Lately I've been involved in some AWFULLY early mornings in order to be out at sunrise for one of the most crack-like sports there is: birding. Ever since I was introduced to birding when I was a freshman in college, I can't get enough of it. It's so worth it to see birds you've never seen before and have to identify them with the help of your handy dandy bird guide, or to see behaviors you've never seen before, or to even see species you HAVE seen before. Birding is just fun and, like I said, almost crack-like. I can't stop and won't stop doing it. Luckily, it is a bit healthier than smoking crack.
A couple of weeks ago, we got up at 2:45 AM to do barn chores before heading off to
Sax Zim Bog. I've never gotten up that early to go birding before (or maybe even ever to do anything, it would have been better to just party UNTIL 2:45 AM and then go right to the barn), usually the earliest I've gotten up was 4:30 AM in the summer in Arizona when the sun rises at 5:00 AM. Anyways, we got up early and then dozed in the van on the way up to Sax Zim, stopping at a gas station to get the most delicious energy drink I've ever had.
The vanilla one has become my drink of choice when getting up early and going on birding trips, but I might drink one when not birding either! Maybe I'll go WILD and even get a different flavor next time!
We met up with Erik Bruhnke, who is the founder of
Naturally Avian and takes amazing wildlife photographs. He was going to be our guide for the bog, since he knew all the birding hotspots (he told us that he was up there about 20 days out of the month. That shit cray). Once we reached the bog, I was really excited to start seeing boreal species. We were out of my element, which meant that we would see a myriad of new species that I could add to my life list. Just then, Erik cried, "PULL OVER!" and I almost got whiplash trying to turn my head fast enough to see the new bird that I was going to add to my mental collection. We leapt out of the van and trained our binoculars at a single bird swaying at the top of a pine tree.
...
...
It was a Black-Billed Magpie.
These birds are EVERYWHERE in Utah. In fact, I literally got this picture from a website called utahbirds.com. However, no one else had ever seen one! I simmered in the irony as every oohed and awed over the magpie's tail feathers. Magpies are very pretty, and I have personally known some magpies to be rather pleasant, but they also bully my dog and think it's fun to push her over (which I don't really blame them because I think it's fun to push her over too). The cool thing about seeing the magpie was that this is their eastern-most breeding range, so any farther east and you won't see them at all. I think it's slightly hilarious that of course the first bird we saw was not only a magpie that I've seen millions of times before, but also that I have travelled to the extent of their breeding range and if we went a little bit more east, we wouldn't see them. Anyways, we added the magpie to everyone else's list and continued on our way.
We got out of the van at another spot that Erik said great gray owls have been seen recently, which I really, REALLY wanted to see. Then we hiked for a couple of miles.
We unfortunately only saw Black-Capped Chickadees :( Despite being a really cute bird, I also really wanted to see birds I'd never seen before. So we headed back to where we'd parked the van and were about to transfer to another area when some people came barreling down the road. In the birding community, networks are everything, so Erik was about to walk up to their window and ask if they'd see any cool birds when they thrust open their car door and excitedly pointed down the road, screaming, "GREAT GRAY! GREAT GRAY!" There was no hesitation as we all galloped down the road and stopped short at a bend, scanning the trees for a sign of the owl. When we couldn't see it, we decided to hop in the van again and slowly creep down the road to look for it. About a mile up the road, Erik stopped the van and told us it was in the tree directly in front of us. I basically hurled myself out of the van, forgetting my hat in the process, and arrived outside just in time to see the owl jumping from its branch further into the trees. We ran to see if we could get a better look, but he was gone. Definitely a BVD (better view desired), but I saw a Great Gray Owl nonetheless!!! I didn't get a picture, but here's one of Erik's (from another time, when he got a better shot).
Also Megan forgot her hat too.
After our owl experience, we got back into the van to head to some feeder areas. I'm not a birder who considers bird feeder views "cheating" (since I first semi-learned how to identify and control my binos on feeders in Madera Canyon), so I was all for seeing new species if they were going to be drawn to the feeders.
