Jeff Stephenson, Chuck Krulas and I birded the Stony River Road and Whyte Road north of Two Harbors this morning. We got there right at dawn and didn't see any birds at all until Jeff spotted a Great Gray Owl fly across the road and perch. It was located on Whyte Road 2.5 miles east of the Stony River Road. It quickly left that perch and went back into the woods. The next bird we came across was a grouse on the side of the road at the 4.8 mile mark (from Stony River Rd). We were just starting to look at it to get field marks to make an ID when a second Great Gray Owl flew directly over the grouse and flushed it. Both the Great Gray and the grouse headed off into the woods. We went through the area 3 more times but didn't have any repeat sightings. We didn't find much else except a flythrough Gray Jay. We found a place to safely turn around at 5.7 miles down the Whyte road but ventured further east for a distance to discover the road there was very rough and in worse shape so we ended up backing out about a half mile. We went north of the Whyte Road junction on Stony River Road for about 3 miles but didn't find anything there either.
Back down at Two Harbors we were able to find a few Bohemian Waxwings in with a flock of Cedar Waxwings on South Ave just to the west of 3rd St (the one that goes to the harbor & light house). In Duluth we stopped at Leif Erickson Park and were able to find the Barrow's Goldeneye first found by Peder Svingen. It was at the north end of the park. It was very close to shore with a group of Common Goldeneye (small group and easy to pick out the Barrow's - super look). We walked across the park that is over top of I35 and looked over the wall there. We did some quick checking for gulls but apparently they must have moved out with the latest cold weather. Bob Ekblad Olmsted County in SE Minnesota http://www.Birding-Minnesota.com ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
