September 2, 2016:

Every time we start working on a new Kollath-Stensaas field guide to the North Woods, I get obsessed with the topic at hand. This time it is dragonflies…and I’ve been out multiple times a week since late July (I got a very late start and wish my obsession would have kicked in about May 20th when the first dragonflies are emerging). And so with net and camera stowed, I headed 2 1/2 hours up the North Shore of Lake Superior to Grand Marais and the Gunflint Trail. By leaving at 4:30am I was able to be out shooting by 7:30am. No Moose or Black Bear, but I did hear a Black-backed Woodpecker along the Lima Grade, but my real quarry was odonates (dragonflies & damselflies).

I spent most of the day along the Lima Grade in the Superior National Forest on the edge of the Boundary Waters in Cook County, Minnesota. Road conditions are fine but you hope you don’t meet too many folks headed in the other direction!

An unusually tame Common Raven voices her displeasure at my attention. Normally, northern ravens skidaddle at the first hint that you may even be thinking about tapping the brake of your vehicle. She let me stop and even stick my 400mm lens out the window for a few seconds before flapping off. [South Brule Road, Cook County, Minnesota]

Beaver pond gloriously ringed with Bidens cernua, Nodding Bur-Marigold. This is where I spent a couple hours hanging out and waiting for dragonflies.

Insect photography requires quite a bit of discomfort….sometimes from other insects such as mosquitoes, horse flies, deer flies, etc….and sometimes from contorting your body into unnatural positions to get the right angle. To make a creative shot of this Oblong-winged Katydid.

The three photos above are of the Shadow Darner (Aeshna umbrosa) that I netted as he patrolled this small roadside pond. They are one of the most handsome of darners, me thinks. Note his wedge-type claspers, straight-edged thoracic stripes that are yellowish on the bottom transitioning to blue-green at the top.

The “spotted” form of Variable Darner (Aeshna interrupta) shows two pairs of two spots on its thorax.

Face and multi-faceted eyes of the Variable Darner.

Late in the afternoon, I finally found one of my target species along a stretch of Lima Mountain Road…A Zigzag Darner (Aeshna sitchensis)…only the second one I’ve ever seen! (The first was years ago at Hartley Park in the city limits of Duluth). This dragonfly of the far north makes its home in boggy areas from Alaska to Labrador, reaching south into the northern Rockies (Idaho, Wyoming, Montana), northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and northern New England. Unlike most darners, these guys prefer to perch on the ground, and once you locate one (usually on a gravel road like the one above). It is easily recognizable by its brown and light blue abdomen, narrow “zigzag” thorax stripes, small size for a darner, and its habit of perching on the ground.

Didn’t I just say that Zigzag Darners were partly identified by their habit of perching on the ground? Well, I guess Variable Darners do it too, as I saw TWO green-form females also perching on the surface of gravel roads (both on the Lima Grade).

My first and last stop of the day was Artist’s Point in Grand Marais where I found a “Jesus Mallard” walking on water.

Now that’s graffiti! It speaks to an earlier time when folks had more time to spend on their vandalism…Note that Hilda Brekken (no doubt a Norwegian farmer’s daughter) even pecked her name and hometown into the rock-hard rock in CURSIVE! She likely traveled by train to Duluth from Osakis, Minnesota then took the America (a supply boat) up the North Shore to Grand Marais. There was NO ROAD to this part of Minnesota in 1901 (date of this “pecked petroglyph”). The North Shore road was not constructed until 1920s, and not fully paved until 1933.

The quaint harbor of Grand Marais, Minnesota.

[All macro photo taken with Canon 7D, Canon 70-200mm f4 lens with Canon 500D close up lens attachment, handheld]

Birders and photographers from across North America put the Spruce Grouse high on their list of highly desirable target birds. Many of the folks I guide in winter would love to add this grouse to their life list. We usually cruise Superior National Forest roads at dawn hoping to catch a glimpse of one picking grit along the shoulder. And we pray that no logging trucks have already spooked (or smashed) the birds before we get there. Like many boreal birds, it is not rare, but rather rarely seen, due to the inaccessibility of their remote boreal forests and bogs in Canada, Alaska, Maine and Minnesota. Lake County has a reputation for being THE spot to find them (They do not occur in the Sax-Zim Bog).

I found this male Spruce Grouse picking grit along a remote dirt logging road in northern Minnesota’s Superior National Forest a few days ago (early September 2012). He was a long ways down the road but I thought I’d get some “insurance shots” anyway. So I eased out of the car, put the camera on the tripod (set to its lowest level) and threw some camouflage netting over me and the camera and started stalking. I’d shoot some video and some stills and then move about 15 steps closer…slooowly. Then I’d sit for a while until he began feeding again. Initially I had stacked a 2x and a 1.4x telextender on the 400mm to get enough reach, and had to shoot at ISO 3200 (noisy!), but eventually, after getting much closer, I was able take off the 2x telextender and reduce the ISO to 800.

You can turn the HD feature on or off depending on the speed of your computer.

He flew up into some Tamaracks and began feeding on the needles. In summer they eat insects, blueberries, leaves, fungi and other berries. In fall and winter they switch to a diet of conifer needles. Tamaracks are utilized in fall before they lose their needles in mid to late October. Black Spruce and Jack Pine needles are the preferred winter food. They can store up to 10% of their body weight in needles in their crop. The slow digestion of this food during the long northern nights helps keep them warm. The grit picked from the road helps the gizzard break down the needles. I once found a road-kill Spruce Grouse and dissected it. I found that that individual only picked white/clear quartz stones for its grit….Maybe it instinctively knew that the quartz is very hard with sharp corners and would be a great needle grinder. Oh, and by the way, I ate that road-kill Spruce Grouse after dissecting it! I had to prove/disprove the myth that “spruce hens” taste like pine needles. In fact, it was as tasty as any Ruffed Grouse I’d ever eaten. Myth busted!

Shot with Canon 7D and Canon 400mm f5.6 and 1.4x telextender on tripod. Camo netting over me and camera for stealthy approach.