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This is a journal of a seven day trip to Minnesota from Jan 16 to Jan 22 2005. It included a side trip to Kansas and birding in St Joe MO. I found eight life birds, and five were Owl species. The weather was very challenging.

More than you want to know (fanatics only)

I had a big long post of background information culled from posts on the Minnesota listservs, but it took up a lot of space and interfered with the flow of the blog, so I've removed it. If anyone is interested in that information, please email me at the contact address, and I'll send the text along promptly.

Night Snow Driving Home

Since I had little hope of finding more of my target birds, and the storm was getting thicker, I bailed out for the south. I had planned to visit friends in Chicago, but Laura advised against the most direct highway, and said take the Interstate to Minneapolis, then head east. At first the driving was 35 mph, but nearer the twin cities, thanks to relentless plowing, it was ok to go 50. I finally crashed in a rest area N of St Paul, in the great comfy double bag setup, and slept nearly eight hours while the truck rattled and rocked in the wind driven snow. A weather monitor showed the storm heading southeast, and Chicago with over a foot of snow predicted. More discreet than valorous, I changed my plan, and continued south. It wasn't much better. A Ground blizzard of blowing snow under blue skies, sometimes almost full white-out, the wind coming sideways at 30+ mph. I saw at least 50 eighteen-wheelers off the road, on straight stretches, not curves. They'd simply been blown sideways into the median or ditches. That was a good night to sleep through. By Des Moines, there wasn't new snow blowing, but the wind followed me all the way to Arkansas, where I arrived safely around 9:30pm.

What's happening with the Owls

I got into a conversation while working on the blog posts with another customer in the Cafe. First we talked about laptops, but then got onto Owls. They're starving. Quite a few have already been found dead with no signs of injury. The mouse/vole population in their normal range in Canada has crashed. Already weakened by hunger, they've flown south into Minnesota to what looks like good habitat, but the Minnesota mouse/vole population is also down, and has been declining further rapidly under the hunting pressure of so many invading predators. At one point on Thursdy, we had four GGO in sight at one time. They're thicker than Red-tail Hawks on fenceposts in Arkansas. The guy I was talking to asked reasonably, "Why don't they fly further south?" At this point they are too physically compromised to make a long flight; their fat reserves are gone, and they're metabolizing muscle mass to stay alive. Not being regular migrants, they don't have some special adaptations for fueling long flights, like the ability to add large amounts of fat. In any case, there's not enough food to allow for that, even if their physiology was appropriate.

Some of the owls are adapting by taking larger prey than they are accustomed to. There have been reports of them eating squirrels and rabbits. Laura Erickson is harvesting reports of such events, since she's most well known to non-birders from her radio program on NPR, For the Birds One interesting behavioral adaptation is that they cover their prey withtheir bodies to keep it warm enough to dismember. Otherwise it would freeze solid in minutes in the climates where they're operating.

I had pizza with Laura later that evening. She had lots of great stories and was a wonderful hostess. We had planned to go out for dinner, but there was 6 inches of new snow and more coming down. Her husband advised against unnecessary driving. The funny smell coming from my four wheel drive advised the same. Toward the end of dinner, as I was heading south into the storm, she showed me a Great Grey Owl that had been brought to her found dead. Beautiful critter, deep thick feathers like a parka, special adaptations on the wing edges for silent flight, long talons on small feet for capturing mice through snow. Sadly the face was shrunk from the loss of the insulating fat layer (just making the need for food more acute), and most alarming, the chest was missing most of it's muscle. Birds have their largest muscles attached to their sternum, referred to as flight muscles, think of a Thanksgiving turkey breast. On Laura's specimen, one could almost feel the ribs, like the turkey had had the meat carved away, only it was the owl eating itself in a last ditch effort to stay alive. And it was less than half it's healthy weight, I'm guessing, bizarre to lift such a sizable bird (standing it would be thigh high) and have it feel like an empty bag.

Great Gray Owl

Great Gray Owl


A picure from Sparky of a Great Gray, we saw 40 Thursday.

