October 8, 2024—Sparky takes his camera and $1 Cheerleader megaphone to northern Minnesota’s Superior National Forest to see if he can call in a Moose. But he gets distracted by TWO Spruce Grouse!; a gorgeous female and a stunning male. He finally finds a good looking spot to start calling for Moose. And Sparky’s imitation of a cow Moose must be spot on as a big bull comes in looking for love.

Bird photography, Wildlife Photography, Wildlife video

Warbler-Palooza II starts strong with Sparky finding one of the rarest breeding warblers in North America….the Connecticut. But technical difficulties hamper the warbler count. Fortunately he is able to share video of some beautiful warblers including Northern Parula, Golden-winged Warblers. And there are many other highlights to be seen in northern Minnesota’s Sax-Zim Bog in summer…Great Gray Owl, Sedge Wrens, LeConte’s Sparrow, Snowshoe Hares and much more. Sparky also shows us highlights from May’s Warbler Wednesdays and the bi-annual “garbage clean-up best find contest.” Oh yeah, it’s also time for Tiny Bird Art!

Sparky shares his Top Ten most memorable experiences from bird photography trips and wildlife photography expeditions in 2023. Plus there is a bonus “Most Memorable Moment” at the conclusion.

PURCHASE IT HERE

This truly comprehensive Minnesota birding guide is a must for every birder and bird photographer visiting the state. It is a county-by-county guide to over 1400 birding locations and lavishly illustrated with over 180 color bird photos and nearly 100 detailed maps. An exhaustive annotated list to all 447 of Minnesota’s bird species even contains valuable field identification tips. It is easy to use and just by scanning one of the many QR codes you can access maps of specific birding locations.

—Comprehensive bird-finding guide to all 87 counties

—Completely revised Fifth Edition 

—Over 1,400 locations highlighted

—Annotated List of Minnesota’s 447 bird species 

—Identification tips for the trickiest field problems

—Color photos of 170 of the state’s most iconic bird species 

—QR codes link directly to detailed location maps

—Checklists for Minnesota’s “non-bird” wildlife

—Seasonal maps for the best birding sites by region

—Online database with updates to keep this guide current

PURCHASE IT HERE

Author Bio:

“Kim Eckert’s interest in birding was sparked in the Chicago area during a 10th-grade biology class – the only biology course he would ever take. He became an English major at St. John’s University in Minnesota and then taught English (with some first-year French on the side) during the 1970s. But he turned to a career in birding after moving to Duluth, Minnesota in 1977, where he served as Naturalist at Hawk Ridge Nature Reserve (for a total of 20 years), taught bird identification classes for a decade, and started leading birding tours (including 30 years with Victor Emanuel Nature Tours). In 1986, he created the Minnesota Birding Weekends & Weeks program of tours throughout Minnesota and elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada, which is now in its 37th season. In addition, Kim has written numerous articles for The Loon and other publications, plus Birding By Hindsight, a compilation of The Loon’s series of 70 bird ID articles, and four previous editions of A Birder’s Guide to Minnesota.

After 45 years, he still lives in Duluth…where he muses about the Great Plains, prefers not to take anything too seriously, finds joy in not knowing where he is going, reminisces about the times with Bob and Panda…and thinks about things.”

A Birder’s Guide to Minnesota

A County-by-County Guide to Over 1400 Birding Locations

5th Edition

978-1-7353499-1-6 

wire-O binding

$34.95 Retail

($17.47 wholesale)

8×10 inches

472 pages

full color with photos

Author: Kim Richard Eckert

PURCHASE IT HERE

Virtually Live 25 S2E10

In this episode of Virtually Live from the Sax-Zim Bog, Sparky Stensaas shares his favorite sightings from the last month, including FIVE SPECIES OF OWLS, MINK, BOBCAT, ERMINE & WOLF! All in the Sax-Zim Bog of northern Minnesota from early February through early March.