We totally DID see new species! Boreal Chickadees and Hoary Redpolls were both present, gorging themselves on seeds among the Common Redpolls and Black-Capped Chickadees. A cool story about the Hoary Redpoll is that I fell behind the group quite a bit while hiking earlier in the day and saw a tiny bird fly out to a cattail. I immediately trained my binoculars on it and identified it as a Redpoll, but wasn't sure if it was a Hoary or a Common. It seemed VERY light colored to me, so after really seeing Hoary Redpolls at the feeder, I'm sure that's what it was. It made me feel proud to have identified a bird by myself that I'd never seen before! Love that feeling. We also saw White-Winged Crossbills (which I thought were male Pine Grosbeaks because I didn't see their iconic beaks before they flew) up in the pine trees around the feeders. Just as my fingers felt like they were about to freeze off and I was prepared to go back to the van since I was satisfied with the bird species I'd seen, GRAY JAYS flew in majestically!
Jess and Troy both procured some bread from their lunches and held it out on their gloves, hoping to get the Gray Jays to feed from them.
But mostly they attracted squirrel friends.
Megan and I wanted to search for the elusive, rare Boreal Owl that had been seen near Duluth, just half an hour away, but the rest of the group was more into seeing more birds at feeders, so we headed to another site where we saw tons of Pine and Evening Grosbeaks (both I'd seen at the center, but it was still fun to see). Erik gave us each a print as a thank you for being a great group, so I chose an adorable picture of a saw-whet peeking out of its cavity in a tree. I love it! Then we headed home and I took a glorious nap. Naps and birding days go hand in hand, I feel.
Here are some of Erik's shots of the birds we saw
Hoary Redpoll
Gray Jay
Common Redpoll
Boreal Chickadee
Evening Grosbeaks
And a wish list view...
Next time I go I'll definitely be on the lookout for the Ladderbacked Woodpecker, a good look at the Crossbill's beaks (definitely a BVD for seeing them this time), and another Great Gray Owl. Still, a great time!
On Friday, Jeff got a call from one of his friends saying that Boreal Owls have been regularly spotted down in the Duluth area and around the North Woods for the past few weeks and he had some leads on consistent areas that they'd been spotted. He then asked if Megan and I were working this weekend. We had originally planned on going to the major falconer's meet yesterday (on Saturday), but no one ever got back to us about where to meet them, so we ditched that idea in favor of waking up at 5:00 AM on a Saturday to go owling. Boreal Owls are a big deal because they are purely a boreal species and rarely venture down from Canada, so seeing them in the U.S. is like a treasure trove (sort of like seeing the Elegant Trogan here, since they rarely venture up from Mexico except for maybe a pair or two). In fact, here's a good
article about it, depicting their irruption and why it's so exciting. If you don't want to read the article, basically it's an irruption year for Boreal Owls so they aren't finding enough food in Canada and must come down here to try and remedy that situation. Anyways, Megan and I woke up early, got ourselves some Starbucks Doubleshots and Pop-Tarts and headed to Jeff's to get started.
We drove up past Duluth to Two Harbors, where the Boreal Owls had been rumored to be hanging out. Along the way, we saw A LOT of eagles.
My first foray into trying to take a picture with the aid of a scope. Our scope isn't super powerful, but it at least shows that this is a juvenile Bald Eagle, probably between one and two years old due to the streaking
You can really see the "fingers" on their wings, used for helping them achieve lift while flying
He took off when I tried to get closer for a better picture, but then followed our car for the next couple of miles. At first we were like, "HE'S PROTECTING US!" but then we realized that we might have passed six Boreal Owls and we wouldn't even know it, so then it turned into him being the protector of Boreal Owl secrets, like an anti-paparrazo
While we were stopped looking at our first eagle, another birder drove up, wondering what we were looking at, and we told him that it was an eagle rather than an owl (you can assume that if it's an irruption year or there's been a rare bird sighting, that other birders are looking for the same bird). We swapped phone numbers so either of us could call if we caught word of where a Boreal Owl was. Megan inputted him in her phone as Boreal Bill.
We passed by a deer carcass where we saw a bunch of corvids and more Balds, another juvenile and a full-plumaged adult.
This juvenile was more like two to three years old, because he had more white streaking on his head. Another awesome scope picture, btw
At this point, we sort of wanted to see owls rather than eagles (not that eagles aren't cool...) and we had seen zero evidence that Boreals were anywhere in the area anymore, so we headed up to Gooseberry Falls, where the very first Boreal was sighted at the start of the irruption. When we got there, we asked the very unhelpful, irate staff where they'd been seeing the Boreals (since their white-board cheerfully exclaimed "BOREAL OWL SIGHTINGS RECENTLY!" and they sported pictures of it in their windows), and both of them shrugged. So we decided to head up to the falls to see them frozen over and to maybe see some birds.
