On Saturday February 15th I went on the festival's trip to Lake County. One of the trip leaders had scouted the route ahead of time and in a posting on the listserve, said that birds were few and far between. This is exactly how things turned out and it is surprising that the trip wasn't adjusted.
I left my motel in Hibbing at 4:30 in order to be at Meadowlands for 5:30 bus boarding and 6:00 departure. We then drove at speed to get to Lake County and having reached a road where we hoped for Spruce Grouse continue to drive very quickly. A walk down the road followed by a stop at an Outward Bound camp to use their restrooms meant we reached 9:30 with just ravens and feeder birds to show for out time. We finally founds some birds in Ely - 100 miles from Meadowlands- but with the exception of an
earful of Bohemian Waxwings, we added only bird feeder band feral rock pigeons to our list.
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| Bohemian Waxwing |
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| Black-capped Chickadee |
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| Downy Woodpecker |
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| Red-breasted Nuthatch |
After driving to Sax-Zim Bog we cruised around, making two passes down Admiral Road hoping to relocate a Great Grey Owl seen earlier in the day. Although we had no luck with that we saw a total of three Ruffed Grouse and watched a Stoat (Short-tailed Weasel) in Ermine form dashing around in the snow so that only the black tip of its tail was obvious.
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