[Bristol-Birds] Birding Minnesota's boreal owls and snowy north woods
- From: "Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Bristol-birds" <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:59:47 -0500
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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