Snow Bunting

Snow Bunting

Snow Buntings

I took part of a day of off work Thursday and headed up to the North Shore to do some birding. Things are kind of quiet in the southern part of Minnesota, where I live, since many of the birds have left the area and gone south. So I was hoping that by going north I could find some of the northern species that sometimes spend the winter in the northern portion of the state.

My target species where northern hawk owls, black-backed and three-toed woodpeckers, crossbills, grossbeaks, bohemian waxwings or even just some simple snow bunting like the ones pictured above. Unfortunately it was pretty slow up north also so the best bird that I found was a red-breasted nuthatch, which are fairly common up north but a bird we don't see as often in the south part of the state. I photographed these snow buntings up in Duluth last October.

Wordless Wednesday: Snow Bunting

Pine grosbeaks and other birds at Two Harbors

Sunday's weather turned out to be great also. With all of the fun that Michelle and I had photographing red-headed woodpeckers at Necedah NWR on Saturday I decided to make another trek up north on Sunday to see if I could find one of the black-backed or three-toed that had been sighted over the past few weeks. I started my search up at Stoney Point Dr, one of the locations where a lot of the woodpeckers have been seen. I saw a couple woodpeckers but they flew before I could get a good look at them. The black-capped chickadee where another story. They were all around and they where not to camera shy.I did hear some boreal chickadee but I never got a good look at any of them.
Next I moved on to Two Harbors. On my trip here earlier in the week, I did not have as much time as I wanted to spend checking out the woods near the light house. So I did some exploring. The first thing of interest that I found was a flock of European starlings.
At first they where on the ground sifting through the grass but when I approached they took to the safety of the trees. I also saw quite a few black-capped chickadees here too.
The deer living around the lighthouse, and actually most of the ones that I saw in the area, where not very afraid of people. They have become habituated, which is not good. Many of these deer get hit by cars at dusk or dawn because they are not afraid to walk across roads, like they should be.Finally I heard what I was listening for. Tap tap tap tap. I followed the noise and found the woodpecker that was making it, unfortunately it was a hairy and not a black-backed or three-toed.

I was getting kind of discouraged. I decided that I would head back to Stoney Point Dr. and try there again. On my way back to the car I came across a pair of snow bunting in the grass.
While I was driving back to Stoney Point I passed a yard that had a tree that was full of berries and birds eating the berries. I was going a bit to fast to get a good enough look to ID the birds so I decided to turn around and go back so that I could take a better look.What I saw was a small flock of pine grosbeak.The tree, as I have since been informed, was prolly a mountain ash. Pine grosbeak are particularly fond of mountain ash berries.I shot the grosbeak for a while then continued on through Stoney Point. I never did find either of the woodpeckers that I had hoped to find but I did have a lot of fun and got some pretty good images to share with all of my friends on the web.

The last stop in my Duluth adventure

My last stop on my Duluth tour, on Thursday, was Two Harbors. By the time I arrived it was after 4:00pm so I did not have much time. It would be dark soon and I still had to drive for about 3 hours to get home. In the harbor I spotted two ducks. The first one was a bufflehead.
Buffleheads are very colorful when the light hits them just right. The only buffleheads that I have photographed in the past were a pair at the Bosque del Apache last winter, so it was kind of cool to see one in northern Minnesota.
The other duck in the harbor was a scaup. I think that it was a greater scaup because it was much larger then the bufflehead and it had a very thick beak.
On the shore a pair of snow bunting were foraging in the grass.

Then I decided to take a few minutes to check out the woods by the light house. I saw a few dark-eyed juncos, white tailed dear, and a downy woodpecker, who appeared to be molting or at least he had a few feathers out of place.I wish I would have had more time to check out the north shore but the sun was setting so I knew that I would have to plan another trip if I wanted to do more north shore birding. So I packed up my equipment, stopped for gas on the way out of town and began the trip home.

Snow buntings and horned grebes at Minnesota Point in Duluth

After a week of days filled with either rain or gray skies or both, the weather reports said that we would have a clear and sunny Saturday on October 20th. I wanted to make another trip up to Duluth, MN before winter came so I decided that I would drive up that Saturday morning. I left at around 7am, the sun was just starting to light up the sky, and I arrived in Duluth around 9:30am. The drive was very nice. The weather was perfect, with deep blue skies and crisp fall air, and the scenery was a tapestry of fall colors.

Unfortunately as I approached Duluth I could see clouds moving in from the west and as I crossed the bridge onto Park Point a wall of clouds blocked out the sun. Since I had already made the trip, and there was not much that I could do about mother nature, I continued with my plans. I drove out park point spotting mallards, Canadian geese, several different types of sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, and several types of gulls as I drove. When I reached the end of the road I parked by the airport and hiked up to the beach of Minnesota Point. When I approached the lake I spotted 2 birds in the water near the shore. As I moved in to get some pics the birds dove under the water and swam out into the lake. I could see them well enough to identify them as horned grebes but they were not too far to get any descent pics. So I moved on to the east following the Lake. A ways down the shore I spotted a couple of snow bunting.

I almost did not see them, their winter, non-breeding, plumage blended so well into the sand.When I got close though they flew a little ways down the beach so I followed and got some shots. I did not see much more except quite a few people and dogs so I started back to the car. On the way back I saw that the grebes where back in close to shore again. This time I took a different approach to try and get some better grebe pics. When the birds were up I would stay still and when they dove under the water, after some breakfast, I moved closer to their location.This strategy worked well. I was able to get pretty close to the wary birds.Once I got close I continued to follow them using this strategy. Every time they would go under I would move to where I thought that they would surface. Several times one of the birds would come up within a few feet from where I was standing.You know when you get detail in the eyes that you have gotten some good shots. It is just too bad that they are not in breeding plumage because they look much cooler when they are in breeding plumage. After a hiker with a dog kind of spooked them back out into the deeper water I decided to leave and make my way up to Hawk Ridge.