This guy seemed really cold
No birds, but we did see this cute deer eating out of the feeders
Apparently I didn't edit any of my frozen waterfall photos, so picture some sort of cool ice thing and that's it. We went back to the state park office to ask another employee we'd missed the first time around if she knew anything about the Boreal and she calmly remarked that it was dead. They'd found it in the snow just a couple of days ago, starved to death :( We asked if we could have it and she eyed us INCREDIBLY suspiciously, which is when Jeff handed her his card and assured her that we had proper permits. It is an unfortunate byproduct of irruption years, as usually birds that cannot find enough food in their home territories can't find enough food to sustain themselves in their new, unfamiliar territories they migrate to. We left Gooseberry and headed to another park office to ask if they had seen any owls around. The first tourist office held little to no information, but encouraged us to see help at another office just on the other side of Two Harbors. So we headed over there to find a terrifyingly helpful woman who loaded our arms with maps and told us we needed to go
deep into the forest to see owls. She pronounced Saw-Whet as Suet (two COMPLETELY different things) and also sort of skirted around the fact that we specifically wanted to see BOREAL owls, saying she'd seen a lot of Great Grays and "Suet" owls
deep in the woods (she really used that inflection every time she said deep, I'm not even exaggerating). We smiled and thanked her as she tried to convince us to stay the night and take part in their "Winter Frolic" party they were having the next day. Once we were back in the car, we unanimously agreed to actually NOT go
deep into the woods and instead to head back to Duluth slowly on the same route we'd taken to see if we could spot the owl one last time before trying to find our next target.
"No one was ever murdered there", I said as I asked Jeff to pull over so I could take a picture of it
We randomly decided to go down an unmarked road off of the one we were on, just to see if the owl was hanging out around there, and our hearts jumped when we saw some cars parked alongside the road. This is ALWAYS a good sign when birding. When we saw that just beyond these cars was basically a parking lot of cars, as well as crowds of people with huge scopes and cameras that cost as much as a first-borne, we knew we were on the right track. My favorite quote of the day occurred at this point, when Jeff exclaimed, "GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!" as Megan and I both threw ourselves out of the car while it was still moving to run up to where the people were gathered.
(photo by someone else, found on FB, but we're in it which is pretty cool)
We reached the group and immediately a man pointed us in the direction of the lone Boreal Owl, nestled on a pine branch. AHHHHHHHH!!! I screamed excitedly in my heart and directed my binoculars at it. I WAS SEEING A BOREAL OWL, ONE OF THE MOST SOUGHT AFTER SPECIES IN NORTH AMERICA!!! While looking at it, Megan said, "What are you thinking?! Get some pictures of it!" So to placate her I did take a picture.
Flying
I was okay with it, even though it was sort of tiny and you can't tell what kind of owl it is, but THEN who should appear but Erik! We waved at him and he asked if we wanted to take a look at the owl through his scope. We all cheered and headed to his scope, which was AMAZINGLY CLEAR! So I took the chance to take some bomb pictures through his scope.
So sage!
I was so happy, having finally found the bird we woke up at 5:00 AM for, seeing it so well, and getting pretty good pictures of it! Erik gave us all Boreal hugs and Boreal Bill excitedly called us to direct us to where the owl, despite us being there and literally standing right next to him. Some heated arguments broke out over the owl at this point, because tons of people were crowding it and some of the birders were apprehensive as to how stressed the Boreal Owl was getting. Owls internalize all their stress so it's hard to know unless you really
know owls. Basically, an owl siting still and blinking a lot, as well as swiveling its head, is the same as a mammal breakneck running away. At one point, a photographer brought his camera directly next to the tree the Boreal was in and someone said sternly, "That's too close!" to which the photographer snottily replied, "What are you, some sort of bird expert?" which is when the other guy responded, "Yes I am" and that shut the photographer up. We decided to leave, since we were fully satisfied with our Boreal experience and didn't want to contribute to its stress anymore. Apparently a little after we left, the remaining people got to see him hunt, which is really exciting! Luckily, Erik got a photo of it.
I hope to be as successful at catching bird shots as Erik, someday.
We headed away from the Boreal Owl and navigated our way to Duluth, now set on seeing a Northern Hawk Owl. One had been consistently hanging out near "The Dirt Factory", which I literally thought was a factory that manufactured dirt until I looked it up. Apparently, it's actually a motocross/dirt-bike hang out place. We headed there and did a loop around, carefully scanning the tops of the trees for the owl. Hawk Owls are diurnal, so we were sure it would be out scanning the fields for something to eat. We were about to give up when Megan spotted an owl-like silhouette at the top of a tree across the street. We got out our scope and lo and behold...
