The birds are moving! For the last five days my yard on the edge of Amity Creek has been a wild place as flocks and flocks of Common Redpolls, Pine Siskins, and Goldfinches descend upon my six bird feeders. Each wave tends to be in the “hundreds of birds” … always coming from the southwest and moving off to the northeast. In addition, my yard is now filled with the songs of robins, and first of year grackles (not quite a pretty). Some of these two bird species will stay local as others move further north.

Yesterday morning I went in search of open water. Check out open water, particularly slack water in streams. These Common Mergansers yesterday were right near the boat launch at the old Interstate Bridge in the Duluth harbor. It will be a while till area lakes go ice free.

Finally the perfect evening of calm winds, clear skies and mild temperatures brought two Snowy Owls out last night in the Duluth area. These owls are a harder find right now as they are taking short trips around the region to strengthen their flight muscles for the return migration north, but there are still a few around. I suspect this bird is a young, non breeding female and not in any hurry to get north to the Arctic. The photo was taken 10 minutes before sundown, and the owl still had not moved an inch 20 minutes after sunset when I left.