Category Archives: Year 8

Migration Surprises

Year 8,

Don’t like the weather in northeast Minnesota, just wait a few hours and Lake Superior will throw something different at you. In the past three days we have had 1. cold (38F at sunrise), wet foggy conditions 2. hot warm (85F) and sunny with 25 mph winds out of the southwest 3. finally this morning a strong NW wind and temperatures at 46F. All this weather actually makes for neat bird migration activity if you understand the weather’s implications. The fog and NE winds yielded a warbler fallout. The strong winds out of the SW pushed migrants against Lake Superior as the birds tried to ride the wind north.

Yesterday I had fun viewing two bird species which normally do not grace our area, even during migration … an Orchard Oriole and an American Avocet. Here are a few of my pics:

American Avocet

Orchard Oriole (immature male)

Owlets Growing Up!

Year 8

I went hiking and looking for the Great Horned Owlets at 6:45 am this morning. I guessed that after all the rain locally, including last night, the owls would be somewhat out in the open trying to dry off. I was not disappointed, and found all three young owls and their Mom. My estimate is the owlets are about two months and ten days old. Notice in today’s photograph how almost all the down in gone, and the young birds are beginning to look very grown up. Although the parent owls will continue to help feed the owlets through early fall, very shortly the youngsters will have to start also hunting on their own. Normally, it becomes easier to find the owlets once they are hunting because they spend much more time down lower to the ground, rather than high up in the canopy of leaves.

Great Horned Owlets (pics taken this morning)

Sing Out for Summer!

Year 8

Okay … summer is still one month away, and last year we actually had snow during late May. Regardless, the summer bug eating birds have reappeared and are looking for mates. One of those birds is a Bobolink.

When I was a young boy in the 1960’s, bobolinks were one of the birds in my National Geographic Song and Garden Birds of North America book which I most wanted to see. However growing up in the Boreal Forest meant seeing a bobolink was a pipe dream. Although my parents liked birds, none of us knew about Sax-Zim Bog (only 35 minutes away). This book moved with me to prep school (Exeter), college (Dartmouth), my job in the Twin Cities (Honeywell), and finally back to Duluth! Some books are worth keeping! I think the combination of this book and our two bird feeders drove my interest in birds. What made you become interested in birding???

Make certain to read the comments to this post. Folks are starting to add how they became interested in birds!

Yesterday morning I had a grand time watching and listening to Bobolinks. Not many females are yet back in northern Minnesota, but the males were singing up a storm (email subscribers view / listen to this bobolink video). All the birds in this post were seen yesterday in the non Boreal portion of Sax-Zim Bog.

Bobolinks

Eastern Kingbird

The Sandhill Crane Family (wait for me!!!)