Joan and I birded the Sax-Zim Bog in Northern MN last Monday and Tuesday (we visited my daughter the rest of the week). We picked a rather bad time to go up, but still had some good sightings. The weather Monday was cold, but no real snow cover. Tuesday had some snow. Birds were not active at the feeding sites as much as normal. Monday afternoon and Tuesday all day the county decided to work on all those 1 1/2 lane back roads. So we had road graders working and 7 large dump trucks with huge side snow blades seemingly running everywhere. When you stopped to look at something, it seemed at least 3 trucks would roar by. On top of that, the county decided to clean the brush off the roads and had 3 trucks, machines and 7 workers working on Admiral Rd near one of the best feeders. So all that detracted a little from the experience. Photo oportunities were not the best, but did get some beautiful Boreal Chickadees. Here is a link if you would like to look: http://larryd.smugmug.com/Nature/Birds/Up-North-Birds-2012-January/21137680_tKtgzG#!i=1681614921&k=pzrQtvW
We had some good birds listed below with locations: White-winged Crossbills - Most common bird, flocks everywhere including getting grit from roads Pine Grosbeaks - 20+ - 1 at Admiral Rd Feeder, Several at Little White Face feeder Evening Grosbeak - 1 at Little White Face feeder Red-breasted Nuthatch - everywhere Boreal Chickadee - At least 2 at Admiral Rd feeder Canada Gray Jay- 2 at Admiral Rd feeder and 2 or 3 along the roads Common Red Polls - 1 at Admiral Rd feeder and 20+ at Little White Face feeder Rough-legged Hawk - 7 All through the area No good Owls Several nice mammal sightings including a lone Wolf half way between the town Cotton and Zim Rd on Hwy 7. A Porcupine on McDavitt Rd and a beautiful (but dead) Bobcat being picked off the side of I35 north of Hinkcley. Larry Dau Boone Ia --- Please contribute your sightings to our list; it is only as good as members make it! --- Birding channel recommendation for FRS/GMRS radio use: Primary selection; channel 5/0 , alternate selection; channel 6/0 --- This mailing list is sponsored by the Iowa Ornithologists' Union. Membership available on-line at http://www.iowabirds.org/iou/PayDues.aspx. ----- You are currently subscribed to ia-bird as: [email protected]
