Hi all, Guided a great couple from New Jersey yesterday (Saturday). Gorgeous weather....Sunny, calm, cold
Highlights: Aitkin County N Hawk Owl—On CR18 about 1.3 miles east of Hwy 169 Northern Shrike eating cached vole—twice we stopped to look at this same N. Shrike on a wire...and both times it flew low into a bush. The second time we watched it eating a cached vole...It was as if he thought we were a threat and we might steal his rodent! Great Gray Owl—seen on Friday by a birder at intersection of CR18 and Pietz's Rd (or whatever it is called now) Sax-Zim Bog Pine Grosbeaks—CR8 near Floodwood (last house on right after leaving Floodwood) Brown Creeper—CR8 (a very nice bog road to bird) Ruffed Grouse—CR47 2.5 miles south of CR133 (a very nice bog road to bird) Black-backed Woodpecker—male in beautiful light near the road! (McDavitt Rd at south logging road on E. side) Great Gray Owl—at dusk on Nichols Lake Rd about a mile east of the little bridge NOTE: I've checked many stands of barked Tamarack that look like the workings of Black-backed Woodpeckers, BUT all investigations lead to Hairy Woodpeckers...in every case. It is fairly easy to audibly differentiate the Hairy's pounding style of foraging from the Black-backeds flaking sounds. Sparky Stensaas 2515 Garthus Road Wrenshall, MN 55797 218.341.3350 cell sparkystens...@hotmail.com www.ThePhotoNaturalist.com www.SaxZim.org www.KollathStensaas.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