17 Spruce Grouse! (and a Red Morph Screech Owl!)

Year 9,

Did I forget to mention the Phainopepla … in northern Minnesota, not in the Desert southwest of Arizona??! (first ever sighting in Minnesota). Yesterday was a day of birding I will not forget  for a looonnnnng time.

I had been birding well north of Two Harbors where I saw 17 Spruce Grouse, including a flock of ten birds! When I got back into cell phone coverage area there was a voicemail from my wife, who definitely is NOT a birder. She was bicycling up the North Shore when she noticed a lot of folks near McQuade Harbor with cameras and binoculars. She stopped to ask what they were seeing, and voila! … A Red Morph Screech Owl, and a Phainopepla.
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In the afternoon I in turn went cycling over to McQuade Harbor and was rewarding with better views of the Phainopepla! What the heck is a bird from the desert southwest doing on the shores of Lake Superior?! The Phainopepla was just up the shore (about 20 yards) in the trees by the shut-down motel near McQuade Harbor.

The Red-Morph Screech Owl

The Spruce Grouse (video link for email subscribers)

The Phainopepla (near Duluth, Minnesota … not Tucson)

Goodbye Lego Mindstorms

Background

Nooooooo! This is definitely an off topic post.

I learned with great dismay earlier today that the Lego Company is discontinuing its Lego Mindstorm Robotics product line. The number of boys and girls who learned programming skills via Lego Mindstorms and have gone on in their lives to become engineers is HUGE. I personally coached a Lego Mindstorms team for five years, and almost every team alum is now a working engineer. Perhaps my only alum who is not now an engineer … is now a pastor. I also consider that career choice a major success!

The announcement via enGadget. (very sad news … rather than just playing video games on a computer, Lego Mindstorm teaches kids robotics, mechanical engineering skills, and programming)

And now some blast from the past images … most pics taken by my wife, Molly, of S.N.I.P. (Super Nerds In Pink). This was our team name, and I told the boys if we made it to the Minnesota state tournament, they could spray paint my hair pink! Scroll down to see my “pink hair!”

Team Pics … I’m the old guy with pink hair!

The robot has to be built entirely with Lego parts. The embedded computer uses a visual programming language similar to LabView (created / maintained by Texas Instruments). The boys by their fifth year of competition also learned to program their robot directly using C Programming (a scientific programming language). During the competition, the robot had to accomplish assigned tasks, and could NOT be touched by team members. The competition also included a technical presentation about the robots design (programming and mechanical), and a presentation on a technical topic which varied every year. Here is a video of a girl’s team from this year … it shows how a typical robot, and a very good one at that … works! (video link for email subscribers)

Super Nerds In Pink (SNIP)

Forest Hill Friendly

Year 9, ,

The last migration push is on hold, and will be until these strong winds out of the south change to out of the north. In the meantime, birds in the area tend to stick around, and there are very few new arrivals. One easy location for me to check is the Forest Hill Cemetery. There is a year round resident Pileated Woodpecker which is enjoying all the very old trees in the cemetery.

One of the other common species migrating through the Duluth area right now are American Crows (some stay year round). This individual along with a migrating Canada Goose felt it was bathtime.

Finally, if you have time get out in the Boreal Forest this weekend. The second set of peak colors is upon us … when Tamarack Pine Tree needles are golden. A nice drive is going up Lake County #2 to Stony River Forest Road. My buddy, Greg, and I made that drive yesterday morning and loved the frosted colors. We did find one Red-Tailed Hawk.

This image was taken near Grand Portage right on the border with Canada. Molly and I were up there last Saturday.