The last few days have been fun. Around the first of November, winds out of the North and Northwest bring unexpected pleasures to the North Shore region of Lake Superior. In short, migrating birds get pushed by strong winds against the big lake, and are feathered friends exclaim: “No way I’m heading out over that HUGE body of water!”. Instead birds meander in a southwesterly direction along the shore down towards Duluth. During this time of year, I still head inland to Sax-Zim Bog and Greenwood, but the largest number of my sightings are always within a few miles of Lake Superior.

Sunday started with the sighting I enjoyed the most … a Dark Morph Rough-Legged Hawk just after sunrise. Better yet, this species normally spooks and flushes very easily. Perhaps because I would soon be heading to church that morning, the hawk let me watch it hunt … often from distances as close as 50 yards away. However, I suspect the real reason it never flushed is the hawk was very, very hungry, and the need to feed drives all actions.

Dark Morph Rough-Legged Hawk

The next surprise was finding a Cattle Egret on a farm near the intersection of Ryan and Lismore Roads. This bird is still hanging out in this area, and my thanks to Peder Svingen for his initial sighting reports. Take a look at the range map for this bird (copyright to Cornell). The winds of migration must have blown this bird almost due west!

Western Cattle Egret

My finally sighting was a dark morph Snow Goose at the Lakeview Cemetery in Two Harbors. I had been checking the gold course, and cemetery for over one week hoping to find some snow geese. While thousands and thousands of these birds migrate south along the Red River on Minnesota’s border with the Dakotas, they are rare in NE Minnesota.

Dark Morph Snow Goose

I hope you are also enjoying the late season bird migration. The leading edge of the Arctic birds are just starting to arrive.