Encounters with FIVE different owl species in Sax-Zim are highlighted… An adorable Northern Saw-whet Owl hunts below a feeder; A Great Gray plunges into the snow and pulls up a vole; chickadees help him find a Barred Owl soaking up the sun at Fringed Gentian Bog; a Snowy Owl NOT on a power pole!; and a Northern Hawk Owl returns to the Bog and performs and preens for the camera.

Sparky also shares some ETIQUETTE for watching and enjoying Great Grays without disturbing them.

In additIon, we watch a Mink hunt for fish, see an Ermine in hunting mode and enjoy a Bobcat just sitting there.

We also make a stop at the Sax-Zim Bog Welcome Center to see what’s happening there: Pine Grosbeaks and Common Redpolls in slow motion.

And lots more!

Every spring for the last 10 years or so, a flock of between 30 and 120 American White Pelicans have stopped over along the St. Louis River near Fond du Lac Duluth, Minnesota. A great vantage point is Chamber’s Grove Park. The pelicans are probably on their way to large breeding colonies in the far north of Minnesota or possibly Manitoba.

I made these short videos a couple years ago, but am finally getting them out into the “webosphere.”

They are fascinating creatures to just sit and watch…Enjoy!

Watch an American White Pelican swallow a very large fish in slow motion.

This one is filmed entirely with a DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone…Note how the pelicans completely ignore it.

It was just like the old-timers talk about….Flocks of geese everywhere! I hit it right again this year (thanks to eBird reports, the Minnesota Birding Facebook Group and intel from my birding buddies, Kim Risen and Steve Millard. Thanks guys!

Definitely got my much-needed dose of mega-goose migration on the prairie. The cacophony of goose cackles and swan honks is definitely worth the 8 hour round trip. The 25-35 mph winds made video and sound recording challenging but I did my best.

North Ottawa Impoundment in Grant County, Minnesota was the hot spot. Five species of geese including tens of thousands of Snow Geese, thousands of Greater White-fronted Geese, and lesser amounts of Ross’s Geese, Canada Geese and Cackling Geese. But back roads in Grant and Ottertail and Traverse counties held numerous flocks. I’d see a smudge on the horizon, throw up my binoculars and the smudge would come to life as a massive flock of geese.

Tundra Swans were also moving in impressive numbers.

I also searched for Short-eared Owls in prairie areas (SNAs, WPAs, WMAs) and did flush one but did not see any hunting.

All photos and video shot with Canon R5 and Canon 100-500mm lens. Additional video shot with Panasonic GH5 and Sigma 50-500mm lens (“toy” miniature time lapse), and iPhone 7+

It has been a standing joke with my Uncle Howard about my lack of luck with the Lewis’s Woodpecker. You see, Howard lives at elevation near Durango, Colorado, and the Lewis’s is practically a backyard bird for him. Even on a visit to Howard and Judy’s with the family a few years ago, my jinx aura followed me and we only had one distant and poor look at a Lewis’s.

And each holiday season Howard sends us a DVD of his beautiful wildlife and landscape videos set to music. We always look forward to it and watch it as a family. But it seemed to me that there was always a cameo of a Lewis’s Woodpecker amongst the videos. I’m sure he wouldn’t do that just to rub it in 🙂

Rewind to the 1990s and early 2000s: I was birding around the country quite a bit then (pre-wife, pre-kids) and searched in FIVE western states before finding two Lewis’s in Utah. But it was a distant and poor look…and I did not get any photos.

Now fast forward back to January 2021. A Lewis’s Woodpecker shows up at a lake cabin in Morrison County, Minnesota. This is only the SEVENTH record ever for Minnesota. It’s normal range is the Rocky Mountain West with an outpost in the Black Hills of South Dakota…so this is exciting bird news in Minnesota. The bird was “discovered” (by white people) by Lewis & Clark on their 1804 expedition. Its common name honors Meriwether Lewis.

