Kevin Smith and I got back from two days of birding up north last night. For those who may not have seen it yet, the Golden-crowned Sparrow at 44th Ave. and Regent St. in Duluth is still present, at least as of Wednesday morning. The homeowner was very welcoming, and even came out on the porch to point out that the bird had shown up, in case we weren't seeing it.
Unfortunately, the Harlequin Duck and Pacific Loon that have been reported recently between 21st and 26th were nowhere to be seen. Neither was the Common Eider that had been there for the past month. (Fortunately, we had both seen that on previous trips.) We found only a single female Common Merganser. We did get a distant view through scopes of the Great Black-backed Gull, which was standing on ice flows out in the lake with Herring Gulls, but the birds were too far out to allow identification of any other unusual gulls among them. Wednesday afternoon we went to Sax Zim Bog and found four Great Grays, as well as many of the other usual Bog birds—Gray Jays, Pine Grosbeaks, Red-breasted Nutcrackers, a single Black-billed Magpie, a Pine Siskin, Common Redpolls, etc., but, alas, no Hoary Redpolls. We made a run out to the CR 444 feeders hoping for Evening Grosbeaks, but they did not show up while we were there, and in truth we did not wait very long. We were surprised, though, to find a Mourning Dove hanging out there yet. Yesterday we started out early for Spruce Grouse in Lake County, where we encountered and teamed up with Kim RIsen and another birder. Not only did we find Spruce Grouse (3 or 4), but also remnants of a male Spruce Grouse that had fallen prey to a wolf or some other predator. We came upon small flocks of Red Crossbills, Common Redpolls, and Pine Grosbeaks in a number of places, and at one point while we were viewing grosbeaks and redpolls, a Merlin streaked overhead. On the way back we checked the Two Harbors port area and found two female Red-breasted Mergansers. We also made stops again along the lakefront hoping for the Harlequin Duck or Pacific Loon, but again no luck. Good birding to all! Gerry Hoekstra Northfield ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
