Pine Siskin

 

Pine Siskin

Winter Birding Part 4: Sax Zim Bog

One of the best places to bird in Minnesota during the winter is the Sax Zim Bog Wildlife Management Area. The bog is located in northeastern Minnesota not far from Duluth.

The main attraction of the bog are the owls that come down from Canada during the winter. As food sources up north of the border decline, due to winter weather, owls head down to the bog in search of prey. The most common northern owl to see is the northern hawk owl, above, which is a diurnal owl, meaning that it is active during the day which makes it easier to find. Other northern owls that sometimes visit the bog include great gray owls and boreal owls.

Besides the owls there are some other colorful species that can be found in the bog during the winter. One of the most common is the pine grosbeak, pictured above. Male pine grosbeak are red and gray while the females are more of a mustard color. Evening grosbeaks and white-winged crossbills can also be found, though they are not as common as the pine grosbeak.

Northern finches can usually be found around feeders. The numbers of these birds that visit the bog changes each year depending on the amount of food available back in their summer range. Last year there was quite an irruption of northern finches with pine siskin, pictured above, and redpoll being spotted all the way down in Iowa. This year I spotted very few northern finches, only a few pine siskin and one redpoll on this trip.

There are always plenty of chickadees around. Even though they are very common it is important to keep your eyes on them because you never know when a boreal chickadee might show up. These are another resident of the boreal forests up in Canada who will sometimes come down to Minnesota looking for food, but these little guys are not looking for seed. They are insect eaters so they are looking mostly for protein. So for the past few years several local birders in the area have attached parts of deer carcasses to trees in different locations through out the bog. This is a good source of food for many birds, especially the boreal chickadees and it also gives birders a place to look for these special birds. Unfortunately this year a local resident complained that the deer carcasses were attracting wolves, despite evidence to the contrary, and the DNR took them all down. This looked like it was going to be the end of one of the best places to photograph birds in Minnesota during the winter until a compromise was reached. The deer would no longer be allowed on public land, however seed and suet were allowed. So feeders went up in many key locations and the birds continued to come in to eat.

I never did see any signs of wolves. There were no tracks around the feeding stations and the carcasses were never torn down. The closes thing to a wolf that I ever spotted in the bog was a red squirrel but I don't think that he was causing too much trouble.

Watery Wednesday: Pine Siskin taking a Bath

Anyone has spent any time watching birds or who has a birdbath in their yard can tell you that birds love the water. Not only do they need water for drinking but they also use water to bathe. Watching a bird bathing is like watching a bird at play, their splashing and frolicking is a treat to watch.
It does not matter what size the bird is, whether it is a golden eagle at The Raptor Center or a black-capped chickadee in a puddle on the side of a road, most birds will take advantage of the opportunity to bathe especially after a long winter.

On one of my frequent trips to White Water State Park I found a small of water that formed from the melting snow. Since the day was warm and sunny several small passerines decided to take advantage of this shallow trickle of water and take an impromptu bath.

Most of the birds bathing were pine siskins, although there was also a bashful dark-eyed junco that flew before I could take his pic. The pine siskin is a northern finch that usually spend their summers up in Canada, although there are populations that stay in the US year round up in the Rocky Mountains. During some winters, like the one that recently ended, the siskins will irrupt southward into the continental US if there is not sufficient food.

Red Wing Christmas Bird Count

Last Saturday I participated in the Red Wing area Christmas Bird Count. This was my third CBC, the first two were the prior weekend in Duluth and Two Harbors. This was kind of different situation because this count circle had not been done since 1973, so we did not have any recent data and were not sure what to expect. Unfortunately the weather was not great for birding and even worse for taking pictures.

I had spoken with our group leader, Jim Ryan the night before and we decided that the three of us, Jim Gay was the other member of our group, would meet near my house and then car pool down in my truck. So we met at around 6:00 am and headed south to Red Wing to meet with the rest of the count group. The roads on the trip down were a bit slick but not to bad. The fog was another story. There was several occasions when we would be driving with fairly good visibility and then hit a wall of fog and I would need to slow down to about 10 mph because I could barely see the road in front of the truck hood. Despite the fun driving conditions we made it down to the rendezvous location on time and with out incident. At the rendezvous location we found out from Laura Coble, the Red Wing CBC coordinator, that several people had to cancel because many of the roads to the west of Red Wing were iced up and they could not get through safely. Since several areas in the count circle were left with out anyone to count in them we decided that we could cover a second area. So around 7:30 am or so we took of and headed to our first area.

Our first zone was south west of Red Wing and west of Frontenac. It consisted mainly of farm fields with a few roads running through, so we spent most of our time in the truck driving around. With a lot of farms and fields we spotted a lot of juncos, chickadees, tree sparrows, starlings, pheasants, and pigeons. We also spotted a few more interesting birds.

Red-tailed hawk

Rough-legged hawk

Northern shrike

We even got a bald eagle to pose for us in the lite snow

It snowed for quite a bit in the morning, the very wet snow flakes made it difficult to shoot, so my camera stayed packed most of the time until the snow stopped but I could not pass on these shots.

We completed our first zone around noon and then met back with the group at the afternoon rendezvous. By this time all the snow had stopped and the fog had lifted. It was still very overcast but the temps were fairly warm as we headed out to our second area.

The second zone covered the Frontenac area. It consisted of the small residential areas of Frontenac and as well as the state park. We started off touring through the residential areas, stopping to take a closer look at any of the active feeders. Near the feeders we saw juncos, cardinals, chickadees, gold finch and house finch.

We also saw American tree sparrows

blue jays

and pine siskin at some of the feeders.

Near one of the cemeteries we were excited to find a couple of brown creepers. They were the only 2 creepers that were found on the count.

In the Frontenac State Park we spotted another rough-legged hawk, a flock of nearly 100 robins over by the Villa Maria, and a couple bald eagles near the river. We even hiked out to sand point but we did not find much other then a hairy woodpecker.

When we finished the second area we headed back to Red Wing to meet for the compilation. I still had some holiday stuff to take care of plus we were all pretty beat so we did not stay long. According to an e-mail from Laura Coble the final numbers were 46 species found by 17 birders. The record for this count from 1905 to 1973 was 49 so considering the conditions I think that we did well. The more interesting sightings included:

2 Tufted Titmice (at two separate feeders; one of the feeders normally has 2)
2 Brown Creepers
8 Gray Partridges
14 Rough-legged Hawks
49 Pine Siskins
10 Snow Buntings
1 Belted Kingfisher
4 Ruffed Grouse
96 American Robins
60 Red-winged Blackbirds

Most of my birding has been alone or with my wife, so going out with other birders has been kind of a new experience for me. It has been fun and I am learning a lot. Hopefully I will get a chance to go out birding with Jim and/or Jim again in the future.