Day 111: Blue Jay Day

Year 1,

Throughout this entire project, whether I have been home in northern Minnesota, helping my Dad in central Florida, or volunteering in the Colorado Rockies, a common bird theme has been the ability to watch blue jays. Yet during this entire time to date, I never posted a photo of a single blue jay. However, with the Spring migration in force, even though some blue jays spend the winter in the Duluth area, southern jays are now migrating into and through the area. Over the past few days I’ve often seen flocks of well over one hundred blue jays. In fact, down on Minnesota Point two days ago I watched as a falcon attacked a flock of over 50 jays and had them completely terrified.

However, today is finally “Blue Jay Day”. The proper photographic conditions arrived for me to show off their deep, gorgeous blue. I’ve also included two photos which did not make the cut for my “bird of the day”.

Bird of the Day: Blue Jay
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Bad Hair Day Osprey
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Broad-Winged Hawk
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Day 110: Would You Rather be a Duck?

Year 1

Would you like to swing on a star,
carry moonbeams home in a jar?

Or would you rather be a duck?

With my apologies to Bing Crosby (YouTube Link) and others for the slight change to the lyrics, I believe the answer to the question is “no”! I took these photos this morning at the mouth of the Lester River on Lake Superior. The wind was gusting to almost 40 mph, and these redheads really did not want to migrate one foot farther north. Their landing spot was about 50 yards past the end of the pack ice which has this end of Lake Superior (Duluth) slammed in with ice even on May 12th.

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Day 109: Redhead Duck Photos

Year 1

With this morning I notched another species for this project, 78 different types of birds. While it is not a goal of this project to find new species, it does make it a bit more fun. These two redhead duck couples were swimming in the Duluth harbor shortly after dawn this morning.

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