity for the benefit of Hawk Ridge, you can call Terry Wiens at 525-6158, or e-mail him at .

Unless something unusual is seen in the meantime which needs to be reported immediately, the Duluth Birding Report is normally updated once a week on Thursdays, so that the next scheduled update will be on April 20. The phone number is (218) 525-5952, and callers can leave a message if they wish after the tone at the end of the tape. Also note that a message can be left without having to wait for the birding report to end: after the tape starts playing, push 5 on a touch-tone phone, the tape will then stop, the tone will sound and you can leave your message.

The Duluth Birding Report is sponsored and funded by the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union (MOU), the state bird club, as a service to its members. For more information on the MOU, either write us c/o the Bell Museum of Natural History, 10 Church Street S E, Minneapolis MN 55455, or visit the MOU web site at .

From owner-mou-net@biosci.cbs.umn.edu Thu Apr 20 16:05 CDT 2000 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by biosci.cbs.umn.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) id PAA03394 for mou-net-outgoing; Thu, 20 Apr 2000 15:53:59 -0500 (CDT) X-Authentication-Warning: biosci.cbs.umn.edu: majordom set sender to owner-mou-net@biosci.umn.edu using -f X-Sender: drbenson@cpinternet.com (Unverified) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 15:55:19 -0600

[mou] Duluth RBA 4/20/00

Sender: owner-mou-net@biosci.cbs.umn.edu Precedence: bulk Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 2854 Status: O

This is the Duluth Birding Report for Thursday April 20th, sponsored by the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union.

A HARLEQUIN DUCK was reported from the main harbor at Two Harbors on the 15th.

Dan Peterson reported a very early CANADA WARBLER near the junction of McQuade Road and Old North Shore Drive on the 15th. The bird has not been relocated since.

Dan Peterson and Mike Hendrickson saw a LONG-EARED OWL on the 16th at the junction of Three Lakes Road and Munger-Shaw Road north of Duluth.

Don Kienholz reported a SHORT-EARED OWL on the 15th at the junction of Martin and Rice Lake Roads in Duluth.

There was a flood of early migrants this week in Duluth, with thousands of DARK-EYED JUNCOES (Mike Hendrickson reported 800 juncoes in his yard.), GOLDEN-CROWNED and RUBY-CROWNED KINGLETS, along with other species. Several observers reported HERMIT THRUSHES and YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS late last week, and Kim Eckert reported a WINTER WREN on the 15th.

MERLINS are again nesting inside the Duluth city limits. There appear to be nests at 43rd and E. Superior St and in West Duluth near the Junction of Grand Ave. and Summer St.

The Duluth Audubon Society is sponsoring a series of Free Family Birding Hikes on Tuesday evenings beginning Tuesday, April 25th at 6:30 p.m. at Lester Park.

The next field trip of my bird identification class will be on Tuesday, April 25th, meeting at 8:30 AM at the Endion Station visitors information building in Canal Park. There will also be a trip on Thursday, April 27th at 6:00 pm For more information about any of these opportunities, call me, Dave Benson, at 728-5812.

And finally, it's not too early to start thinking about our annual St Louis County Big Day and Hawk Ridge Birdathon which will be held on Saturday, May 20. For more information on this important fund-raising activity for the benefit of Hawk Ridge, call Terry Wiens at 525-6158, or e-mail him at .

Unless something unusual is seen in the meantime which needs to be reported immediately, the Duluth Birding Report is normally updated once a week on Thursdays, so that the next scheduled update will be on April 27th. The phone number is (218) 525-5952, and callers can leave a message if they wish after the tone at the end of the tape. Also note that a message can be left without having to wait for the birding report to end: after the tape starts playing, push 5 on a touch-tone phone, the tape will then stop, the tone will sound and you can leave your message.

Return to Home Page