Hello
Well
its that time of the year to think about winter and one of the great
things about winter is winter birding in northeastern Minnesota!! Sax-Zim Bog is always on the
radar for birders from all over North America and Europe who come and search the bog to see the following birds: Sharp-tailed Grouse, Ruffed Grouse, Rough-legged Hawks, occasionally a Snowy Owl, Northern Hawk Owls, Great Gray Owls, American Three-toed and Black-backed Woodpeckers, Northern Shrikes, Boreal Chickadees, Gray Jays, Pine Grosbeaks,
Purple Finches, Red & White-winged Crossbills, Common and Hoary
Redpolls and Evening Grosbeaks. Down in Duluth birders can search for
Bohemian Waxwings or possibly a Varied Thrush or a Townsend Solitaire. In the Duluth Harbor in the early dawn hours or at dusk Snowy Owls during most winters can be found hunting or roosting out on the bay ice. If there is open water in the canal park area birders can search among the hundreds of Common Goldeneyes for a Long-tailed Duck or Harlequin Duck. Also gull species like Thayer's Gull, Iceland Gull and Glaucous Gulls can be found at times sitting out among the Herring Gulls on the break walls in the Canal Park area but most birders head over to
the WI Landfill where hundred and at times 1000s of gulls will
congregate at the land fill. Of course Gyrfalcons will be on the radar
for most birders and occasionally Duluth and Superior harbors will
attract a Gyrfalcon that feed on the pigeons around the grain elevators during the winter season. Out in Aitkin County the main highlight is watching 30 or so Sharp-tailed Grouse do some
early courting and dancing in mid February! Aitkin County also offers
better odds than Sax Zim Bog in finding a Snowy Owl or possibly a Great
Gray Owl north of Palisade along CR 18.
If you want to see
some great winter birds, be led by some of the best birders in the
state, eat some of the best food around and listen to some great
speakers than head up to Meadowlands, Minnesota for our third season!!
February 12-14th 2010 will be the third annual Sax-Zim Bog Winter Bird Festival.
All the festival activities will be held at the Meadowlands community center in Meadowlands, MN.
This years festival speakers will be Kim Risen and Al Batt. Kim Risen will presenting a talk on Friday Feb. 12 called Mexico" Birding Wonderland and Al Batt will be speaking on Saturday Feb. 13.
We brought Al Batt back because he was a such a huge hit with the
locals last year that those that missed his presentation asked if we
bring him back!
The field trip destinations include Sax-Zim Bog, Aitkin County and Duluth & WI Landfill. This year we will be offering our first workshop led by Sparky Stensaas and Shawn Zierman called "Winter Pixels: Bird and Nature Photography in the White Season" . I added some new field trip leaders this year and hopefully will have 3 leaders per trip to help get everyone on birds.
There
will also be local craftsmen and area bird clubs for birders to
purchase one of their products or learn about some of our local bird
clubs like Duluth Audubon and Hawk Ridge.
So far the season is
looking good with several sightings of Northern Hawk Owls (16-18 owls
so far) and I am sure more will be found as winter moves in and more
importantly when deer hunting season finishes up. Lots of finches are moving around especially White-winged
and Red Crossbills and Pine Grosbeaks and redpolls are beginning to
move down into northern Minnesota in fair numbers. Last year we saw
lots of good birds and the main highlights were the Northern Hawk Owls
and a Boreal Owl plus all the winter bird specialties coming to the
many feeders in the bog. Speaking of feeders there will be once again
3 main feeding stations in the Sax-Zim Bog area. These birding
stations will be located at Paul Mueller's farm, Helen & Dave
Abramson's residence and the Morse's residence. All these feeding
stations can be found on the Sax-Zim Bog website under feeding
stations. I am also sure there will be a few deer rib stations found
on the Admiral Rd, Arkola Rd and Owl Avenue just like last year that
attracted Boreal Chickadees and other goodies!
The two main locations to link up to the Sax-Zim Bog Festival website and register for the festival are the following locations.
1. MOU website: Look in "Birding Minnesota" and click on Sax-Zim Bog Festival: http://moumn.org/sax-zim/index.html
2. My Blog: http://colderbythelakebirding.blogspot.com/ ( Look on the left hand side column )
If you have not attended this festival you are missing out on home town flavor festival that is small in some ways but HUGE on the birds we see!
Thanks
Mike
Mike Hendrickson
Duluth, Minnesota
Website: http://webpages.charter.net/mmhendrickson/
Blog: http://colderbythelakebirding.blogspot.com/
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