First I'd like to thank those Minnesota birders who responded to my request for information on the Duluth, Sax-Zim area. We birded the area for two and a half days and had a relatively productive time. Not quite what I was hoping for given that reports had been good from the bog, up until about the middle of the month. All three in the group walked away with a life bird which always signals a successful trip. Given that it's been about ten years since I've been up in this area, a number of birds were "new" again to me at least.
Hugely disappointing dips include Great gray owl and Three-toed woodpeckers. I was certain that the woodpecker would be seen by us since they have been reported with such frequency. Black-backed woodpecker was one of the first bird we had even. The owl, I was not holding my breath since they seem to have suddenly disappeared since about the 14th. I'd be interested to hear any theories on the sudden disappearance. Food source running short, weather or early movement returning north? Not having any previous experience on a typical winter in the area, is this a typical series of events? Below I have pasted my eBird lists for the two and a half days birding in the bog. Not included in the lists below are the nothing seen on CR 2 and Spruce Road. We missed Spruce grouse on CR 2 as we arrived a little too late in the morning. Spruce Road was seemingly devoid of bird life suffice for a raven or two. We did not hike all that much (a few hundred yards or so along the snow mobile trail) but there was little sign of woodpecker feeding on the spruce trees. We did have the Harris's sparrow in Two Harbors. Much easier than I expected. The bird was actually feeding on the ground on the south side of 222 4th Ave and then flew to the spruce on the north side of 226. We also tried briefly (time was running short) for the Townsend's solitaire, today, along Lake Walk area between the 12th and 8th vicinity. We dipped on this species but were not able to search exhaustively. Other no shows for the trip, waxwings, crossbills and Boreal chickadee. I have listed relevant locations of sightings in the lists below. If you are interested in reading a slight bit more on our birding foray and viewing some mediocre photos visit www.BirdCapeMay.org and go to "View from the Cape <http://www.birdcapemay.org/blog/>." I will be posting a follow up to the post from yesterday with a couple more photos, maybe to night or in the next few days. Thanks to Derek Morse for the excellent feeding station. I hope it continues to draw excellent bird for birders for the rest of the winter. Already looking forward to my next trip to this area to catch up with those species that have eluded us on this trip. Location: Sax-Zim Bog Observation date: 1/21/08 Notes: Counts include birding all Sax-Zim Bog area Number of species: 22 Ruffed Grouse 1- seen at dusk along Owl Ave. Bald Eagle 2- sitting back off Rt 133 between 7 and 53 Rock Pigeon 3 Northern Hawk Owl 1- the very distant bird previously reported just north of the Zim Sod building Downy Woodpecker 4 Hairy Woodpecker 1 Black-backed Woodpecker 1- about .4 mi. on Blue Spruce as previously reported Pileated Woodpecker 1- near the feeding station on Blue Spruce Northern Shrike 3 Gray Jay 2- Two popped up on west side of McDavitt while looking for woodpeckers Blue Jay 1 American Crow 6 Common Raven 30 Black-capped Chickadee 35 Red-breasted Nuthatch 1 White-breasted Nuthatch 3 Snow Bunting 145- large flock of about 100 birds along the RR tracks along 7 Pine Grosbeak 12 Common Redpoll 35 Hoary Redpoll 1- (male) Blue Spruce Evening Grosbeak 3 House Sparrow 15 Location: 222 4th Ave.- Two Harbors Observation date: 1/22/08 Number of species: 4 Black-capped Chickadee 2 Harris's Sparrow 1 Dark-eyed Junco 2 Northern Cardinal 1 Location: Sax-Zim Bog Observation date: 1/22/08 Number of species: 12 Ruffed Grouse 1- seen in late afternoon along east side of Blue Spruce almost across from the logging area Barred Owl 1- at dusk about half way down on west side of Stickney Rd. Downy Woodpecker 1 Hairy Woodpecker 2 Northern Shrike 1 Black-billed Magpie 2- just east of intersection of McDavitt and Kolu Rd (along Kolu) American Crow 1 Common Raven 15 Black-capped Chickadee 8 Red-breasted Nuthatch 2 European Starling 1 Common Redpoll 2 Blue Spruce feeding station completely devoid of birds in the late afternoon. Location: Sax-Zim Bog Observation date: 1/23/08 Number of species: 16 Rock Pigeon 1 Downy Woodpecker 1 Hairy Woodpecker 2 Pileated Woodpecker 1- Flying across the road north of Lake Nichols Rd. Gray Jay 3- (maybe four) in the vicinity of the Blue Spruce feeding station.There was actually a good amount of avian activity at the house just north of the feeding station. Two of the jays were first observed here. Two jays also under the spruce trees near the feeding station and seed donation box. Blue Jay 4 Common Raven 25 Black-capped Chickadee 20 Red-breasted Nuthatch 2 White-breasted Nuthatch 1 Snow Bunting 2 Pine Grosbeak 8 Common Redpoll 35 Hoary Redpoll 1- (male) Blue Spruce Evening Grosbeak 8 House Sparrow 1 This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org) -- Jason Guerard Sales Manager New Jersey Audubon Society Cape May Bird Observatory Northwood Center 701 E. Lake Drive, P.O. Box 3 Cape May Point, NJ USA 08212-003 Ph: 609-884-2736 Fx: 609-884-6052 www.birdcapemay.org www.njaudubon.org www.featheredgeoptics.org Take A Kid Birding(R) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20080123/9ed55b56/attachment-0001.html
