We had a delightful 24 hours visiting Sax-Zim Bog in Northern Minnesota. We didn’t see any owls, alas, but we did get two new lifers, and some fun pics of other friends. Enjoy!
Author: Brendan
Likes birding.
It’s been so dang busy that I’ve got a three-week backlog of outings to chronicle. I’ll get there, but in the meantime, here’s the excitement from yesterday.
We took a drive over to Orland Grassland, which we last visiting in an evening. It was hoppin, especially in the first hour or so. We didn’t see any cedar waxwings, but we got some good looks at a Willow flycatcher, a yellow warbler, and a whole lot of sparrows. (Check out the whole list.)
When we first arrived, we spotted a brown thrasher perched atop a tree right by the parking lot, singing their heart out. We hadn’t seen one of them sing before, so that was a treat.
Then we spotted a yellow warbler darting from tree to tree, stopping for a moment to sing, then moving on.
And what a treat it was to spend some time with a couple orchard orioles, one of whose coloring confused us until we figured out it was a juvenile male.
Our old pals eastern kingbird and indigo bunting were also in abundance.
Finally, we spotted an osprey (strange place for an osprey), a willow flycatcher, and a couple killdeer.
We spent a lovely couple hours strolling around the Crabtree Nature Center, with lots of feathered friends in attendance. We spotted 34 species! Here are some of the highlights. Here’s our Ebird list.
Dean Nature Sanctuary felt a bit desolate — they’d done a controlled burn and a lot of the grasses were denuded. The Robins and the Red-winged Blackbirds were out in force. No new lifers, but an enjoyable time nonetheless.
During a bookstore outing downtown, we took a break from our bibliophilia to peep some birds. We didn’t see the birds we hoped we would, but it was a fun outing nonetheless.
New Lifer:
- Hermit Thrush
