I arrived home this evening from a three night camping trip at Chipmunk
Rapids Campground in NW Florence County. My dad and I spent the mornings
and evenings around the campground, and took birding trips during the day
to numerous areas in Florence and Forest Counties. A big shout-out to Kay
Kavanagh for providing us with a detailed list of some excellent birding
locations to check out on these counties!! Below are some of the
highlights of our birding adventures:
Thursday (9/2)
We spent the afternoon birding areas near Haley Creek SNA. We saw 14
warbler species at Haley Creek, including 4 BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLERS (3
males were seen together in one small tree).
Friday (9/3)
We drove over to Forest County in the morning and birded several of our
favorite areas in the county. One of the highlights were some amazing
numbers of warblers along Pine River Road, where we saw 16 warbler species
and identified over 70 individuals, but they were buzzing around everywhere
in the thick foliage, and Iâm sure we missed more than we identified. A
bit further to the west we found a family of four SPRUCE GROUSE along
Sheltered Valley Road. These grouse were very cooperative and we watched
them for 20 minutes. Here is a link to my eBird list for this area with a
few photos:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S94129413
After checking out a few other boreal locations in Forest County we
continued south to Laona to Scattered Rice Lake, another one of Kayâs
suggestions. Here we had a few TRUMPETER SWANS, a MERLIN, and a couple
GREAT EGRETS which are not easy to find this far north. This was a really
neat location with all the exposed stumps and mud on the NW end of the
lake. We then returned to Florence county and birded Rock Creek Road, which
was another good area for warblers, tallying 14 species including another
pair of BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLERS.
Saturday (9/4)
After spending some time birding around Chipmunk Rapids Campground we
headed north to Daumitz Road. This was yet another recommendation from
Kay, and it didnât disappoint with several more good flocks of warblers.
We drove to the town of Florence around midday, and as we were leaving we
decided to check out the Florence Lagoons on the north side of town. We
expected a quick visit but there were too many birds, and we ended up
spending an hour there. Some highlights were a flock of 72 WOOD DUCKS, our
only VESPER and SAVANNAH SPARROWS of the trip, along with lots more
warblers including our only PINE WARBLERS of the trip (which we would have
expected to see more often). In the afternoon we went to Grandma Lake and
hiked the trail out into the bog and boreal forest which surrounds the
lake. Compared to other locations, our bird list wasnât as impressive, but
we saw COMMON LOONS, HOODED MERGANSERS, another MERLIN, and had nice views
of some really neat habitat including lots of Pitcher Plants out on the
bog.
For the trip we ended up with 90 species in Florence County, including 21
species of warblers. In Forest County we had 73 species, with 18 warbler
species. It was a very memorable trip and we enjoyed visiting many new
locations.
Aaron Holschbach
Waunakee
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