Tag Archives: MN North: McQuade Harbor

Colors Around the Clock!

Year 7, ,

You can cut the moisture in the air with a knife. It’s humid, and shortly after sunset a thunder storm developed and worked its way out over Lake Superior. I drove over to McQuade Harbor (six miles away) and enjoyed some storm watching from inside my car. This is my favorite image with the gazebo in the foreground.

McQuade Harbor Gazebo Lightning Strike

As I’ve noted in many recent posts, the wildflowers are amazing right now. Here are a few images I took within the past few days. The fawn and doe know me personally, and walked within five feet of me before disappearing into the forest. On the other side of the road were hikers whom they wanted to avoid and I have a reputation with the birds and mammals as the “birdfeeder man”! (i.e.safe and provides food)

Late Season White-Tailed Deer Fawn

I also made a quick trip over to Sax-Zim Bog. When the weather did not cooperate I explored some logging roads east of Canyon and was rewarded with these sightings.

Sandhill Crane and Tansy (truly an invasive plant)

Wild Turkey Trot! (pretty certain this is two families of turkeys)

Turkey Trot the Movie! (link for email subscribers)

Roadside Ditch Birding!

Year 5,

It does not sound glamorous … roadside ditch birding. Folks talk about taking exotic birding trips to Costa Rica or the Texas barrier islands during spring migration … and where do I bird? Ditches!

Actually my approach makes great sense and is quite productive. After days of rain, and multiple stormy weather days, the ditches hold both water and bugs. Given there is now snow on the ground to our north and west, and overnight lows routinely are down in the 20’s inland from Lake Superior, these ditches represent food to starving, migrating birds. Our weather has caught the late migrants by surprise. Our normal highs for this time of year are 53F. Lately we are lucky if a day tops out at 40F.

The other present birding advantage is starving birds let you get very, very close. While in the spring and summer I need to know habitat, all I need right now for a successful birding excursion is my bicycle which allows me to go slowly and then stop to observe.

All Roadside Ditch Birds … photographed from just a few feet distant:

Wilson’s Snipe

American Redstart (at my feet)

Yellow-Rumped Warbler (and in a pine)

Not in a ditch, but a large group for these parts … Snow Geese in Two Harbors