Last Friday I was out guiding Andy Nyhus of Winona, MN. Highlights:
-Boreal Chickadee -Sharp-tailed Grouse -Hawk Owl -Iceland Gull -Glaucous Gull -Great Black-backed Gull The last few weeks or so a lot of the gulls feeding at the Superior WI landfill are now loafing on the ice off Wisconsin Point on Allouez Bay. On Friday we counted at least 15 Glaucous Gulls, 1 Iceland Gull and 2 Great Black-backed Gulls plus numerous Ring-biled Gulls on the ice. Most of the Glaucous Gulls were 2nd cycle birds plus a few 3rd cycle gulls. We saw one 3rd cycle GBBG and one 2nd cycle GBBG. The Iceland Gull was a 2nd cycle bird. We missed out on Thayer's Gull despite a lot of searching. Yesterday while birding at WI Pt. with my daughter, Becca we saw 5 2nd cycle Glaucous Gulls and one 2nd cycle Iceland Gull. The gulls are also now loafing on the breakwalls at the end of WI Pt. Sax-Zim: Had a great conversation with DNR non-game official Jeff Hines today. We have a lot of ideas we want to do with some of the DNR land. Some of the discussions turned into creating some trails in the bog, adding some new winter bird feed stations and also erecting some owl platforms in the bog for next year owl season. John Seikula of Hibbing, MN who created the admiral rd feeders and Owl Avenue feeders will be part of the team to get some of these ideas going. Last night: Tim Viche and I headed up to Lake County to listen for owls along the Stoney River Rd. We started on the north end of Hwy 1 and owled south to FR 11. We decided to stop every mile rather than every half mile. The skies were clear. wind calm. crescent moon cast some light on us. There were 21 stops and we heard 5 Saw-Whet Owls and heard a pack of Timber Wolves howling. We started at 8:30pm and ended at 10pm. I was happy to have satellite radio in my Yukon and listen to C-Span to keep us company as the Health Care Reform vote was taking place. At the end of stop 21 the bill was passed. On the way up to Lake County we saw a Barred Owl along Lake CR 2 hunting along the road. I took some photos of the owl. I heard there is a theory that small owls do not like to call on bright nights because they can easily be seen by Great Horned Owls and I was hoping to hear more small owls than just 5 owls so maybe this theory is true. Heard no woodcocks or snipes. By the way the road is in excellent condition for travel. Good birding Mike Mike Hendrickson Duluth, Minnesota Website: http://webpages.charter.net/mmhendrickson/ Blog: http://colderbythelakebirding.blogspot.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
