Tag Archives: MN North: Gunflint Trail

Ice Planet Birding

Year 13, ,

As a dangerous blizzard rages outside, it seems like a great time to catch up on recent outings. Today I will be house bound due to dangerous weather, but over the past 7 days we had amazingly mild weather including light winds. I took the opportunity yesterday to drive up to the end of the GunFlint Trail. In short, I was “Ice Planet Birding”.

Prior to our mild stretch we experienced severe cold with temperatures reaching down to -30F to -40F. Lake Superior had some of its highest percentage of ice coverage in years. In fact the National Park’s Ice Caves opened, for one day only, for the first time in ten years (involves a trek over the Lake Superior ice). Today’s storm is breaking up the ice.

While the caves on the south shore were providing an amazing, beautiful experience, on the North Shore the combination of pre-dawn light and ice created a winter wonderland of color. Until I was north of Tofte, ice stretched out over Lake Superior as far as the eye could see. These photos were taken before sunrise, and then at the actual moment the orange disk popped up over the horizon.

Pre-Dawn at Split Rock Lighthouse

The Moment of Sunrise at Beaver Bay

Amazingly all of this ice was gone six hours later. HUGE winds came up out of the Northeast and did a combination of breaking and pushing ice sheets down towards Duluth.

Two days earlier from this trip up the shore, I visited my Greenwood Creek Bird Feeders. Just 1/3 mile north of the feeders is Greenwood Lake. How many of you have ever seen, let alone driven on an ice road?

Greenwood Lake Ice Road (video link for blog email subscribers)

The Movie!

And of course … an Ice Planet winter bird. This Snowy Owl may look like it is waving, but actually it is letting everyone know to behave while birding … or else! Image taken two evenings ago in Superior, Wisconsin.

The Forest Reborn!

Year 10

I am hard at work writing an article for a large regional magazine about the “Forest Reborn”. I had pitched the editor that while forest fires involve tragedy, these same burns equal new life in the forest … both for plants and wildlife. I am discovering that this is a subject very dear to my heart, and it is hard to keep the word count down to the required number! For years one of my favorite birding / wildlife day trips has been to visit the burned out regions from the Ham Lake (2007), Pagami Creek (2011) and Greenwood Lake (2021) Forest Fires.

Here are two images I took from the same location of the Ham Lake Burn Area near the end of the Gunflint Trail looking towards Canada. Once again obviously forest fires involve tragic consequences for many, but these fires also give new life.

Ham Lake Burn Area: 2011 (4 years post fire)

Ham Lake Burn Area: 2020 (13 years post fire)

The Hygge Hoot! (or Superb Owl Sunday)

Year 10, ,

Hygge: a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture … definition from the Oxford Google Languages Dictionary). Given I am a Danish-American with cousins still living in the “old country”, I would expand upon this definition and state Hygge is enhanced by the outdoors.

Anyhow, Molly and I spent much of the weekend up in Cook County which is the region in Minnesota’s North Shore bordering Canada. We were working upon an article about Cook County’s Hygge Festival for a leading regional magazine. Molly writes while I take photographs. I hope you enjoy a few of my photographs and how I ended my day … long after sundown during the dark of night with a “Hoot Hike”. By the time I came home I truly had a sense of peacefulness. My local owl even hooted for over 80 minutes while I hiked in the darkness “following the hygge hoot”!

Hygge

Sunrise

Frozen Cascading Waterfall (Cross River)

Gunflint Trail Red Fox Hunting

Grand Marais Lighthouse and Frozen Shoreline

Hoot Night Hike Stats and Map (i.e. following the hoot)