Birding the Bog -- Day 1

No offense to Ohio, which gets plenty cold, but Minnesota is a seriously cold State. As a result, there are some seriously cool birds, which are often tough to see anywhere else. It wasn't hard to talk my younger brother Daniel into coming with me for a long weekend of birding in the Sax Zim Bog; it really only took a few pictures...

Great Gray Owl in the Sax Zim Bog

So, Daniel drove from Pittsburgh to meet me in Columbus on Wednesday the 17th. We tossed some gear into my car and headed north! It was about a 14 hour drive from Columbus, but we passed the time by talking about birds, discussing the science of Pokémon, watching The Big Year, and listening to Lonely Island songs (he's wrapping up a MFA in music after all).

We couldn't have timed it better, as we pulled into the Bog at exactly sunrise. We were only there for a few minutes before Daniel saw his first life birds: a few Common Redpolls. Just a little further down the road, we scored a Northern Shrike, also a new bird for Dan! We continued just a little further, and there it was: the first Great Gray Owl of the trip! I started snapping photos, including the one above, until the owl flew silently back into the pines. We continued through the Bog in the early morning mist, scoring northern specialties like Gray Jay.

Northern Hawk Owl

After getting a tip from a local birder, we decided to check out a side road for another one of our target birds. I think Daniel spotted it first, high up on a utility pole: a Northern Hawk Owl! I reached back for my camera, but before I could reach it, the most incredible thing happened. The little owl plunged from his perch, flew across the road, and pounced on a vole right in front of the car! He turned and glared at us to make sure we had no intentions of stealing his catch, and then carried the hapless rodent back up to the utility pole. After he finished his breakfast, he gave me some prime opportunities for photos.

Northern Shrike, showing off his hooked bill

We drove the road a little more, and found a few Northern Shrikes, some of which were willing to pose. These shrikes are small birds, about the size of a Northern Cardinal, but unlike most songbirds, shrikes are fierce predators. Their hooked bills are reminiscent of hawks, and allows them to eat prey like rodents and small birds in addition to insects like grasshoppers. They're famous for impaling their prey on thorns or barbed wire fences, which makes it easier for them to feed while perching. Tough little birds indeed!

Our next stop was an impressive display of bird feeders, where Daniel picked up his lifer Evening Grosbeaks and Hoary Redpoll, along with dozens of the Common Redpolls we'd seen earlier. Hoary Redpoll is a slightly larger, paler version of Common Redpoll, but they're so closely related that they may not truly be a separate species... We'll leave that to the ornithologists to sort out, but for now they count as a new bird!

Hoary Redpoll (left) with Common Redpolls

We found some eagles feeding on a deer carcass also found a Ruffed Grouse, which disappeared into the trees before we could get any pictures. The lack of sleep was starting to get to us, so we headed for our hotel so that we would be fresh in the morning for more birding.