Good Birds at -40

I set out at 4:00AM back on Saturday morning getting picked up by Kevin Smith and Gerry Hoekstra for a northbound adventure. They had been planning a Koochiching County circuit and invited me along knowing I needed all counties for my 10K year effort. As light was just starting to come up in Virginia, MN (St. Louis county) we found some warm water outflow on a lake in town and noted some basic water birds (plus a Hooded Merganser) with an Otter being attacked by a Bald Eagle.

We made a stop in Cook also to drive Johnson road hoping for woodpecker magic, but managed just some Pine Grosbeak and a Canada Jay for the effort. We eventually made it to Koochiching and started racking up good birds with double-digit negative temps the entire time.

My first visual interaction with a flock of White-winged Crossbills happened and it was amazing. The light was perfect and we got to see male and female birds feeding on spruce/fir cones with some of my pics showing some cool tongue shots as the birds extracted seeds.

This trip featured Pine Grosbeak nearly everywhere we went in the county, it was amazing how many have come south this year in the northern forest areas. We continued to put up quality birds including both Redpolls and Pine Siskins in the expected strong numbers. Even an American Robin in Big Falls was present to round out the numbers. Though we dipped on key boreal woodpeckers we had plenty of quality up into International Falls with a flock of Bohemian Waxwing showing at one of our last locations. The birds flew shortly after being found and actually headed to Canada at that point over the Rainy River.

The next morning we woke up to -40 degrees and car doors that had frozen seals making door latches close very poorly. It was crazy as even the neoprene strap on Kevin's bins froze stiff. The biggest bonus though was stepping out of the hotel in the morning and hearing Red Crossbill calling from nearby stand of pines. We weren't able to get on the birds with optics, but the calls were good as Pine Grosbeak and Siskin joined the morning chorus. These are some hearty birds for sure.

We began driving to Beltrami County at this point and got Northern Shrike and Ruffed Grouse on the way for a couple more bonus Koochiching birds giving us 25. Beltrami was pretty cooperative also as we pulled in some nice birds, but dipped on Boreal Chickadee and Black-backed Woodpeckers. Some city feeders gave us good hits on winter finches though and we stopped for some open water hold overs giving us Hooded Merg, Ring-necked Duck, and Pied-billed Grebe as really tough January birds for the area.

It was at this time we tempted fate and drove to Callaway towards the incoming snow storm in hopes of picking up the Brambling that had been reported by a home owner. We made the 1.5 hour drive and picked up some Becker County Redpolls on the way. As we got to the driveway snow was starting to fly and within minutes we pulled in Pine Siskin, Purple Finch, and several others for key Becker county winter birds. In short order the Brambling (European and Siberian resident) dropped down to the feeder station and gave us great looks.

We lingered for a short period and then got on our horse looking to outrun the storm. It snowed most of the time we were on the road (4 hours) but we stayed at the front edge pretty well and the roads were great. Kevin Smith drove the entire weekend and provided me with some great non-driving rest time for the second time this year. I owe him big time at this point and can easily say he's helped me get a lot of tics this year that I may have missed otherwise.

The Midweek Quad Owl

As this year just kicks off I started to see the need for my weekday efforts to begin targeting specific unique birds after work. The amount of time from 3PM to dark (roughly 5PM) is so small that I need to be efficient with my time and the ability to binge on birds in a county drops each day as I cover the core counties more completely.

So on Wednesday (16th) I had a plan. I would drive into Minneapolis after work in the traffic looking to track down an Eastern Screech owl that had been provided to me by friends. I would then couple that with an airport snowy owl hunt, which I'm never really confident in honestly.

I assumed these efforts would take my available time and maybe I'd stop somewhere to listen for other owls. My first stop along the river was a success after about 20 minutes where I found the red morph Eastern Screech soaking up the waning sun in a tree cavity facing the river. (Pictures on my Instagram under hj70ft username.) The hardest part of this hunt was realizing this bird is an absolute champion at hide and seek even in good light. I quickly motored down Cedar Avenue to get to Cargo road at the airport to give myself a chance at the Snowy Owl hanging out this year.

