Tag Archives: MN North: Pine Island State Forest

Boreal Forest Birding Bliss

Year 11,

Sleep and Food at home are wonderfully rejuvenating! With a limited endorsement from my wife and medical team, I drove north starting at sunrise both yesterday and this morning to the Greenwood Creek Bird Feeders. My goal was to refill the feeders and take hikes into the bog, but my real goal was to rebuild confidence. While I’m still getting medical care, I had been released from the hospital w/o restrictions, but I suspect Essentia St. Mary’s have a limited number of patients where this means escape off the grid to the Superior National Forest.

Regardless, mission accomplished! I have had a fantastic time both hiking on Superior Nation Forest Road and cruising the first 10.5 miles of Stony River Forest Road (still in rough shape … not yet repaired).

Here are a sequence of cell phone pics from my walk followed by a Spruce Grouse that strutted its stuff for me this morning. The hiking pics are driving exactly 6/10 of a mile in from Lake County #2, and parking by the rock pile. This walk was 1.4 miles round trip and quite easy.

Spruce Grouse from this Morning

Now, if everyone will grant me some leeway. Just prior to entering the hospital I took a few bird outing including a trip to the Toomey-Williams Forest Road in the Pine Island State Forest Wilderness a bit west of Big Falls, Minnesota. The images are all about two weeks old just before entering the hospital for 8 days. I finally have the energy to process photographs.

These White-Winged Crossbills were mad at a two Broad-Winged Hawks that were “hanging in the area”

And a Red-Tailed Hawk hunting back by Big Falls

Finally a Bald Eagle preening at Stony Point.

Finally the real treat for this morning was having a super long conversation with the Fond-du-Lac Tribal Conservation Officer about wildlife. I think we talked for over 45 minutes, and he gave me two pieces of amazingly tasty Moose jerky which he had made himself.

Toomey-Williams Treats

Year 11

As i had previously noted, in addition to the White-Winged Crossbills on Toomey-Williams Forest Road, there were other birding treats this past weekend. In addition … Mea Culpa on bird identification. Yes folks I make mistakes, but nobody caught me (or everyone was too polite to call me out). Upon reviewing my crossbill images from my earlier post, I noticed one bird did NOT have a classic hooked beak. In the second image in the previous post, one actually seeing a Pine Siskin (image republished below)

My Mea Culpa leads me to note there are certain bird species that often “hang out” together. It is not unusual for Pine Siskins to be present with White-Winged Crossbills as both bird species eat similar food … pine cone seeds. However, siskins to not have the specialized beak for prying open certain kinds of cones. In addition, Black-Capped Chickadees, Red and White Breasted Nuthatches, and Downey Woodpeckers often flock together.  Expanded species groups help everyone with food foraging and watching out for predators.

Now on to additional Toomey Williams Forest Road Treats. I saw lots of birds migrating, but here are two species which I managed to get good photographs:

Belted Kingfisher (in a unusual setting for me … Boreal Forest Pine Tree Bog)

Broad-Winged Hawks (two unique birds … both hunting songbirds)

Hawk #1

Hawk #2

Pine Cone Palooza: White-Winged Crossbills

Year 11

Last Thursday I looked ahead at the weather forecast, and realized that yesterday, Sunday of Labor Day Weekend, would finally have strong NW winds with clear skies and cool temperatures. In my mind, this meant the fall southward bird migration would kick in with a vengeance. I was pleased when the BirdCast tool from Cornell University also predicted heavy bird movement. Here is the screenshot I took off Birdcast for Koochiching the day prior to my bird outing.

With this information, yesterday morning I arrived at Toomey-Williams Forest Road 20 minutes after sunrise. Note the 38F temperature reading. My location is just south Minnesota’s border with Canada.

Now the best part … man alive had the birds been busy migration the previous night. The forests were full of our feathered friends. However, the best sighting for me were 250+ White-Winged Crossbills. I had already noticed as I approached the forest road that the local pine trees were loaded with cones. Crossbills are constantly on the move around the northern Boreal forest in search of pine cones. These birds have a unique hooked beak that allows them to pry open cones. White-Winged Crossbills will even mate and nest in the middle of the winter if the local pine cone/seed supply is abundant.

I found my huge flock of crossbills right where Hendrickson Road splits off from Toomey-Williams Forest Road (GPS Link). For over 45 minutes I walked and visited with these unique birds!

White-Winged Crossbills in Minnesota’s Pine Island State Forest (video link of crossbills “gritting up” for email subscribers)

And a few pics … the males are red … the females drab greenish yellow. Most people never see Crossbills in their life. These are a bird of the northern boreal forest which implies wilderness far from any population centers. Please understand spending a long time with white-winged crossbills is much more rare for me than all my visits with Great Gray Owls. I was excited! In fact, I also ran over a Spruce Grouse. Given all the pine cones, I was constantly scanning the tree tops for crossbills, and even though I was only driving 4 to 5 mph, I almost ran over a Spruce Grouse (dumb birds!).