Gyr!

Just as with beer, cheese, and processed meats, occasionally one must step foot in next-door Wisconsin for the finer things in life, and birds are no exception.  Last spring their state-record Garganey just over the border drove Minnesota and Wisconsin birders wild. This winter a slightly less cool bird-which by no means diminishes its status!-showed up in the twin-port city of Superior, Wisconsin.  This large bird, figuratively and literally speaking, that chose to take up winter residence on the Wisconsin side of the Blatnik Bridge also had Minnesota birders worked up into a frenzy.  Yes, we are talking about the Gyrfalcon, a falcon so superior in size and awesomeness to its lesser brethren that seasoned northern birders drop the “falcon” altogether when uttering its name.  Gyr (pronounced “jeer”-trust me, I heard it spoken by the state’s top birder) was first caught by raptor bander, Dave Evans, in Superior and word slowly got out that this arctic predator was in town. Better yet is that it had taken up residence at the Peavey grain elevators on Connors Point where it spends much time loafing and enjoying spectacular views of Lake Superior when not feeding on pigeons in the harbor.

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I, too, had Gyr fever.  I had many false-starts and set-backs for getting up north the past month, but I finally made it happen.  It took much planning, namely sending the kids home with Grandma and Grandpa after a double birthday celebration, sending Melissa home to a quiet house, and sending myself solo to Duluth/Superior and beyond.  It was win-win-win. Though with some atrocious dog diarhhea episodes at home while 3/4 of us were away, that conclusion may have to be settled far from now by the bird-blogging historians.

But, anyhow, I felt free as a bird as I drove north, much like this Rough-legged Hawk I saw along the way.

Rough-legged Hawk

Duluth birder, JG Bennett, knew I was coming and graciously agreed to help me locate Gyr – not necessarily an easy task as many birders have dipped on seeing it.  In exchange I’ll be helping him find his Blue Grosbeak lifer this summer–I think I’m getting the better end of this deal.  JG called me when I was about an hour from Duluth to tell me that the Gyr was present.  Nice guy that he is, he babysat the thing for over an hour until I showed up. Considering the distance from the viewing area and the massive gridiron structure, I was glad he did.

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Even in this next photo you can get a sense of the size of the Gyr (look for the bump near the top right).

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At times like this I’m thankful for the zoom capabilities of my camera.  Quality leaves a lot to be desired, but, hey, no one’s getting killer shots or even great views of this raptor.

Gyrfalcon

GyrfalconSome fun history on Gyr is that this same individual was caught and banded in 2003 in the Duluth/Superior area.  At the time it was a third-year bird.  It ended up returning every winter for four years and then did not return until this year!  Given when it was banded, the age of this male Gyrfalcon is estimated to be 14 years 8 months–the oldest Gyrfalcon on record!

I spent about a half hour or so with the bird who never, ever moved off his perch, even when pigeons flew right by his head.  By seeing the main target right away, my time was then free to fritter away as I pleased.  I had northern gulls to pick up (Glaucous, Iceland, Great Black-backed), but the Duluth shipping canal was froze over, so there went any hopes for gulls or sea ducks.  Instead I decided to try to track down one of three Northern Hawk Owls in the Duluth area as it had been over a year since I had seen this cool bird. The strong winds were keeping the owls hidden though.  I couldn’t find a single one.  Duluth birds in general were giving me the snub, including this Pine Grosbeak.

Pine Grosbeak

I had one last hope for the Hawk Owl (“Northern” is a bit superfluous and is often dropped by northern birders).  One had been hanging out just south of the Sax-Zim Bog near Canyon.  Specifically this bird could be reliably found right at mile marker 29 at Hellwig Creek.  I decided that the Duluth Hawk Owls were a lost cause, so I might as well try for Hellwig and then use up my remaining daylight hours in the Bog.  Hellwig was also a no-show, so it was on to the Bog for me.

