Since my wife and I are both from the Angora area of the Iron Range (St. Louis Co.), we spend our holidays driving back and forth between both sets of parents' houses going through a black spruce bog. Yesterday in doing so I stumbled upon a lone, male Spruce Grouse - the last time I saw one in this area was about 15 years ago. A picture and exact location of the grouse can be seen on my eBird checklist:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S21090431 Also of note is that about 2 miles south of this location, there are open, agricultural areas where I found two Black-billed Magpies this morning. I discovered my first one ever for that area last month when I was home for Thanksgiving. This trip, as well as the last, produced Rough-legged Hawk each time too in this area. Another important note is that this past June, Sparky Stensaas discovered a Great Gray Owl in this location as well as another on nearby Heino Rd. (Heino and Samuelson intersection). I am fairly certain that yesterday evening I saw the second GGOW flying from Heino Road and into this bog - the raptor was quite large, brownish/grayish, with slow wingbeats as it disappeared into darkness of the dense spruce trees. Sparky Stensaas had also found a Black-backed Woodpecker in this same location last summer. On Monday in Bear River, MN I observed 10 Evening Grosbeaks coming to my wife's grandmother's bird feeders. Unfortunately I can't give the exact location, but the intersection of Co. Rds 5 and 22 will put you in the vicinity. Good birding! Josh Wallestad - Kandiyohi Co. but home on 'da Range for Christmas ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
