FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] Birding Minnesota's boreal owls and snowy north woods

["Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Many of you probably saw the inprogress report by Waynes Jones of our northern 
Minnesota trip which Andy Jones hosted for Dave Worley and myself.  Wayne is 
Andy's father.
Our interest in this trip peaked when NBC nightly news did a special on 
Canadian Owls Migrating to Minesota and the Great Gray Owl -- North America's 
largest  -- peaked at a record 2,000 birds in the state.  Andy Jones and three 
associates obesrved 226 Great Gray Owls in just less than eight hours.  This is 
now believed to be the largest daily count in ornithological history.

You already know some of our nice species so this will be a little more of a 
travel/summary report.

Following our arrival and dinner on Friday night at Minneapolis, we drove north 
150 miles to the frozen tip of Lake Superior where we set up our operation base 
for three nights at Duluth.

From that base we birded daylight to dark in the fabulous, boreal north country 
where we saw hundreds of snowmobiles, a dogsled and homes with yard snow depths 
of 3 to 5 feet. More than 7 feet of snow have fallen in the north country of 
Minnesota since January 1.

The climatic end came mid-Monday in Dakota County near Rosemont and Apple 
Valley where a young birder running across the road pointed to a gorgeous 
GYRFALCON in a distant tree.  Matt Wetrich of Ames, Iowa was making photos and 
this soon attracked quite a gathering of birders from North Carolina, Georgia 
and Louisiana.  We had many hand slapping high fives and a photo opp right 
there on the roadside.  The landowner let us park in his front yard and joined 
in the excitement.   Laura Coble of Cannon Falls, MN stood in the middle of the 
highway to take our commerative group photo.  She e-mailed me that after we had 
gone a Tennessee birder showed up who knew me but she failed to get his name.

It also brought to a close Andy's perfectly timed and planned trip which 
included 710 miles of birding and running in less than three full days.  We 
birded Caroleton, Atikin, Itasca, Saint Louis, Lake and Dakota counties.  Never 
in my fondest dream would I believed I would do such a thing.

Somehow there should be a way to paint a word picture of snow clad Superior 
National Forest where the Gray Wolf has a stronghold and are often seen.  
Endless  miles of wild Black Spruce bogs, huge forest of Tamarack, White 
Spruce, hemlock, Balsam Fir, Sugar Maple and Paper Birch with the striking 
black on white bark which is legendary for its use in making Indian canoes in 
the extreme north country.

Saturday we searched 200 miles of roadside rural bogs with small and simple 
homes sparsley scattered.  We help ornithologists document the location of as 
many owls as possible.  We mapped out 23 GREAT GRAY OWLS with a Globol Position 
System (GPS) to document their precise locations.  The monsterous big gray owls 
perched on trees, fences, power polls and traffic signs along roads and even in 
the yard of a small home, close to the road.  Some owls were much farther away.

We photographed everything we could, including 12 NORTHERN HAWK OWLS all 
perched in the tip tops of trees as were five NORTHERN SHRIKES.  I suspect Andy 
and Dave took more than 200 digital photos.

We had two nice finds Saturday including a fantastic HORAY REDPOLL near a 
feeder with countless COMMON REDPOLS -- a bird so abundant they were at nearly 
every feeder as was the BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEES.  Andy had thought he may have 
seen a Horay in that tiny community of Palisade in Atkin County several days 
before.  It got away before he could get a good look.   It was there for us 
with a dazzling show in full sun, snow two to three feet deep in yards and 
homes with rising streams of smoke flowing from low chiminies.

At the Sax Zim bog trail we walked in the woods with birders from other states 
to look for a soon found BLACK-BELLIED WOODPECKER.  The snow there could easily 
be above your knees but so many hundreds of birders had created packed down 
trails that look like mice runways melting at the surface.  It took us less 
than 30 minutes to find a male bird.

Just a half-hour later we found a splendid NORTHERN GOSHAWK (our second of the 
day) perched near the road just before it flew almost directly over our heads 
at not much more than treetop level.