IT WAS THE NORTHERN HAWK OWL!!! We were the first ones to spot it and he even coughed up a pellet while I was looking at him! SO COOL!
Puking pose
The black and white on the back of his head was so mesmerizing
These photos are through our scopes again, so no more quality imagery. Still, it was cool to be able to get them even just for the memories
"WTF are you doing, lady?"
It was cool because every time my camera clicked as it took a picture, he would swivel his head around to stare at us. We were definitely hundreds of feet away, and he could still hear it. Owls are amazing. As we stood at the side of the road with our scopes and binos, other cars started pulling up and other birders joined us in watching the owl. It was cool because this time WE were the first ones there, paying our dues and leading others to cool birds since we ourselves were led to the Boreal that very same way. We started walking away, decided to go look for Snowy Owls to complete our owl-filled day, when the Hawk Owl flew away. It's sad for the other birders, but it's like the Hawk Owl was only there for US, you know?
Erik caught it flying a little while later, apparently, since this was on his facebook. I promise I'm not stalking him or anything, it's just his bird pictures are really helpful in adding information and PIZZAZZ to this blog post.
We started driving towards downtown Duluth and then to Superior Airport, which was in Wisconsin. LIFE STATE. I'm just gonna throw this out there: not really impressed with Wisconsin. Superior was sort of...terrifying. I only snapped one picture out the window of our moving vehicle.
The happiest tooth in all of Wisconsin
Once we reached the airport, we searched diligently for a Snowy Owl to no avail. We also drove around several other fieldy/tundra-like habitats such as a multitude of factories and plants that really any living creature has no business hanging out around, but for some reason Snowies love them. We found nothing. We decided to check one last place, a pier leading out onto the frozen lake.
The picture on this is amazing
Oh yeah, we danced with this guy for awhile
We saw no Snowy Owls, but did see another full adult-plumaged Bald Eagle fly out onto the frozen lake and rest there. We took this as our sign that our day of magnificent birding was drawing to a close, since we started out with eagles and ended with eagles. We headed back to the car and found a bird's nest for me to salvage for our artifact drawer, another perfect ending (p.s. we totes have permits to do this, you can't just take a bird's nest from the wild without one or else it's illegal).
It's so cool because the bird incorporated a plastic bag into its next. SO URBAN. Unfortunately, as it was on my lap and starting to warm up, spiders started spilling out of it. One minutes I was dozing off, the next I saw a spider on my scarf and FLIPPED OUT, throwing everything on my lap onto the floor and accidentally stomping on my phone a bit. When another spider crawled out onto my knee, I obtained a plastic bag for the nest to go into. So that was a little less than perfect, but oh well. We headed home and once we got back to Jeff's house, Megan and I went to EAT. We hadn't eaten anything but Pop-Tarts and granola bars all day, and at that point it was 3 PM. I wanted a BURGER, DAMN IT, and nothing was going to stop me. So we stopped at a diner in town and ate delicious burgers and drank D-Peps until we were deliciously full, then went home to find a snow plunge from a Barred Owl near the lake.
A snow plunge is when an owl goes for a rodent or other form of prey that they've heard beneath the snow, leaving the wing/feather imprints on the snow around it. The perfect end to a perfect day.
I'm SO HAPPY we saw the Boreal Owl because we totally took that random road on a whim, and before that road we ran into some more birders that asked if we were having any luck. We told them no, and they said that they were waiting for about 2 or 4 PM, which is when he bet they would be out hunting. We felt really run down and hungry at this point, not having seen any of our target birds and having woken up at 5, and we REALLY didn't want to have to wait until then, so I'm just so so glad we got to see one. Then to see the Hawk Owl as well was just really an incredibly experience.
The Boreal Owl tale, as well as the rest of our birding experience, was one of the reason I love it so much. There's such a strong community among birdwatchers, the success of having spotted a Boreal Owl and the ability to watch it and see such a rare, beautiful bird was infectious. There were Boreal hugs, high-fives, fist bumps, and toastings with imaginary beer all around, among people who had driven just two hours to those who had driven 28 hours or who had flown in from other states when they'd learned about the Boreal Owl irruption. People who didn't know each other at all gave each other their phone numbers just for the chance to share in a glimpse of a bird that both had never seen before. That is why I love birding.