Snow sets in and how to see the pictures

I've spent a good chunk of the day in an internet Cafe getting the links in the blog set up, and getting some pictures added. You have to click on the little square to get them to show. I also made a trip to the Duluth Airport to try for thr Snowy Owl reported there, but the snow was thick enough that I couldn't really see, plus the scope kept fogging up, having been in the back of the truck all night. After lunch took a short trip to the Superior, Wisconsin landfill to check out the gulls. Hundreds of Herring, and one Glaucous, and one Thayer's. Good trip birds for sure. Now waiting for dinner-time to meet up with Laura Erickson.

Sparky with the Gray Jay

He couldn't resist trying the hand out trick too. This is Sparky who took the photos posted with the Minnesota trip report, and the wonderful friend and birder who led me around to feathered treasures.

Picture copyright Mark Sparky Stensaas

Snowy Owl

A good picture of a snowy Owl on a fencepost. The one I saw was on the ground.

Picture copyright Mark Sparky Stensaas

Northern Hawk Owl

We saw three of these on Thursday in the Sax-Zim bog

Picture copyright Mark Sparky Stensaas

The very friendly Gray Jay

J Pat feeding the Gray Jay (note sock), it just happens that I was putting on another pair hen the inspiration hit to try hand feeding.

Picture copyright Mark Sparky Stensaas

Gray Jay waiting for a handout.

Picture copyright Mark Sparky Stensaas

Boreal Owl

This is the one we raced up the North Shore to see just as it was getting dark.

Picture copyright Mark Sparky Stensaas

Here's the one antlered deer

One antlered deer at Moose cafe, it was feeding on hay bales set out across the street.

Picture copyright Mark Sparky Stensaas

A Two Owl Day

We set out for Sax-Zim before sunrise and started seeing Great Gray Owls as soon as we turned off into the bog. By the time we left we had seen forty (!!). We also after a slow start, found three Northern Hawk Owls. We didn’t really get to linger on any of them, since the first was near some houses, and some residents had reported being disturbed by birders, the second flew when I opened the hatch of the campershell, and the third was a ways off. We had lunch at the Wilbert Café, and started back making one brief stop to look for a Black-backed Woodpecker. They specialize on areas of dead trees, like those found after fires. After post-holing through thigh-deep snow, playing tapes, and studying the tracks of insect larvae in the areas of trunk where the birds have scaled off the bark, we admitted that there were no birds coming.

The day still had several hours of daylight, so I talked Sparky into returning to Duluth to search for Bohemian Waxwings. We traveled around areas of the city that had ornamental fruit trees, which the birds feed on in flocks. A lot of the trees were already stripped, but enough fruit remained to keep us looking for over an hour. Finally I needed to get hooked up to the net to get some posts on for this blog. Laura Erickson, whose site For The Birds is highly recommended, as well as her program on some NPR stations, gave me directions to an Internet café. I got about three hundred emails, and got the posts up. We were leaving, thinking about going to the airport to see another Snowy Owl. My phone rang, but I didn’t get to it quick enough, and then Sparky’s went off.

It was a call from Jim Lind, with directions to a Boreal Owl. He had found it in his sister’s back yard in Two Harbors. It was covered with snow from her snow blower. The bird was 20+ miles away, and it was 4:30, getting dark real soon, but we didn’t hesitate to give it a try. Fortunately the road was clear and four-lane, so we got there with time to spare. Four women from Georgia were already there and had the owl in sight. We got two scopes set up and were able to study it for about fifteen minutes before it flew. It had definitely seemed to be waking up as we watched, the eyes getting more open, the head starting to move around, it began to sit up straighter, so when it flew it wasn’t a surprise.

Two lifer owls today. There’s only one species commonly found in the USA that remains unfound. Need to make a trip to Arizona someday

Whole day in Lake County

Today was the trip into the spruce north woods of Lake County with Sparky leading the way. We were out fairly early, and had the first Great Gray Owl before 8:30. A lifer, and the first of four of the big owls we saw today. We pretty much expected to see them, and the real challenge was to find a Spruce Grouse. Four hours of driving on snow packed roads in four wheel drive netted nary a one. But I did learn what to look for, and where to look, and will probably try again before leaving the area. At one point we got off the highway and turned up a side road to look for some woodpeckers tat Sparky was trying to find for his year list. We played tapes and spished, but couldn’t scare up the desired birds. What we did find was a flock of Boreal Chickadees, after Sparky had said they were never found in flocks. What a disappointment. Five lifers instead of just one. Fast moving little chumps, made it hard for Sparky to get a good pic, but the one here is good enough.