The BOAREAL OWL,  a near likeness to a Saw-whet Owl but much larger, is one of 
the difficult birds to see.   It was a desperate long shot until John Mann with 
four other Nashville, TN birders rang our cellphone just before dark to give 
wonderful directions to one they had found on the 61 Expressway at Schmidt 
Creek.  Amazingly we were just 20 minutes or so away and managed to join 
several carloads of birders.  We stayed to watch it begin hunting, leave its 
roost and fly across the road.  Andy and Dave had observed it to egest a pellet 
just before hunting.  Andy scrambled up the bank and managed to find it in the 
snow.  It was collected and we took it to the mammal people at the Bell Museum 
of Natural History at the Univrsity of Minnesota.  Hopefully they will 
determine some of the prey species remains in the pellet.

The Bell Museum has exceptional scientific collections. Nearly 4 million 
specimens-mammals, birds, fishes, plants, mollusks and insects.  As a side 
note, Dave Worley and I spent a few hours at the Bell Museum looking over 
hundreds of bird skin specimens.  We looked in a large walk-in freezer with 
bags full of collected owls and such from this winter's roadkills and other 
fatal causes.  Observing the different plumages and sexual dimorphism in many 
species helped us better understand some of the species we saw.  The mammal 
collections manager, who had birded some with us at Sax Zim on Saturday took 
time to show me a special tray of Least Weasels which displayed a spectacular 
diversity of the white fur they wear in winter.  We looked over several trays 
of small mammals such as the Boreal Red-backed Voles and Meadow Voles which are 
a primary food source for the Great Gray Owls.  Dave got nice pictures of a 
Star-nosed Mole.

Especially delightful was a flock of ~ 30 BOHEMIAN WAXWINGS feeding in a small 
grove of trees heavy with a fruit very similar to the Common Persimmon tree.

During the ride through Sunday's constant snowfall we found one feeder with 
possibly two dozen PINE GROSBEAKS.

Our prospects for boreal owl species were dimmed when we learned that the 
numbers were serious diminishing and some were very difficult to find.  Andy 
Jones had dinner with Dr. Gary R. Graves, bird curator at the National Museum 
of Natural History, 
Smithsonian Institution, a few days before our arrival and it appeared Graves 
had not seen as many Great Gray Owls as I expected.  Dr. Van Remsen, curator of 
birds at the LSU Museum of Natural History, and I spent several days trying to 
work out details for him to fly to Minnesota to meet us to witness this avian 
phenominon.  He has birded with us several times and this time, he just 
couldn't make it work.  We really hated not having his skills and knowledge 
with us.

The trip species list in no particularl order:

Common Goldeneye
Great Gray Owl
Blue Jay
American Crow
Common Raven (lots)
Hairy Woodpecker
Sharp-tailed Grouse
Black-capped Chickadee
Northern Shirke 6
Common Redpoll abundant
Pine Grosbeak 34
Bald Eagle 7
Northern Cardinal (male - very rare in winter that far north)
Pine Siskin
Horay Redpoll (male)
Bohemian Waxwing ~30
Snow Bunting 8
Northern Goshawk 2
Black-backed Woodpecker 
Northern Boreal Owl  
Herring Gull
Red-breasted Mergsnser
Red-breasted Nuthatch (uncommon this winter)
European Starling
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-tailed Hawk
Horned Lark
Northern Flicker
Cedar Waxwing
Gyrfalcon
Common Merganser
Cooper's Hawk (rare this winter)

Lucky for us, Andy's skilled planning and perception took us to the right 
places at the best time as we went west of Duluth on Saturday and then up north 
to Two Harbors, Silver Bay and Isabella during a snowy Sunday.  Had he elected 
to swaps the routes and days we may have come up very short of good birding.  
Some of the north country birding was at a U.S. Forest Service Ranger Station 
where Andy had lived wile working in summer doing breeding bird surveys. And 
Andy also knew and found wonderful places to eat from lunch by a roaring fire 
at Swan Lake to Grandma's Saloon& Grill at Canal Park in Duluth.  And Dave 
Worley treated us to a great dinner of lobster and steaks near the shore of 
Lake Superior.

It was particularly nice to see Tommie Rogers, formerly of Chattanooga TOS, who 
was biriding with a group from Missouri.  We met in the isle of a convience 
store before daylight our first morning at Duluth.

Let's go birding.....

Wallace Coffey
Bristol





 




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