Tag Archives: MN North: Sax-Zim Bog

Evening Grosbeaks & Answered Questions

Year 8

This winter’s finch invasion continues. I had fun watching both Evening and Pine Grosbeaks at the Sax-Zim Bog Welcome Center this morning, but struck out while hiking / listening for Black-Backed Woodpeckers at Winterberry Bog. I can never get enough of Evening Grosbeaks, When I was a young child these birds religiously invaded our Duluth yard every winter. In ten years at my own Duluth home I have never had a single one of these yellow birds … bummer.

Recently I created a couple of northern Minnesota birding excursion pamphlets (PDF’s) for a friend who manages the South Pier Inn (he wants the PDF’s for his guests). The work was done as a favor; thus I want my own readers to have the opportunity to utilize my work: (all three docs are PDF’s)

Finally I would like to answer two questions submitted by some readers …

  • Marla asks: Out of curiosity what are you using to organize your photos?

I actually do not use any service, be it Flicker, SmugMug, GooglePhotos, etc. There are a number of reasons.

    1. I like to be in charge of my own images and MANY services downgrade your image quality upon upload.
    2. My images (actually every file new or edited on my entire hard drive) are backed up nightly to an external hard drive
    3. I use  basic naming conventions for ease of search via my hard drive.
      • Images are saved in folders with logical names (such as Night Skies)
      • My filenames always include a geographic reference, a bird ID (or descriptive name such as ship, freighter, or ore boat), and finally any other relevant important information (such as flight, take-off, prey, dawn, seasmoke, etc). Thus my filenames can get rather long but ave keywords that facilitate searches.
  • Tommy asks: I like my camera but find the wifi is inoperative I in controlling shots from iPhone to assist with feeder pictures. Do you have any comments on that?
    1. While I use a different camera than Tommy, I do “not” use wifi and any accompanying camera manufacturer apps to control the taking of photographs. There are a number of reasons:
      • Wifi usage by a camera is a real battery life hog. Living in a cool climate such as northern Minnesota insures I pay attention to this fact.
      • Anytime I actually tested a “wifi shutter release” I found the latency to be extremely slow. Thus, using wifi controls not only negatively affected my battery life, but also meant missed photo opportunities. By the time I pressed “shutter release” in an app, and the connection was passed along to my camera’s shutter release by wifi or bluetooth, the action I wanted to record was long in the past.
      • I prefer to sit or kneel near bird feeders or in gardens (never stand … birds find that action threatening but may put up with you given the lower profile of sitting or kneeling).

Boreal Bird Bonanza!

Year 8
After essentially a two winter absence, the Boreal Chickadees are back at Sax-Zim Bog. While these birds are seen at the Warren Nelson and Winterberry Bogs, my real favorite spot is the Welcome Center for Boreal Chickadees (see below images on where to find).
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Boreal Chickadee
I don’t normally post feeder photographs, but this image helps point out how different the Boreal Chickadee is from the Black-Capped.
Hike Gray Jay Way (easy walk / well packed snow) for about 1/3 to 1/2 mile. At the end of your walk, there is a bench. Just to the right of the bench (a couple of yards away) is one small suet feeder. The Boreal Chickadees were visiting the suet often this morning. I also saw Gray Jays / Canada Jays and Pine Grosbeaks at this exact location. The birds treated me like I did not even exist … landing within feet of me. Finally, there is also a very large flock of Evening Grosbeaks at the Welcome Center.
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Canada Jay / Whiskey Jack / Gray Jay

Evening Grosbeak

Pine Grosbeak

Beating the Pandemic!

Year 8,

This Pandemic rots. I obviously don’t need to tell anyone that fact, but it still rots big time. Here in northern Minnesota folks may think we might be challenged in finding ways to safely get together with friends. Not true! Winter and cold temperatures are only a problem should you choose to have a defeatist attitude. Thursday evening Molly and I got together with good friends … safely and outdoors. We sat outside, wearing our long underwear, and enjoyed a roaring fire plus good fellowship. My friend Jon has even built snow walls to protect against the winds blowing in off Lake Superior. In total we sat outside for over 3 hours in 20+ degree weather. I was never cold! (warm chili and a glass of wine helped). I hope everyone else is “beating the Pandemic”. (remember … Molly has her own blog)

Obviously for me, in addition to outdoor gatherings in the northern Minnesota Winter, birding helps beat the Pandemic. Over the past few days I saw this Barred Owl, and quite a few Great Grays.