First of all thanks goes to the MOU organization and to those w Hello: First of all thanks goes to the MOU organization and to those who run the listserv for allowing me to post festival announcements and updates. Also I like to thank those who run the MOU website for adding the festival website to the website.
The festival was amazing with a crowd of 155 birders representing 30 states. We had a lot of media coverage and I did quite a few interviews such as Minnesota Public Radio, Star Tribune and the Duluth News Tribune. Many reporters came up for the festival and rode along with the participants and took a lot of photos and interviewed several participants and leaders. Sax-Zim Bog is on the map! The residents of Meadowlands were so proud to see such coverage of their small community they were smiling from ear to ear. Our speakers were dynamite. Friday evening Steve Wilson and Peter Neubeck gave a wonderful presentation to the folks about their encounters with Spruce Grouse in Lake and St. Louis Counties. If you have not seen the presentation is quite funny and very informative as the film centers around a arena of displaying Spruce Grouse males and all the different approached they have in luring females. Awesome presentation. Saturday afternoon the folks from Raptor Education Group, Inc or REGI came to the center to give a afternoon presentation to the children and adults who live in the area and the center was packed to see all the live hawks and owls. They learned so much from Abby and Joe who gave a great presentation to the residential folks and their children. Later that night they repeated some of the same presentation with different birds. My favorite was the dark morph Rough-legged Hawk. Larry Weber gave a Saturday afternoon nature hike nearby on the Chuck Pruhomme land along the White Face River and saw a lot of cool stuff such as a old drumming site for a Ruffed Grouse and the snow tunnel where the grouse came out of and the big find was a shrew pierced on a limb by a Northern Shrike! Field Trips and the birds took center stage. We saw nearly 60 species of birds! Highlights: Barrow's Goldeneye - Duluth Long-tailed Duck - Lake County Glaucous Gull - Duluth Great Black-backed Gull - Duluth Thayer's Gull - Two Harbors Spruce Grouse - Lake County ( all Lake Co. Field Trips viewed them every day including a displaying male ) Sharp-tailed Grouse - Sax-Zim Bog Ruffed Grouse - Sax-Zim Bog, Lake Co. Northern Goshawk - Lake Co. & Sax-Zim Bog Sharp-shinned Hawk - Sax-Zim Bog Merlin - Duluth Peregrine Falcon - Duluth Golden Eagle ( Sax-Zim Bog adult and immature seen ) Rough-legged Hawk - Sax-Zim Bog Snowy Owl - Superior Great Gray Owl - Lake Co, Duluth, Sax-Zim Bog ( Seen several individuals ) Northern Hawk Owl - Duluth ( Martin Rd ) Boreal Owl (Sax-Zim Bog, Lake Co, Duluth ) I think we saw 4-5 different owls! Barred Owl Duluth and Sax-Zim Bog Great Horned Owl Sax-Zim Bog Black-billed Magpie Sax-Zim Bog Boreal Chickadee Sax-Zim Bog Black-backed Woodpecker ( Lake County off Highway 1 near MP 303 ) Hoary Redpolls Sax-Zim Bog White-winged Crossbill (single bird in Sax-Zim Bog ) Red Crossbill Lake County Snow Bunting Sax-Zim Bog Evening Grosbeak Sax-Zim Bog Plus all the residents and regular winter visitors were all seen by everyone! Some big surprises was seeing the resident who lives on the Stickney Rd waving to the buses and cars as they drove by his house! I also had a good chat with him as well but he still believes he owns half of the Stickney Rd but hey he is not that bad of a dude once you meet him. Before I end..Big THANKS to the following leaders who helped me out this year: Chris West, Ethan Kistler (Ohio Big Week organizer and tour leader), Rob Pendergast, Seth Cutright, Becca Sitzer, Judd Brink, Chad Heins, Alex Watson, Lars Benson (2013 MOU Young Birder Award recipient), Erik Bruhnke, Frank Nicoletti, Kelly Larson, Roy Zimmerman (MOU Vice-President), Jerry Dirks, James Hully, Bill Tefft, Ben Harste and JG Bennett. Thanks for all the attended and stay tune for the next Sax-Zim Bog Winter Bird Festival on Feb 14-15-16 2014 which is President's Day weekend. Good Birding! Mike Hendrickson Duluth, Minnesota MikeHendricksonGuiding.com Sax-ZimBog.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