I believed I found the bird after a couple minutes in a pile of snow that remained on a runway edge. I got my camera and confirmed with some long range shots. At the same time a gentlemen stepped of his car indicating he had taken a picture of the same area, but no owl was in the pile. I kindly noted the bird was present and showed picture to him from my camera. He was amazed to have missed it with his camera pictures and asked what my reach was. After he heard 3000mm was the Nikon P1000 reach (125x zoom) he understood better that as a non-photographer I was under a lower quality option that had the ability to cheat distance in a way high end optics can't.

Brimming with confidence I ran to Bass Ponds area looking to maybe add Hennepin Brown Creeper or a freshly reported Tufted Titmouse while my luck was up. I arrived at the lot and started putting my backpack together. I hadn't left the parking lot when I heard 2 Barred Owl hooting back and forth in the adjacent valley. 3 Owls in about 1 hour total of time!

I hiked in and ran into Pete Hoeger looking to add the Tufted Titmouse also. I didn't have any luck on that front, but soon multiple Brown Creeper sounded off as well as a Northern Flicker from nearby. Later near sundown I was able to get my Hennepin American Tree Sparrow. As I hiked the last 1/4 mile before going back up the long entrance road a Great Horned Owl started to sound off as well from the hillside trees. It entered as my 4th Hennepin owl species in about 3 hours time and certainly something I won't soon forget.

My targeted efforts netted 9 new county tics even though I was laser focused just on the first 2. I'm guessing the very active Bass Ponds area was benefiting from our first bought of sunshine in many days with birds being extra active until late into the daylight hours.

Just goes to show how much you can accomplish from 3PM to dark and even after the sun drops.

The Grind - Week 1

January and February are an interesting time for birding. You can get a lot done on a goal of 10,000 county tics because everything is needed. Including the already 17 American Crow tics I have from visiting 17 counties. Black-capped Chickadee is right behind at 15 I believe right now. (Crow got bonus counties because it is super easy to ID from a car moving through a county that is not a stopping point.

That all being said winter for me is an effort on at least 3 fronts...

1. Find as many common birds as possible just to make follow-up efforts more focused. Get rid of needing European Starling and House Sparrow and you allow yourself to focus more on getting warblers and such later.

2. Find as many open water winter only birds like Common Merganser and Common Goldeneye as I can now in addition to winter specialty finches and ag birds. So basically try to pick up Red-breasted Nuthatch, Pine Siskin, Purple Finch, Snow Bunting, etc...as soon as possible so that follow-up efforts don't miss them on timing alone.

3. Manage a large slate of counties by trying to touch them all at least 1 time by the end of February or maybe mid-March. Basically I want a full round of 87 counties before getting into waterfowl migration and early passerines. This I think would give me a solid base for the big push coming in May.

The first weekend was loaded with 110 county tics thanks to birding with Liz Harper who knows the Rothsay (Wilkin) area very well. We were rolling by 4:45AM and had our first bird of the day in Rothsay as a lifer for me Prairie Chicken. Not only that we later got to see them fly over the road in a large flock and land in a tree. It was amazing and a fun add this early in the year. Later as we trolled Fergus Falls pretty hard we found a Black-Crowned Night-Heron in full on overwinter mode. My closest sighting to January is seeing them on spring migration in April so it was an awesome thing to find a juvenile in January.

The tenor of the week really was getting on the easy water birds and grinding out Pine Siskin (9 counties now) along with any other winter special and related birds possible. A day trip with Kevin Smith and Andy Nyhus resulted in 71 more tics with Josh Wallestad providing guide support in Kandiyohi county. 30 species in that county had me very happy even with misses of the key super rare birds. We still had Northern Shrike, Pine Siskin, RB Nuthatch, and Purple Finch on the list and fun overwinter birds like Fox Sparrow (my first January tic), White-throated Sparrow, and even a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

All total as noted I've touched 17 counties already in the first 6 days of the year and intend to keep the efforts up as I'm looking at a St. Louis County, Lake, Cook trip this coming weekend (1/12) with a late month invite to tag along with a small group in Koochiching and surrounding counties as well. I'll just keep putting trip together and executing while the weather is solid.

