Category Archives: Year 9

Duluth Shipping Season Opener & Crescent Moon!

Year 9

It was a fantastic early morning on the big lake. Shortly after 6 am the most gorgeous Crescent Moon rose between the trees, and then shortly before 8 am the Burns Harbor (a ship which carries iron ore to the steel mills of Ohio and New York) opened this year’s shipping season. If you want to watch / listen to an amazing amount of Hooting and Tooting back and forth between the Ship, the Aerial Bridge, and the Tug which helped the Burns Harbor through the ice, skip forward to 2:05 of the video. The symphony of sounds lasts till the very end of the video (video link for email subscribers).

Crescent Moonrise

Burns Harbor

Goldeneyes Courting

Year 9

The temperature fell to 6F last night, on March 27th! The net result was many of the channels which the US Coast Guard cleared with their cutters yesterday, refroze overnight. When this morning dawned bright, sunny and cold I drove down to the Duluth Harbor and found these two Goldeneyes courting. If you find open water this year, you will find migration ducks and geese. This was near the High Bridge.

In these three images the male is swimming away, and I think exclaiming … “She loves me!“

In the video, I think another male was being given a clear message … not this morning, honey! (video link for email subscribers)

Here are the links promised at yesterday’s Sapsuucker Farms Owl Presentation. Remember to get a free Cornell eBird account.

InBound, OutBound and In Transit!

Year 9,

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.