I have several unfinished birding projects of sorts for the Sax-Zim Bog–a lifer or two, better photo ops of some, officially getting another on my state eBird list, and so on. Anyhow, one of my top goals was to get a good photo of a Boreal Chickadee, so I made a bee-line to the Admiral Road feeding station.  There were the usual suspects around. Gregarious Gray Jays are always up for a photo-shoot.

Gray Jay

Common Redpolls were everywhere.  A couple looked whiter and plumper than the rest.  I’m thinking this one looks good for Hoary based on the small, conical bill and faint streaking on the flanks.  It had the overall frosty appearance of a Hoary.

Hoary Redpoll

The Boreal Chickadees can be quite finicky.  Often birders will have to wait up to a half hour or more for just a flash appearance.  That was my experience last year.  This year was a different story as two of them were coming out from the Spruce bog constantly in the last hour of daylight to feed on their favorite winter food–peanut butter smeared on branches.  Visitors to Sax-Zim are encouraged to slather up some branches with the creamy stuff (and donate their fair share of PB) at the Admiral Road feeders when they visit.  It’s crazy, but it works.

This Boreal Chickadee momentarily, and perhaps regretfully, chose suet over PB.

Boreal Chickadee

Admittedly I’m a bit smitten with this bird.  I’ve never really been able to answer the question of “What’s your favorite bird?”, but this one has to be right up there.  I may be a bit biased, but this, in my opinion, is the best Chickadee.  Perhaps that’s because it leads a secretive life in the deep, mysterious Spruce bogs alongside Great Gray Owls and Spruce Grouse and is rarely seen or perhaps because it is so visually stunning.

Boreal Chickadee

I’m finally at peace with the Boreal Chickadee as I got the photo I wanted–even if it does have a little peanut butter in it.

Boreal Chickadee

After hanging out with the Boreal Chickadees, who, by the way, are just as tame as their Black-capped cousins, I headed to Grandma and Grandpa’s to spend the night with the kids and prepare for the next day of birding which is arguably the best day I’ve ever had in the Sax-Zim Bog.  Stay tuned…there will be videos!

Every Bird Trip Ending is a New Bird Trip Beginning

At the end of our long day of North Shore birding, Evan and I opted to stay in Grand Marais at my brother’s vacation house instead of retiring with the rest of our group back to Duluth. Besides making for a more relaxed travel schedule, this extra night also guaranteed another crack at those ocean-going birds as well as all the oddball birds that can mysteriously show up in Grand Marais in the fall (Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Townsend’s Solitaire, etc).  Grand Marais is great town even if you’re not a birder.  With the vibe of a seaside village it attracts artists and nature lovers alike.  In addition to the birds, eating at the world’s only Sven & Ole’s Pizza was a must, and according to Evan, so was a Tom and Jerry marathon back at the house.  To each his own.

After plenty of pizza, cat&mouse antics, and sleep, it was time to get going with the new day.  We had birds to find and a state to cross.  While I was hauling our things out to the car in the pre-dawn darkness, I heard those shooting lasers that Clinton talked about – flight calls of Common Redpolls.  The rising sun revealed a whole cluster of them feeding at the tops of the birch trees in the front yard.  They were close and in the sun, so I decided I should get a proper photo of one.  I pulled up the camera on one and realized it was pretty frosty in appearance, and the bill was so small and conical.  Right away I was thinking it was a Hoary Redpoll.

Hoary Redpoll

Many Redpolls cannot be cleanly deciphered as Hoary or Common.  There is a lot of overlap, and it is all very confusing and frustrating.  People generally only claim Hoary on the most perfect specimens that exhibit all the undeniable traits of a classic Hoary.  Hoaries are rare as there may be one bird in every flock of 150-200 Common Redpolls. I’ve stared at many, many suspicious birds in my own yard trying to make the call on Hoary or not Hoary.  The general discussion on Facebook of the bird above leans toward the Hoary side.

