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 ************************************************* BRISTOL BIRDS NET LIST Bristol Birds Net Photo Gallery located at: http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jwcoffeyy/album?.dir=/efd5 This is a regional birding list sponsored by the Bristol Bird Club to facilitate communications between birders and bird clubs of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. -------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to Bristol-Birds. To post to this mailing list, simply send an email to: bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send an email to bristol-birds-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the one word 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. -------------------------------------------------- Wallace Coffey, Moderator wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (423)764-****