Sax-Zim Bog Birding Bonanza

Birding had been slow over the past week. Weather conditions just had not encouraged birds north of Minnesota to start south, but did that ever change around noon yesterday when the winds rose to 30 mph out of the NW. Just like when bicycling, you realize how much easier it is to ride with a strong tailwind. Birds understand wind and how to make migration much easier … tailwind good | headwind bad. Man alive, were there birds in the Bog this morning when I arrived just after sunrise. However, I was expecting to see lots of birds due to BirdCast! This real-time tool from Cornell and other organizations monitors migration data for one’s specific location in the continental United States. Here is the map for today, Tuesday, August 30th. NE Minnesota was a migration hotspot last night.

When I entered St. Louis County in BirdCast, in which Duluth and Sax-Zim Bog (my home) are located, it yielded this data … two screenshots of what happened last night! Over 10 million birds flew through my county last night! Uff dah!

Want to learn more about BirdCast? See my post from last year on this superb birding service. I explain how to use BirdCast with detailed examples. Regardless, I saw lots and lots of birds this morning, but that fast did NOT surprise me. The biggest migrating bird species I saw were Yellow-Shafted Flickers. On the raptor front, I saw an amazing number of Northern Harriers … in fact five in just one field south of Meadowlands (Andrews Road).

A few pics from this morning …

Broad-Winged Hawk