Using an even divide of 10,000 into 365 parts I'm about 6 days ahead of pace and will need to keep that up these first couple months just to build a solid buffer in the event of bad weather, etc... My hope is to have such a large pace lead that I can absorb bad weather that would keep me out of trip mode for a whole weekend, or....gasp....in the event I need day off from birding.

Every time out I try to tell myself to remember to have fun, appreciate all the small things and to continue to marvel at what nature brings each time in the field. Even if it is just appreciating 2 Brown Creeper hanging out in some pines behind a church in Litchfield, MN. Random location and quality Meeker County birds to snag on a windy late afternoon when most birds seemed to be shutting down.

I'll keep trying to get some thoughts down in this blog as I go and will leave with this idea. The support from others and interest in the goal has been amazing and greatly appreciated. I've already birded with more people in 1 week than I did all of last year on my State Park Big Year. That was central goal of this years effort, to get better at organizing and pulling people into this massive goal effort. I'm certain I couldn't do this without that kind of support so I'm humbled by how many have already jumped in to be a part of things.

It Begins (Big Douglas MN 10K 2019)

5AM New Years Day and the last of my gear and snacks are in the car and I'm about to head for Olmsted County. I didn't plan for this to be my start at all. I was talked out of my original plan (St. Louis County) by well reasoned logic from Clinton Nienhaus around perhaps waiting until some additional winter specialty birds show up in the bog area in greater numbers. My second plan, which was fully vetted and ready to rock thanks to input support from Liz Harper was also abandoned for a week due to the Rothsay area projected to be near -20 on New Years morning.

So in what I assume will need to be one of my best qualities for the year I adapted to the situation and found day time highs around 15 in the SE portion of the state to be the most viable destination.

I worked out several potential routes and ultimately wanted to include Olmsted simply because it was on the way down more than the way back for what I had planned and Quarry Hill Nature Center has a decent feeder setup. This time of year a good feed station can net you a hefty chunk of your day birds for a county without needing to grind very much. 14 species in this case with key gets of Brown Creeper, Pine Siskin, and White-throated Sparrow. Only the sparrow would be likely or easy in a follow-up effort and my goal for these January efforts is to try and secure a handful of tougher winter only or limited window birds for each county.

By 8:30 I was out of the county heading to another feed station. Whitewater State Park has a great setup you can view from inside and from 2018 experience you can do pretty well at also. Sure enough I secured my Winona Purple Finch, Pine Siskin, and Red-breasted Nuthatch along with another bevy of White-throated Sparrows. 15 species on this list helped ease the days efforts as I knew it would be thinner as I drove 4 counties looking for open water and random species.

Much of the day revolved around picking up chaff birds that would be gettable at any time of year, but I have to get them sometime so maybe winter ends up being my chance to ease the burden of a future trip and not get stuck grinding for a House Sparrow.

I still had spots left I wanted to visit as the day expired with sunlight around the Frontenac area in Goodhue county, but my core desire was Wabasha, Winona, Houston, and Olmsted and I did get 16 to 22 species in each of those 4 so it was a solid day. I'm mostly writing this to remind myself of what I learned on my days out and what I could do better.

• Issue to Resolve: Phone charging was a minor issue as I was constantly draining battery as I use my phone for navigation, eBird, and several other tools. This morning (1/2) I bought a couple faster chargers for the cars so that maybe phone recharge during drive time will be faster.
  