Another bird that came in to our calls was a Gray Jay, to in fact. They seemed fearless, and we guessed maybe they were looking for food, being well known camp robbers, the kind of bird that will lift a sizzling sausage from your frying pan. I tossed some sesame sticks n the road. They liked them. I tossed them closer; they didn’t care. As I prepared to toss another, inspiration struck, and I just held it out in my open hand. See the results.

We stopped at the Moose Café in Isabella, which had several feeders with lots of Pine Grosbeaks, many redpolls, but no Hoary. There were number of deer at bales of hay and feed, one being a one horned big buck. It would occasionally shake its head, as if trying to cure its imbalance. The locals said it had been that way for six weeks.

We made several more stops on the way back to Duluth, saw three more Great Grays, a pair of Harlequin Ducks and several Common Goldeneyes. Home after dark, at 11 degrees, and somewhat whooped.

Sparky's feeders

I continued watching for Partridges all the way until the ag fields faded, and the Nemesis rating held on. I had called Sparky around nine and as agreed called again on the Interstate approaching Duluth. We met at a casino, after I parked in the wrong place, quickly sorted out. Didn’t take long to decide that the wind and now snow made for lousy birding, so I followed Sparky to the house he’d built in the woods. Moved a few items in, and started bird talk. We’d met two years ago in the Everglades, and maintained contact by email. Sparky is a good enough birder to be a trip leader for the American Birding Association Annual Meeting, and a good wildlife photographer as well. I’ll be using some of his pics in the blog.

While watching the birds on his feeders as I sorted myself out he says, “There’s a Shrike”. I jumped. About twenty-five feet away was a Northern Shrike, no need for binocs. Much different, paler and bigger than the Loggerheads we have in Arkansas, and the second lifer for today, and hardly a better view possible Sparky agreed.

Sparky has had a number of good birds at his feeders, including a Great Gray Owl, Barred Owls, and Northern Saw-Whet Owls. I didn't see any of those there, but did see my first Brown Creeper in Minnesota, a cute little brown bird that has stirred affection in a lot of birders.

Looking for Gray Partridges again

I still had all of Iowa to cross to be in place for the next morning’s goal, which was a visit to Union Slough National Wildlife Refuge, and then drive trough the agricultural area looking for Gray Partridge. It’s another nemesis that I’ve searched for in five states. The drive north was uneventful, a fair headwind picking up, and driving the gas mileage down. Just north of Clear Lake on Interstate 35, the rest area said parking only, no restrooms, and a few semis parked. This time when I crawled in the back I started with both bags, and had a long good sleep, waking about five. It as cold, but it wasn’t until I got out for my morning relief that I realized the wind was doing thirty plus mph. I checked the thermometer in the cab, which had dropped to six degrees, maybe 3 or 4 outside. That put the chill factor somewhere around twenty below zero, where as they say “exposed flesh freezes easily”. Damn cold standing in the wind, so I didn’t. The truck started easily, which hadn’t been the case the day before, but I’d applied some gas line antifreeze and dryer. Waiting for the engine to warm, which took awhile, I continued the previous evening’s meal of summer sausage, cheese, and crackers. The Thermos with it’s precious coffee was frozen shut, but after ten minutes as the cab began to warm it yielded to my desperate twisting. Off to Union Slough in the dark, about an hours drive.