At any rate, we were not in Grand Marais to debate Redpoll statuses.  We had birds to find. The plan was to hit up the municipal campground to look for flocks of Bohemian Waxwings and a couple of Black-backed Woodpeckers.  Up to 75 Bohemians had been seen in town a few days prior.  Since I needed to charge my camera battery that morning, we went camera-less.  The campground held some interesting birds – four Snow Buntings and two very frigid, out-of-place Meadowlark species.  However, there was nothing we were after.

We then retrieved the camera battery and drove the streets of town looking for fruit-bearing trees for Bohemians and donut-bearing gas stations for us.  We were successful on the latter.  The gypsy-like birds are completely unreliable and never did show up for us. We made one more pass through the storied campground and could only muster up a few Rusty Blackbirds.

Rusty Blackbird

After an hour of searching for the Waxwings, we gave up and headed southwest down Highway 61.  I spied an interesting-looking raptor flying the same direction as us, but I didn’t stop because the focus was back on ducks.  Either this bird passed us or there was another one just like it because Evan was exclaiming he just saw a black raptor with a white tail sitting on the power line.  I asked him if he thought we should turn around to look.  He wanted to, so we did.  The bird was a gorgeous dark-morph Rough-legged Hawk that was now on the move again back to the southwest.  So we raced ahead of it and stopped at the same overlook where we got our White-winged Scoters.  The views were spectacular.

Rough-legged Hawk

After enjoying this new, rarer flavor of RLHA, we noticed the three White-winged Scoters were continuing from the day before.  Then it was time to pop in our book-on-tape and hit the road hard, only stopping briefly at the lookouts from our trip yesterday to scan for ducks.  The story was much the same – no sea ducks.  Interestingly the day after this trip, a couple of juvenile Common Eiders were found at one of these locations – the first time since 1966.  And we missed it by a day.

Anyhow, Duluth still held something very promising for us.  It turns out that American Black Ducks are a relatively easy find along Park Point.  We needed that bird.  We can get it at home in spring and fall migration, but it’s not an easy one.  Clinton, our guide from the sea duck trip, gave us a reliable location to try for this semi-nemesis.  He said to look bayside at 38th street.  As I drove down Park Point and could see Lake Superior to my left and the bay to my right, I was not seeing ducks anywhere, not even Mallards.  This was a bad sign.  Even at 38th where the water nearly laps onto the road, there was nothing.  I checked lakeside even though Clinton said the ducks are always bayside.  Nothing.  I couldn’t believe it.  Leave it to me to screw up a sure bet.  I was settling in for defeat and driving back toward Canal Park when I caught sight of a couple of Mallards on the grass on the bayside of the road right near 38th.  I stopped and looked.  This caused these Mallards and several others who were tucked up on shore in the cove-like corner under some brush.  As they swam out into the bay, I saw that five of them were Black Ducks! This was a very satisfying lifer, perhaps the best of the trip.  It was a nice ending to a fun weekend of birding.

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American Black Duck

It’s amazing how black these ducks really look in the right light.  The male below shows some green on the top of his head which might make it a Mallard X American Black Duck hybrid.

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Here’s a better shot of the green.

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It was finally time to leave the Black Ducks and Duluth behind and hit I-35 for the 3.5 hour ride home.  I was quite content to have gotten this hoped-for duck.  I was now looking forward to a relaxing ride home with no more birding stops.  Evan and I stopped one last time to fill up the tank and empty ours.  As I was waiting for Evan, I compulsively checked my phone (a bad habit brought on by birding).  Birding friend Tony Lau had messaged me to alert me to an incredible bird discovered by Jeff Grotte back home just a few miles from where I work. Before I knew it, I was hurrying Evan to get back in the car.  It was 1:00. Darkness was coming in four hours and I had to go just over 3 hours to get to this bird. Moreover, the coming 12 inches of snow that night would make a next-day search impossible.  Never mind that the bird could up and leave at any moment.  I had to get there – fast. There would be no relaxing drive home.