Hello Winter is slowly creeping on us and already there have been 30 Northern Hawk Owls sightings in northeastern Minnesota. In the Sax Zim Bog alone there has been at least 5 sightings of Northern Hawk Owls! Over in Aitkin County there are at least 3-4 sightings of Northern Hawk Owls along with some sightings of Great Gray Owls along CR 18 and a Snowy Owl north of Aitkin. There have been some recent sightings of Great Gray Owls in the Sax Zim Bog area along with some sightings of crossbills and Boreal Chickadees. Duluth & WI landfill trip is always interesting for birders to attend with the chance to view a Snowy Owl, Gyrfalcon and Bohemian Waxwings. Birders will also have a chance to view 6-8 species of gulls which include Iceland Gulls, Thayer's Gulls, Glaucous Gulls and possibly the Salty-backed Gull plus winter finches or even a stray western bird species like Barrow's Goldeneye, Varied Thrush and a Townsend Solitare are all possible. Last year the Duluth Trip on Saturday saw a Boreal Owl! Sax-Zim Bog field trips will offer birders to view White-winged & Red Crossbills, Hoary & Common Redpolls, Pine & Evening Grosbeaks and Black-backed & American Three-toed Woodpeckers plus Northern Shrike, Sharp-tailed Grouse, Ruffed Grouse and Northern Goshawk. Aitkin County trip is by the far the best field trip to attend to view dancing Sharp-tailed Grouse on their traditional leks in winter! Also birders will have a good chances to view Northern Hawk Owls and a host of other goodies like Snow Buntings, winter finches and Rough-legged Hawks. In other words this festival gives all types of birders to see a lot of great winter birds!!
The Sax Zim Bog Winter Bird Festival will be held on February 12-14th. There will be field trips on Saturday and Sunday plus there will be a Great Gray Owl field trip on Friday and Saturday. These field trips will be led by some of best birders in Minnesota! Mark "Sparky" Stensaas and Shawn Zierman will be leading a photography workshop on Saturday. Al Batt and Kim Risen will be our featured speakers on Friday and Saturday evenings which also includes a cater home style cookin meals! Local vendors and craftsman will be there selling their works plus local bird clubs will be there like Hawk Ridge and Duluth Audubon Society. Sax Zim Bog Winter Bird Festival is one of them festival where birders can come and see some spectacular birds, eat some great food, listen to wonderful speakers and talk and shop with our local vendors. We decided to keep this festival small and give it a hometown feel rather than creating a huge festival with celebrity speakers atmosphere. We want our visitors to walk away with lots of lifers, lots of good memories and hopefully come back be part of this festival annually. Sax-Zim Bog Winter Bird Festival website: http://moumn.org/sax-zim/index.html Go here to sign up and be part of this terrific festival and also read more about this festival offers you.. Thank You and also to MOU for allowing me to post this on the MOU net. Mike Mike Hendrickson Duluth, Minnesota Website: http://webpages.charter.net/mmhendrickson/ Blog: http://colderbythelakebirding.blogspot.com/ ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
