Hello: Only a week from now until we shut down registrations for the 2011 Sax-Zim Bog Winter Birding Festival. The festival is held on February 18-20 2011 at Meadowlands, Minnesota. The festival headquarters will be at the Meadowlands Community Center. You can read more about the festival at our website: sax-zimbog.com
There is a lot of bird activity going on at Sax-Zim Bog, Duluth and Aitkin County areas. Many birdwatchers visiting the "bog" this past month have reported Great Gray Owls, Northern Hawk Owls, Sharp-tailed Grouse, Ruffed Grouse, Northern Goshawk, Northern Shrike, Black-backed Woodpecker, Gray Jay, Boreal Chickadee, Common Redpoll, Pine Grosbeak and Evening Grosbeak. There are some scattering reports of Red Crossbill and White-winged Crossbill seen in the Sax-Zim Bog area. In Duluth, birders are reporting Glaucous Gull, Thayer's Gull and occasionally a Iceland Gull and Great Black-backed Gull. The Slaty-backed Gull that was reported a week or so ago could be relocated in Duluth mixed in with the other gull species at Canal Park area during the festival weekend. I also received reports of Bohemian Waxwings in the Duluth area this past week. So there is a lot of great birds to be found during the festival weekend! Our speakers are Paul Bannick on Friday night and Mark "Sparky" Stensaas on Saturday night. Paul is author, wildlife photographer from Washington who wrote one of the best selling bird books "The Owl and the Woodpecker". Paul's presentation will be about "The Owl and the Woodpecker" To read more about Paul click here: http://www.paulbannick.com/ Sparky Stensaas is an author, naturalist, photographer based in Wrenshall, Minnesota (over by Jay Cooke State Park). He is the longtime compiler for the Sax-Zim Bog CBC. When not chasing after his two young sons, he may be out taking photos, watching All My Children or eating Lutefisk (not in that order). Sparky will be speaking on Saturday night and his presentation is titled OWLS TO ORCHIDS: MAGIC AND MYSTERY IN OUR NORTHERN BOGS Are bogs really dark, dank, mosquito-infested swamps? Sax-Zim Bog birders know better, and through Sparky's HD video and still images we'll explore our northern Black Spruce and Tamarack Bogs...without getting our feet wet or frozen! Meet the bird that grows snowshoes, the devious orchid that outsmarts bumblebees, and the death-defying frog. And of course, the stars of the show will be some cooperative owl families caught on HD video. There will be several local vendors to browse and shop at through out the festival weekend. Our field trips will explore Sax-Zim Bog, Aitkin County and the Duluth area. We will supply the buses with your selected lunches and we will place some heated portable toilets at the feeding stations in the Meadowlands area. The festival field trips will be led by the following birders: Lars Benson, Erik Bruhnke, Steve Weston, Laura Erickson, Dudley Edmundson, Chris West, Alex Watson, Shawn Zierman, Terry Brashear, Sparky Stensaas and Mike Hendrickson. We are also offering a photo workshop led by three fantastic photographers: Sparky Stensaas, Shawn Zierman and Terry Brashear. Photo-Naturalists" Sparky Stensaas ,Shawn Zierman and Terry Brashear for a day of winter photography. We'll start the morning with a slide show and discussion of equipment and technique. We'll share tricks of the trade for getting frame-filling bird images WITHOUT a super telephoto lens, how to create backyard "sets," discuss essential and not-so-essential-but-fun equipment, and give you a list of great regional winter photography locations. In the first outdoor session we'll concentrate on photographing birds at a feeding station. We will practice techniques whether the birds cooperate or not. Perches, backgrounds, autofocus, exposure, flash and shutter speeds will be a few of the topics. The second outdoor session will focus on more general winter nature photography including close-up tips, composition, camera care and subject selection. Note: This class is aimed at DSLR users. Point-and-shooters are welcome but may find most of the techniques are not applicable to their equipment. This class will not discuss digiscoping (since neither Shawn, Terry nor I know anything about it!). All participants are urged to bring their camera equipment (including tripod if you have one). Feel free to participate even if you don't have camera gear yet. So if you are looking for something to do on Feb 18-20th 2011 weekend.. This festival is one of a kind that offers birdwatchers to see some fantastic winter birds plus be part of small town scenery eating some fantastic catered dinners while listening to some great speakers! Thanks for your time and thank s to the MOU org. for allowing me to make these posts to the listserv! Mike Mike Hendrickson Duluth, Minnesota Website: http://www.mikehendricksonbirding.com 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
