This past weekend I showed Arizona birding friends, Tommy DeBardeleben and Gordon Karre, around the Sax-Zim Bog, Duluth/Superior, and Lake of the Woods and Roseau Counties. Yesterday was our final day of birding, and we stuck closer to our base camp which was my parents' house in Angora in northern St. Louis County.
I dropped Tommy and Gordon off on Heino Road just west of Samuelson Road to do some walking west along Heino which runs through a mature Black Spruce bog. While they walked, I drove the "block" going north on Samuelson, west on CR 22, south on CR 25, and back east on Heino to pick up the guys. While solo, I encountered an adult Northern Goshawk that flew across Samuelson from a perch in the pines on the east side of the road into a large stand of pines on the west. Upon returning to the guys, Tommy told me he detected the drumming of a Black-backed Woodpecker. When we played the recording, a BBWO showed up almost immediately followed by a second bird. We had both a male and female. I have been waiting to see one here for two years ever since Sparky Stensaas found one here. It was a lifer for Gordon and my son as well, so a very fun experience overall. I also have a credible report from my wife and son of three Spruce Grouse in this same general spot on Sunday morning at 8 AM. Both have seen several Ruffed Grouse before and thought what they saw better matched the pics of SPGR in the field guide. They talked about seeing white spots on the birds. Take that for what it is--I could not verify what they saw. However, I have seen Spruce Grouse in this area twice in the last 20 years--not a common occurrence but a definite possibility. This bog has also held Great Gray Owls in the past, both on Heino and CR 25 a couple miles south of Heino. I talked with a local resident yesterday morning who stopped to see what we were looking at when we found the BBWO. He told me he has seen "big owls" in the past along the dead-end Savage Rd. to the south of Heino. This is a couple miles east of Samuelson, which is also good bog habitat. The area is definitely worth exploring. Other birds encountered there were Pine Grosbeaks, Ruffed Grouse, Gray Jays, and Redpolls. Good Back-Home Birding! Josh Wallestad www.aboywhocriedheron.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
