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We arrived in at the Soo
Friday night after midnight and breakfast at Studebakers
was our first stop the next morning. |
Next we went to the power
plant and got the Gyrfalcon sitting on the ice. |
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We drove around looking for
the usual suspects all morning. |
It was quite beautiful and
sunny, but quite cold with gusts of wind. |
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Snow Buntings were
plentiful.... |
as well as Pine Grosbeaks. |
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Had lunch here readying
ourselves for an afternoon of Snowy Owl hunting in the
Rudyard
area. |
We found seven Snowy Owls
traveling the roads, some sitting in the fields but most
on top of telephone poles. |
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Got the usual Mallards at
the ferry dock but no Bald Eagles here. |
Our fearless leader - Ed
Pierce. |
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The next morning we focused
on looking for Sharp-tailed Grouse and found many sitting
high in trees. |
Then to the land of Gray
Jays, it was beautiful on
Basnau Road! |
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Besides the jays,
nuthatches, and redpolls we got a Boreal Chickadee at the
Hulbert Bog area. |
Tom Bartlett cutting in in
front of us. At one point there were 90 birders on
this road trying to find the Boreal Chickadee that we had
already seen! |
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Lunch at the Artic Inn which
took way too much time but it led us to our next journey. |
Next to the feeders across
from the "Bear Butt Inn" for some Evening Grosbeaks. |
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A lady who lives in Paradise
stopped and told us she had some Hoary Redpolls at her
feeders. Of course we followed this lead. Betty Maxin
of Lost Lake Road was most gracious. |
Her place was amazing filled
with dozens of feeders. Common Redpolls and Pine
Grosbeaks everywhere. We were happy to find two of her
three Hoary Redpolls which were so obvious to point out
from the others. |
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Betty let us go in and out
of her home to view the birds from inside her sun porch. |
Soon more birds arrived,
this was quite a place and quite a gracious lady. |
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Then off to Whitefish
Point. It began to snow and the wind... |
...was wicked! Nothing
was seen out on the ice of Lake Superior. |
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Ann and Bill coming back to
the van after decided a stroll on the beach was not their
cup of tea at this time. |
So we ended our second day
of birding with many successes. Here is Ed tallying
up for the day. |
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Our last night at the
Laker's Inn. All of us very tired but quite
satisfied. |
Studebaker's again for
breakfast on Monday. We had the same waitress every
morning and once for dinner. |
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Before we left for Cleveland
we decided to go for the Harlequin Ducks at the Locks in
Canada. Bartlett's BSBO group was there too. But
still no Bohemian Waxwings. |
Determined we tried one last
time. Jim Reda spotted some birds while we were
cruising around Brimley. We backed up about 200 feet
and low and behold, a crabapple tree with 27 Bohemian
waxwings! |
