The last few days have been quite the roller-coaster of weather here in northern Minnesota. Last night a late winter storm hit with huge winds and 6 to 10 inches of snow across the region. Here at my house it snowed hard, and by morning the ground was covered with white stuff. However one fringe benefit from the storm is the HUGE winds out of the northeast chopped up and melted the remaining ice. Here are two photographs I took two days ago at sunrise before the start of the stormy weather. I am standing out on Minnesota Point looking back towards town.

By this afternoon the weather had improved enough that I decided to go out birding. When I realized that the beach was now free on Park Point (Minnesota Point), I decided to look for shorebirds. As they say in birding, a little luck never hurts as I found two Piping Plovers (very rare / endangered) near Dune Bridge. I eBirded the discovery. Unfortunately about ten minutes into my observing of the plovers they were scared off by two unleashed dogs.

I waited a few minutes for the owner to reach my location and politely explained about Duluth’s Leash Laws, and how the dogs had scared endangered birds in a designated nesting area (referred him to the sign on Dune Bridge). Unfortunately I would not expect the Piping Plovers to stick around, both because of the foot traffic in this particular area and the fact that there is so little beach / sand between the high water wave mark and the dunes.