Today was a great day of birding which started with a Sea Smoke Sunrise Over Lake Superior. Yup, only 10F as I headed inland from Two Harbors 20 minutes before sunrise, and the air water temperature differential made for spectacular conditions out over the lake. Now some folks might wonder about birding on opening day of deer hunting season in Minnesota, but if you know your habitat (deer hate bogs), and stay well away from any parked vehicles next to the forest (indicative of hunters) you will be fine. However, even if I think I am in the forest w/o anyone for miles around, I ALWAYS wear blaze orange or red.
Okay … why patriotic birding? The answer was simple. I saw beautiful red, white and blue colored birds … plus our national bird, the Bald Eagle! In additional I finally put out meat suet (hope the bears are asleep, or at least woozy). I am trying some bone marrow this year to entire Boreal Chickadees. I just drilled two holes through the bone, and then hung everything up using wire and ring eye screws. My final assignment was to place a BirdNet-Pi birdsong listening device deep in the wilderness.
On to the photographs … the Pine Grossbeaks were real special. Essentially nary a Pine Grossbeak was seen last winter. Today I watched a small flock.
Red: Pine Grosbeaks
White: Snow Buntings
& Blue: Blue Jays
and our National Bird: Bald Eagle
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Between elections and veterans, a timely post!
What kind of berries are the grosebeaks feasting on?
Pygmy crabapples … the front lawn at church! The grosbeaks definitely wanted the seeds, not just the fruit.
I’ve never seen a snow bunting before – they are sooo cute!!
Snow Buntings are the last Arctic songbird to migrate down to Minnesota. In addition, they flush very easily unless one is lucky enough to find a very small flock (mine was only six birds). They tend to migrate only as far south as the northern plains where there is not too much snow cover. Finally by mid to late February they are heading north once more! Snow Buntings breeding plumage is actually much more white.