On Friday midday I went for a trip north. Expecting a break in the weather and the Duluth Audubon was set to hold a Bog program with Clint Nienhaus leading I set out to find some birds of the north.
Only half-way to Duluth and I could already see a difference as the Crows began to give way to Raven sightings. It's amazing how quick that really does happen, but how infrequent the Ravens are in the middle to southern part of the state. I did see some cool barrel roll behavior on the way up from Ravens as they pumped wings and when normally on the glide portion they would pull the wings in and roll over in the sky. It was strange, but very cool. May have to do some research on that.
I headed directly to Canal Park for Eider and friends. I was not dissapointed seeing the Common Eider within minutes mingled in with the Mallards, Black Ducks, Northern Pintail, and Golden Eye. The Eider was last counted in MN in 1966 based on my research so it's pretty cool to get a bird that I may never see in the state again.
The wing to my lack of knowledge had moved to a position that allowed the Gulls of the area a sort of free ride so they spent a lot of time on the wing soaring well overhead and over the city. Those that came close were mostly Herring to my eyes when looking at the wing tips. I did get one treat though a nice large Glaucous Gull in 1st or 2nd Winter plummage flew low over the walk way and I was able to make the id based on size and clean white wings. The gull id reading and homework really paid off to see what was needed and make the id quick.
With that done I was ready to leave and ran into Kevin Smith and Gerald Hoekstra coming in on their way back to central MN. Always love seeing them and hope to bird with them in the future. Kevin asked me several questions and what my plans were. He shared very useful details about the Golden-crowned Sparrow location before heading to the pier with Gerald and his brother. I also got to meet Richard Hoeg a gentlemen I knew from Facebook and his posts about his 365 day birding blog effort. I had planned to check out his feeder location on Old Vermillion Trail in a few minutes.
Running up Jean Duluth Road I was in pursuit of a Northern Hawk Owl reported near Kelly J's Sewing, a shop on a farm area with the open land and large trees needed for hosting a Hawk Owl. 4 miles south of that location I got the other less common Hawk Owl that had been seen in the area. A sweet easy find right on the road with quality looks. I continued further and worked the feeder up on Old Vermillion and found Red-breasted Nuthatch and Common Redpoll. Nothing overly exciting, but knowing new locations is also of great value. The other added benefit was being on this road noted as a dead end and little used in the winter I could hear little, but the wind rushing through the trees. It was a great moment to hear the world without anything else around.
With light ready to begin fading I hurried back to town to try for the neighborhood Golden-crowned Sparrow that had been sighted for nearly as long as the Common Eider. This bird was on my list, but not at the top. Being a casual occurence and in the houses, it's not my normal desired kind of birding. Always feels a bit creepy walking around houses and throwing binocs up to look in yards. Fortune smiled though as I pulled up a few bicycle birders pulled in also. They were doing a birdathon and we started to look. After about 10 minutes another group of 3 showed and we had lots of eyes looking. As I came back to the target house I noticed two guys looking intently at the house next door. The bird had setup shop near a feeder and large bush and we got great looks from about 20' or so away.
Pretty cool to get a Casual and Accidental in the same day for life birds. That pretty much ended the day as I needed to check in at the hotel and get some chow before an early bed for bog birding the next day.
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