Dear Minnesota Birders: This past weekend (March 3–4), Alex Cruz and I drove up from the Twin Cities to bird some spots in northern Minnesota. We left Saturday shortly after noon and drove first to Hwy 210 west of Aitkin to look for Great Gray Owls. While we struck out there, our luck turned when we entered Crow Wing County and headed to Lows Lake Road (off Hwy 1). Just to the west of Lows Lake Road, on the north side of Hwy 1 we heard tapping and quickly got on an incredibly cooperative male American Three-toed Woodpecker, which we watched for a good 20 minutes. As we got in the car to leave, we were rewarded with close-up views of a flock of 25–30 White-winged Crossbills, including at least one strikingly yellow individual.
>From there, we headed into Aitkin county and stopped at Alice and Stewart Packer's feeders. We were clearly there at the wrong time of day (around 5 PM) because their elaborate feeder set-up was nearly uninhabited. Apart from a Red Squirrel, the only bird that came in was one Common Redpoll. We had a good laugh at that—who ever sees just one Common Redpoll? >From there we drove up Hwy 169 to County Road 18. Stopping alongside a slowly-moving vehicle allowed us to introduce ourselves to Ulf Hägstrom, a visiting birder from Sweden. He had been birding Sax-Zim that morning and had seen a Great Grey Owl on the logging road marked with orange tape that leads west from McDavitt Road in the bog. We exchanged business cards and trolled along Hwy 18 to Pietz's Road and back to 169 with Ulf behind us for the first half of the journey. Again, no Great Greys, but as is so often true in birding, serendipity struck and we spotted three Ruffed Grouse up about 30 feet off the ground in trees on the south side of 18. Being one of a lucky few people who actually have a place to stay in Zim, MN, Alex and I drove to the home of Amy and Ben Johnson. Amy has been a friend of mine since grade school, and this was not the first time she has extended her hospitality to enable my birding habit. On Sunday morning, March 4, Alex and I got an early start, hoping to find a Great Gray Owl and/or Sharp-tailed Grouse shortly after dawn. A walk down the logging trail leading west from McDavitt Road produced Alex a brief glimpse of a Great Gray Owl through the trees, but our attempts to relocate it—which included three more hikes down this logging road and back that morning—proved fruitless. We even split up in the hopes that one of us could locate a roosting owl. No luck. We did, however, manage to scare up a Hairy Woodpecker, two female Black-backed Woodpeckers, and a calling Boreal Chickadee (which I alone got while we were split up). At one point in the morning, Alex checked e-Bird and noticed that another birder visiting the same area between two of our hikes had located the owl. We reflected on how much of birding—like life—is simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Ironically, it was on Owl Avenue that we had our "best" bird of the trip—not an owl. Alex noted something flying along the road. The bird flew into the trees nearby and flushed when we drove by; it was a Northern Goshawk! We backed up and managed to get a killer look at the juvenile bird before it took off. This was a species neither Alex nor I had ever seen more than once or twice before and certainly not at the close range we enjoyed in Sax-Zim. Serendipity again! The rest of the morning produced a number of Black-billed Magpies (often near livestock), Gray Jays, Rough-legged Hawks (including juvenile and dark-phase birds) Northern Shrikes, and a Pileated Woodpecker along Admiral Road. Our visit to Sax-Zim concluded with an eleventh-hour bonus at the feeders and birdbaths of a home at 8863 County Road 7 where we finally found Pine and Evening Grosbeaks, along with a lone White-breasted Nuthatch. We decided to stop at Canal Park in Duluth on the way home and were treated to an encounter with Peder Svingen, who patiently explained to us the field marks of juvenile Iceland, Glaucous, Thayer's, Great Black-backed, and Herring Gulls. When I mentioned that immature gulls were a weakness of mine due to my focus on aural (i.e., birdsong) aspects of birding, Peder demonstrated the remarkable difference between the calls of Glaucous and Herring Gulls, a subtlety I had never even considered appreciating before. The final species list for the trip was as follows: Canada Goose Ruffed Grouse Mallard Bald Eagle Northern Goshawk Red-tailed Hawk Rough-legged Hawk Ring-billed Gull Herring Gull Thayer's Gull Iceland Gull Glaucous Gull Great Black-backed Gull Rock Pigeon Great Gray Owl (Alex only) Downy Woodpecker Hairy Woodpecker American Three-toed Woodpecker Black-backed Woodpecker Pileated Woodpecker Northern Shrike Gray Jay Blue Jay Black-billed Magpie American Crow Common Raven Black-capped Chickadee Boreal Chickadee (Matt only) Pine Grosbeak Common Redpoll Pine Siskin American Goldfinch Evening Grosbeak House Sparrow ________________________________ Matthew Bribitzer-Stull Associate Professor of Music Theory University of Minnesota School of Music *** Emails sent from this account are often personal in nature. Whether personal or professional, emails sent from this account do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Minnesota or members of the University community. *** ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