I was watching for the slough along one stretch of road, and finally identified it and pulled over in a turnout The familiar Blue Goose signs that mark the boundaries of Refuges was on a post, along with “No Parking” and “No Vehicles”. So I parked my vehicle just outside and sat in the wind and cold waiting for dawn. When it came ‘twas a dreary spectacle of blowing snow, bent over trembling dead grass, and not a single bird moving in twenty minutes. I studied the map, and figured that the office must be on the next county road south, so I backed out and headed back. Pleasant surprise that the office was only two hundred yards up the road, and the staff was just arriving for work. The receptionist unlocked the door and we had twenty minutes of good conversation, but the refuge tour road had been closed by drifting snow, and anyway the biologist said I had a better chance of finding the Partridge, and also Snow Buntings, in the roadside ditches along the ag fields. The Partridges gleaned corn left by the harvest, and might be anywhere. For the next hundred plus miles I scanned the ditches and fields as I drove looking for provocative football or basketball sized lumps in the snow. Never found a Partridge. Successfully IDed several trash bags and large dirt clods after precipitous stops. I did start to see small flocks of small birds, which turned out to be Horned Larks. By that time I was in Minnesota, but still a long way from Duluth, where my friend Sparky Stensaas lived. I would search through the flocks looking for a Lapland Longspur, they often travel together, but no luck. After about five flock stops, a different flock caught my eye, with its scintillating flashes of black and white. Another sudden stop, they were heading away, grab binocs, leap onto roadside, grimace from the windy cold, but was able to follow them quite a ways across a stubble field, where more birds joined, making about forty in all. I was sure they were Snow Buntings, but since I had never seen them before and I couldn’t study a sitting individual, there were immediate doubts. Study of the illustrations in the field guides made me more uncertain, and I started to suspect more Horned Larks. I’d only driven about three minutes when I spotted another flock of Larks. Totally different, no flashing white, and my doubts were settled. Another lifer, also BVD unfortunately.

Lake Contrary with Larry Lade

After meeting Larry’s wife Brenda, we headed out, stopping only for a quick breakfast sandwich, which I ate as we drove. Lake Contrary is an oxbow lake left by the shifting Missouri River, and Larry monitors it and a fair chunk of territory south of there along the river. We found a number of birds I hadn’t seen in Missouri before, maybe nine, including the beautiful Common Goldeneye, called Whistlers for the eerie sound their wings make as they fly. Also several Hermit Thrushes, a Red-breasted Nuthatch, and a Winter Wren.

After three and a half hours I headed north out of Saint Joe, getting somewhat lost before I finally picked up the desired road north. My goal was to find a Long-eared Owl which had become a nemesis bird, a term for a fairly common bird that had eluded much searching. Every birder has a few. Finally I had a good lead and very specific directions, which I won’t share, at the request of the person who e-mailed them to me. I took couple of hours to reach the snow covered hilltop where a small stand of pines was located. It was getting more snow covered and colder as I headed north, and the ground here was completely covered with two inches of ice-encrusted snow that crunched with every step. I walked all the way down one side and then circled around the back, and finally headed into the interior. This owl perches in thick conifers, next to the trunk, where it imitates a very convincing limb. That requires very slowly scanning up and down each trunk, looking at the beginning of every limb. Tedious and unsuccessful. Another search tactic is to look for the “candle”, which is the white mark left by the owls droppings, which accumulate under a habitual roost. Another owl sign is the pellets that litter the ground under the roost, the regurgitated indigestible remains of its prey meals. I found them, and leaned down and saw that they were different than any pellets I’d seen before; looking up, the limbs were whitewashed, and then peering higher limb by limb I approached seeing the hidden bird when it flushed, flying off toward the other end of the pine grove. Rats. I really wanted to see the sitting bird to study it, and was upset that I’d become a severe disturbance. That was when I really noticed how much noise the crunching snow was making. So I walked out of the trees and followed a tire track along the edge, stepping so that I stayed on already compressed snow. The bird flushed again, 30 inches of wing span, rich cinnamon color and totally silent flight. But it was time to go; I’d way overstepped the bounds of careful behavior.

But I was willing to call it a lifer of the underwear variety, a better view desired, ie, BVD.

First Cold Night

After the successful Snowy Owl search I still had to get to the Saint Joseph, Missouri area, where I’d made an appointment with Larry Lade, who I’d followed up from his postings on the net. He had mentioned a place called Lake Contrary, which he birded often, so I’d asked directions, and e sent them along with an offer to accompany me if our schedules allowed.