• Issue to Resolve: Hitting areas in bluff country that dropped Internet were a minor issue and I can see them adding up over time. I can't afford for my entire 9,000+ Google MyMap to be down when out of internet so I'll need to work out a proper solution for that data to be available. I'm aware of some app options that I can use to pull down Google MyMaps and then load that data into another app or into a Garmin device I'd need to buy. Definitely something to solve soon so I don't get into the remote areas and end up with no map data to go off of.

• Mistakes Made: I didn't trek far enough down in Houston to touch the Reno Bottoms area and it was probably the reason I didn't check off American Tree Sparrow in the county and a few other birds like Common Goldeneye. I needed to do a better job of on the fly calling a location like that out and making sure I visit.
• Mistakes Made: As time ran thinner I kept pushing north faster and ended up skipping past a really good looking pine stand near Kellogg-Weaver Dunes that should have been investigated for Wabasha finches. As it is I didn't get Siskin, P Finch, or RB Nut and perhaps should have been able to wrestle up one of them at least in a space like that.  
• Things I Learned: You can't do everything. I got lucky in Houston spotting a flying Horned Lark that I pulled over to id and seeing a flock of 10. That made me think about ag routes and the fact that I don't have enough time to hit everything in a single county in a day if I'm also going to grind out 3 more counties in the process. For the early stages I think I'm landing on the idea of getting a good base of birds with some focus on winter finch migrants and open water birds. My options really are to cover a county with a few spots and pick up 15 to 25 species in about 4 counties or Just hit 1 or 2 counties and grind out 25 to 35 species. The math of what is the right thing to do is a question I haven't yet answered. Maybe it is a changing landscape throughout the year.

Hot Spots Touched:

1. Silver Lake (Olmsted) - Almost no open water and just Canada Geese.
2. Quarry Hill Nature Center (Olmsted) - Good feeder action a good visit point.
3. Whitewater State Park (Winona) - Great feeder action. Hikes are good, but I didn't take any.
4. Wiscoy Valley Area (Winona) - Just a valley I heard about online that had Golden Eagle potential, but my good raptors were Bald Eagle and Red-tailed Hawk.
5. Houston Nature Center (Houston) - Spur of the moment stop and had nothing happening. They had 1 feeder at the front door and no birds. 
6. Beaver Creek Valley SP (Houston) - I had hopes for the open water to be a draw, but I found a pair of Bald Eagle and that was it. Place was a bird dead zone.
7. Brownsville Overlooks (Houston) - South overlook had a small spot of open water with Trumpeter Swans. Note house across the road on the bluff side has good feeders and feeder birds. This place is a mini-feed station for birds and worth a winter stop. North overlook was dead.
8. Wildcat Landing (Houston) - A few Common Mergs and the more highway adjacent spring feed area had Kingfisher, but I couldn't see any shorebirds that historically overwinter. Viewing for that is roadside of the highway near some mailboxes and is a bit dangerous. Probably not worth it for a couple shorebirds that can be picked up in spring.
9. Great River Bluffs SP (Winona) - Winter is limited in this park as the trials convert to X-ski, but low snow pack opens it up. Drive in was good with Northern Shrike and the pine row near the King's Bluff hike was loaded with RB Nut. No Crossbills, but you can tell why they had stopped at the place for a while.
10. Lock Dam 5 (Winona) - Just some Merg action. The small feeder setup over the fence near the office was empty.
11. Reads Landing (Wabasha) - Along with some random stops along the way for viewing this area was a bit choked with ice flows. Some feeder action, but the day was running out. This place is probably better at first light with a few houses running feed stations. The water had many Eagles around and dozens of Common Mergs flying up river to a nighttime area I would later find to be Lake Pepin East. (1500 of them)
12. Lake City Marina (Wabasha) - Remaining open water was the size of a swimming pool at the breakwater exit to Lake Pepin. Only Mallards were present, was hoping for a bonus Black Duck, but no luck.

The river presented a lot of overlook spots that could be good stops in these counties and I suspect that is the easy method for also randomly picking up Tufted Titmouse such as I did in Houston on the Brownsville South Overlook.