My NW MN Birding trip

I am only now getting to write about my bird trip to NW MN last weekend. I went with what turned out to be 14 others from the Rochester area (a couple were from near Mankato and one from Prior Lake). We left Saturday morning (Feb 17th) arriving at Roseau by 9 PM. We birded (yes it is a verb) from the car or short walks into areas near the roads that day. I saw many northern specialty birds I hadn't seen for years: 100's of Common Redpoll, Pine Grosbeak, Common Ravens, Northern Hawk Owls, Short-eared Owls, Ruffed Grouse and Snow Buntings. That first day I also my first life bird for the trip: a Boreal Chickadee (kind of like a scruffy, brownish cousin of a Black-capped). Two other birds I saw that day were new for me in Minnesota: Sharp-tailed Grouse (seen in ND), and Black-billed Magpie (seen in Colorado).

On Sunday, it was -15° in the morning but it warmed to +17° by mid-afternoon. In the morning I actually saw a Robin in Warroad along with a rare Varied Thrush and a dozen White-winged Crossbills. Most of the rest of the morning and afternoon was spent in a very remote part of the area. We hiked in the Beltrami Island State Forest to a small logger's cabin. In the winter, we could drive to within 1 1/2 miles of it because the loggers build temporary roads through the frozen bogs. (In the summer it would be a 4 mile hike through thick spruce forest to get there). We hiked into a place called Gustafson's Camp SNA and then through some more very remote areas inhabited by wolves (only saw signs of them). The cabin was a small one room building with a stove. While here we ate our bag lunches, warmed up and hiked around the woods. I saw a few more northern specialties here including more Boreal Chickadees, Black-backed Woodpeckers, Rough-legged Hawks, many more Redpolls, Pine Grosbeaks and very tame Gray Jays. At one point, I had one feeding out of my hand. The owner of the cabin was with us. He is a retired man from IL who loves this area comes back often.

Later, after we hiked back out, we did a little more birding around Baudette and I saw my second life bird of the trip: a Hoary Redpoll. This is an arctic bird that is very rare in MN. That evening we headed back stay overnight in Bemidji. On the way, we found 2 Snowy Owls hunting out in open country and a Great Gray Owl as night was falling.

Monday, we woke up at 5:30 AM to 24°, a heat wave! We tried for a rare bird called Spruce Grouse without success. However, we were successful at finding another rare bird that was my third lifer for the trip: an American Three-toed Woodpecker. This bird is usually only found in deep spruce tamarack bogs and is usually only seen in areas where a lot of trees are dying. We were lucky to find one just a couple hundred yards away from a road. Other new birds seen on Monday were: Evening Grosbeak, Pine Siskin, Purple Finch, Trumpeter Swan (in open water near Bemidji) and Bohemian Waxwings.

Click for photos from NW MN Trip Feb 17-19,2007

On our way home, we stopped south of the Twin Cities, near Coates to see a rare arctic Gyrfalcon that has been hunting the thousand of ducks. Check out these videos of this bird.

Gyrfalcon hunting
Gyrfalcon perched
American Three-toed Woodpecker
MOU Video Page