Category Archives: Year 5

Chasing the Northern Lights!

Year 5

As Steve Martin exclaimed in the movie, The Jerk, I’m in the phone book!!!

I feel a bit like Steve as today the Lake Country Journal published an article written and photographed by me on viewing the Northern Lights. The image found below I took last Fall at Stewart Lake near Two Harbors (Minnesota), and is the prime image on their web site! If you enjoy Minnesota’s 10,000+ lakes, the Lake Country Journal is for you. Its focus is enjoying the lakes region of Minnesota.

Remember to use my Northern Lights page of this blog to learn how to discover when the Aurora Borealis will dance across the northern skies.

The Yellow Roses of Lake Superior

Year 5

The Yellow Roses of Lake Superior …

Were these roses left as a remembrance for Memorial Day? Part of an engagement proposal? Or another special moment?

I will never know, but when I arrived looking for shorebirds at the Superior Entry on Lake Superior not long after sunrise I found these three yellow roses in the sand leaning against a log. The weather was brisk, only 47F. Thus, the roses had not wilted.

Lake Superior always has a new surprise for me.

Arctic Ocean Bound! Plovers and Turnstones!

Year 5

The opening verse from the Song of Hiawatha:

On the shores of Gitche Gumee,
Of the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood Nokomis, the old woman,
Pointing with her finger westward,
O’er the water pointing westward,
To the purple clouds of sunset.

Lake Superior is magical, which Henry Wadsworth Longfellow knew, and I learned at a very early age. This morning, like many days, I went down to the beaches of Minnesota Point shortly after sunrise. For 45 minutes I had miles of beaches to myself (in terms of humans), but the south wind meant Arctic shorebirds were working their way north and stopping off for a rest on their way up to the Arctic Ocean.

Today’s visitor was a Black Bellied Plover and lots of Ruddy Turnstones. These birds time their migration to hit Lake Superior as it finally comes alive after a long cold winter, and then wait before going much further north. The Arctic is still frozen and the lakes iced over.

Both species of birds nest in approximately the same area, and when I say Arctic regions … I mean WAY UP North!!!  This map is from the Cornell School of Ornithology.

Ruddy Turnstones Wave Dancing!