I planned on staying at Wallace State Park, NE of Kansas City, and arrived there in the dark about 8pm. The gate was open, but the campground was closed. Nobody was there. I parked in the picnic area, and went to sleep in the campershell. With a zero-degree rated sleeping bag. About four in the morning, I woke up and spread another equal rating bag over it. Toasty. It was sixteen degrees when I got up, all the water jugs were frozen, but the coffee thermos was still hot. I hadn’t heard the alarm on my watch, so barely had time to get to Larry’s on time

First Day, Snowy Owl

It was after noon when I reached the Snowy Owl area near Oxford, Kansas. I went to the corner that had been posted on the net, and within a couple of minutes had found another couple of birders who were also searching. They had only been there about fifteen minutes, and no luck yet. We exchanged phone numbers, and started checking out various details of the landscape that had been mentioned as perches. I was scanning the treeline about a quarter mile away when I spotted a large white patch, but heat shimmers made it indistinct. I got the small spotting scope and it appeared owl-like. I got the big spotting scope, and it looked very like a big white owl, but still distorted and unsteady from the heat shimmers. I called Bob, the other birder, and he showed up in minutes. He agreed that we had the bird, but we wanted a better look. Bob drove down the road to find the farmer owner, and I studied the image. I confess I had enough doubts to continue scanning everything I could see. In about fifteen minutes, the farmer and Bob came back, and we found there was an old railway roadbed through the field that would give us a close up view. We followed the owner out in the middle of a vast black soil field planted in wheat, a few inches tall, and laying down weather hammered, with thin patches of snow. Did I mention it was below freezing, but not too windy. I was setting up the scope to get the great life look, when Bob announced it was a railroad crossbuck remnant, part of the old X shaped sign marking a RR crossing. Disappointment.

Back to zero. We started again working over the landscape, and eventually moved to the section road one mile south. About half a mile down Bob announced that he'd found the bird. Sure, I think, now it's your turn to be the fool. But it was. We drove out a service road for some oil wells and got a good scope look. The bird had a streaky chest, making it a female (the males being nearly pure white). We could see the face distinctly. The bird was resting on the ground in a patch of snow, something like tundra I imagine, with large field of view, but it didn't appear to be hunting, just resting. They typically hunt from perches. We could see another birder on the far side of the owl, with a scope set up, and decided to see if we could find them. We drove along the section roads until we had circled the square mile block, and I turned down an unmarked un-posted lane that seemed to head in the right direction. I found a woman with a scope and she recognized me, Andrea, a UofA grad student who I'd been birding with before. Small world. It was the second time I'd run into her chasing rarities.

Other good birds seen on this portion of the trip were Prairie Falcon, Rough-legged Hawk, and Swainson's Hawk.

Off and away

At 5:30 this morning, with a few snow flurries. The Snowy Owl was seen yesterday, so I'm off to Kansas. Spent two hours yesterday getting the truck cleaned out and repacked for the trip. Even remembered to get Books on Tape.

The Invasion Of Northern Owls

The motive for the trip to Minnesota is an invasion of Northern Owls, which have moved south seeking food. Their normal prey, small voles in Canada, has suffered a population crash. I'm also hoping to see a number ofother winter specialties, birds that almost never make it to Arkansas. I'll do some birding and camping along the way, camping meaning sleeping in the truck if the overnight temperatures are above zero. I've put the trip off for one day to avoid a chilly spell up north, and to get the thermostst replaced, figuring that having a working heater might be a good idea. Tomorrow, first thing I head into south central Kansas to look for a Snowy Owl that's been reported there. Today it's just load up the truck, and hope to remember everything, like vitamins and chargers for the electronics. I always remember pillows. The binoculars live in the cab.

Bird Traveling Journal

I set this up to record a journal of adventures chasing birds around the country. The first trip starts Saturday the 15th, to Duluth, Minnesota. Hoping to chase down several northern owls which are invading NE Minn this year, and also find some other northern winter species that I've never encountered before.