It is a larger woodpecker that is bigger than a Hairy or Red-bellied Woodpecker, but smaller than a Flicker. the pinkish-red belly contrasts beautifully with the glossy green-blue-black back, blue-gray “scarf” and red face and throat.

Unbelievably, the Lewis’s was visiting the suet feeders of a friend of mine, a regular visitor and donor to the Sax-Zim Bog. He is a professor at a local college and brings his students to the Bog each year.

I have photographed over 500 species of birds in the U.S and only have one really bad image of a Lewis’s, but life is busy and I didn’t make the time to drive the 5-hour round trip to see this Minnesota bird. Bridget and my sons, Birk & Bjorn, kept urging me to go. I assumed it was gone already, but I emailed Dr. Bill and found out that it was still there! So on Tuesday of this week (Feb 23) I made the trek.

There were two cars there when I pulled into his wooded oasis on a hill overlooking a lake…But the bird was there too, but flew off before I got my camera out. I only had an hour to watch the feeders before my appointment. The other folks left, and I got the prime spot. Dr. Bill asks that folks stay in their car since disturbing the bird would not be good.

I enjoyed the visiting Red-breasted Nuthatches, Hairy Woodpeckers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Cardinals, Blue Jays and even a Pileated Woodpecker for about 45 minutes. But my meeting was coming up, so I was crossing my fingers that it would show up soon. Finally at the last possible moment it appeared in the huge oaks above. It gave me a really nice show, even stopping on a tree trunk at nearly eye-level (a much better photo than on a suet feeder or old deer rib cage!). I had kept the car turned off and the windows down to eliminate any “heat haze” created by shooting out of a warm car into 20 degree air. The Canon R5 and Canon RF 100-500mm lens did its job and I was thrilled!

Lewis’s Woodpecker jinx broken! Maybe I’ll make a holiday DVD for Howard and Judy this Christmas…and maybe, just maybe, there will be a short clip of this Lewis’s Woodpecker included 🙂

[Canon R5 with Canon 100-500mm lens]

During the icy grip of the February 2021 Polar Vortex cold snap, Sparky travels to the mostly frozen Mississippi River of southeast Minnesota and southwest Wisconsin to photograph Bald Eagles fishing open spots close to shore. He also looks for Golden Eagles inland in Houston and Winona Counties in Minnesota.

Bitter windchills means frozen toes and fingers, but the Canon R5 does an amazing job of autofocus while shooting super slow motion (4K 120fps) video of the eagles.

A trip to Old Frontenac Cemetery nets Sparky’s first photos and videos of Tufted Titmouse in Minnesota.

The trip ends at Crex Meadows near Grantsburg Wisconsin where an unexpected Gray Fox and Red Fox make a dusk appearance.

[**I apologize to all my subscribers…I sometimes forget to post to my thephotonaturalist.com blog. Lately I’ve been posting everything to Facebook, Instagram and other social media, but forget to post here! This is one example. The Polar Vortex has moved on (about TWELVE days being below zero…only a few hours above zero during that entire time!) but I’m just getting around to putting Virtually Live 15 up here. So I promise to pay more attention to this blog in the upcoming year. Thanks!]

Put another log on the fire and enjoy this bitterly cool “Polar Vortex” episode of Virtually Live from Sax-Zim Bog!

Filmed over several days including the morning of February 11 with a record cold Minus-46F start to the day. Yikes!

How do our boreal birds survive this brutal weather? Sparky shares some physiological tricks our feathered fluffballs employ.

Then we flashback to warmer days and snowshoe with Sparky in Yellow-bellied Bog where he discovers an avian excavation. He then flashesback within the flashback to tell the tale of his wolf encounter in the woods.

We also visit the Welcome Center, Admiral Road feeders, Auggie’s Bogwalk at Fringed Gentian to see what birds and mammals are out and about in the below zero temps. I think you will be pleasantly surprised!

Cameos by Boreal Chickadees, Pine Grosbeaks, Northern Hawk Owl, Evening Grosbeak, redpolls and even an Ermine.