Tag Archives: MN North: Canal Park

Ivory Gull at Canal Park!

Only an Ivory Gull could consider Duluth, Minnesota a warm southern vacation spot. The birding world is all excited, including me about this bird. Ivory Gulls normally hang out on Arctic pack ice, and are almost never seen in the continental United States.

Yesterday morning I was down at Canal Park and along with 35 of my best birding buddies, saw and photographed the Ivory Gull!

Ivory Gull
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The visitor from the Arctic pack ice is NOT impressed with the locals ability to land on ice. This Ivory Gull judge gave the local from Duluth a two … kind of reminds you of the East German judges in the Olympics!
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Range Map from WhatBird.Com
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24 Hours on Lake Superior!

Lake Superior is a great place to spend time. Over the past twenty four hours I have watched the rise of the Super Moon at Canal Park, the sunrise at the mouth of the Lester River, and a small flock of immature Sanderlings working the Park Point shoreline in search of food. These little shore birds spend most of their lives migrating … south to north … a few weeks on the Arctic Ocean shores … then north to south. Repeat. For a few days they are now visiting via Duluth, a stopover on their way south to the Gulf Coast.

Duluth … my kind of place!

Super Moon rises out over Lake Superior at Canal Park
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Lester River Lake Superior Sunrise
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Sanderlings on Minnesota Point
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Love Birds … 30 Superior Nights

The mind was willing, but not the body. My goal was to take at least one photo every night in the Lake Superior watershed during the month of September … thus the name, 30 Superior Nights. However, too many nights without enough sleep resulted in me catching the flu. I finally realized the only way to get better (been sick for one week at this point) was to get more sleep. Thus, I ended my string at 22 nights with yesterday morning’s pre-sunrise pic down at Canal Park. For the purposes of this project, I defined night at after the sun disappeared below the horizon, and before the sun reappeared the next morning.

View all 22 images in the Superior Night Series.

Love Birds … My son and his fiancee … my first engagement photoshoot!
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Suomi Lutheran Aurora Borealis
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The last sunrise! (yesterday morning)
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