Northerly Treks: Washburn Waterways

The third full day of my trip fell in place on May 30th.  I woke up pretty early after another late night of dinner, having fun, and having smores over a fire.  Gretchen and I were going to go kyacking later in the morning, followed by fishing via a boat with Tabby near Shell Lake after kyacking.  When I woke up, I had a few hours for some birding before we would get around, and rather than driving anywhere, I opted to hike on roads right around the cabin.  This day would solely be birded from Washburn County!  These roads have excellent birding themselves, and during the summer of 2017, I walked and hiked them every morning before our workload for the day took place.  I had my lifer Mourning Warbler and Black-billed Cuckoo (heard only) on these roads by the cabin, as well as an awesome assortment of eastern songbirds.

What was really running through my mind when I first got around in the morning was May 31st, the next day.  I had plans and reservations to drive all the way from Spooner, Wisconsin, to Grayling, Michigan.  The drive's time would take close to nine hours, and the distance of the drive would be over 500 miles.  Yeah, this all was one way.  I had a two night reservation in Grayling.  The effort would be to try and see the highly coveted, famous, and range-restricted Kirtland's Warbler, which are in numbers around the Grayling area.  Thinking of the drive I was a bit anxious, because I had never driven that far one way before.  At the same time, I was pumped up about it.  For the time being, I decided to think about the Kirtland's Warbler trek at dawn the next day when I would leave, and focus on the epic day that I'd have in front of me on May 30th.

I walked down a road called Hector Dam Road, which is nearby to the cabin.  A variety of songbirds were present.  Rose-breasted Grosbeaks were heard in high numbers, and this male was very cooperative and helped me out with some snapshots!

A Wood Thrush, Mourning Warbler, and Golden-winged Warbler were among the many songbirds that were present.  I photographed the Golden-winged Warbler.

And with the Golden-winged, I also recorded it's song.  While Gretchen and I ran errands in the morning during the previous day, I heard a Blue-winged Warbler nearby.  Here is the song recording of Golden-winged Warbler.

A Ruffed Grouse "drummed" at a location that was very close to the road.  I ran back through a trail that went right through the woods where it was close to.  I thought I had a decent chance to see it when I went into the woods, but grouse can sure be difficult, and this one was no exception.  After enjoying the cabin's surroundings, I went to the cabin and had breakfast with Aunt Gretchen until we would go kyacking.  Here are a few more birds that I photographed.

Red-eyed Vireo

Common Yellowthroat

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Eastern Phoebe

It was mid-morning when the time came around for us to go kyacking.  For me, it would be my first time ever of participation with this activity, and I was stoked to try it.  Gretchen is a good teacher, and I knew that I was in good hands for learning how to kyack.  She said that our course would be up a northwest direction up the Yellow River, and we would depart at the river from the cabin and then go up river for a time that would last for over two hours.  We caravan-ed, parked my truck at the ending route, and drove back to the cabin to start on our route.  I left my camera and phone back at the cabin just in case they'd get wet, and I really wish now that I would've had them with me.  The route was incredible, beautiful, and was also full of birds.

My first mile of kyacking was a lot of me learning, but before I knew it, I was calling it easy, epic, and fun.  I loved it, and birds were to be seen and heard everywhere.  After getting used to it, it was easy going other than a few fast flowing parts of the river, and a few narrow spots where we would have to pass through.  Gretchen took these pictures of my first time of kyacking.

I kept a mental note of the birds that were detected, and birding along a river via kyack certainly has productive results.  For a third consecutive day in a row, I got a lifebird.  This time, it was an Alder Flycatcher, another flycatcher of the empidonax genus, calling from alder groves along the Yellow River.  While the bird was a heard only lifer, it was awesome to get this species as a heard only lifer.  Alder Flycatcher is very closely related to Willow Flycatcher and is nearly identical to Willow Flycatcher.  It is said that the two species can't be told apart visually, and they could only be told apart by voice, which is a huge difference.  The two species used to be the conspecific Trail's Flycatcher before they were split into two.  Willow sings, "Fitz-biew" and Alder sings, "Rhee-bier".  In this case in it being my lifer, it sang "Rieeght heierre!".  I was pumped and pointed the call out to Gretchen.

The kyacking was a great experience, and after two hours and probably about an eight mile trek up the Yellow River, Gretchen and I made it back to our landing spot and drove back to the cabin for lunch.  Other birds that highlighted our trip visually were Bald Eagles and Ospreys, Wood Ducks, and a group of 4 Trumpeter Swans.  I also heard most of the birds that were around as opposed to seeing them visually.  My species count was 57 species and I was impressed with the bird diversity that could be detected by kyacking.  Overall, the Yellow River was slow-moving.  It would've been easy to find a calm current and sit there to bird, and the kyack would serve as a blind at times too I'm sure.  While the birding was largely secondary, it sure was awesome too.  Here is an eBird checklist from the kyacking adventure!

https://ebird.org/checklist/S69852535

After we had lunch, we got Gretchen's boat ready and drove to pick up Tabby at nearby Shell Lake to go fishing.  We went to a smaller lake near Shell Lake, which was a peaceful and less human-inhabited lake called Round Lake.  Once out on the water, I could tell that Round Lake would have some good birding potential.  Tabby told me that there was even a Common Loon nest at the lake.  As we went to a quieter part of the lake, we caught sight of the loons.  A pair of them were swimming near each other, and eventually, the male went further out onto the lake in the opposite direction of us.  The female swam close to our boat for a few minutes, and then went to her nest, which was a small mudflat on the lake.  I could see one egg on the nest as I looked through binoculars.  There may have been another, I did just read that the usual egg clutch with loons is two eggs.  From the time that the loon swam close to us until the times that it sat on the nest, it was an awesome experience.  It would be really neat to see adults with young sometime.  Both adults will carry their babies on their backs, and will take turns feeding their young.

While taking occasional looks at loons, I watched Gretchen and Tabby fish.  It was an awesome thing to spectate.  Fishing sounded fun to me, but then I didn't want to spend the money to buy a license for only one day of the trip.  Gretchen caught a lot of Panfish, and Tabby had a classic and big Largemouth Bass on her line that barely got away.

A Red-headed Woodpecker, a species I haven't seen often, was a welcome sight at the lake.  I also heard the "drumming" again of the Ruffed Grouse.  I pointed it out to Gretchen and Tabby, and Gretchen immediately remembered it from the previous day at Rock Lake.  And then I happened to look in just the exact right direction to see wings going up and down rapidly in movement.  It was the Ruffed Grouse sitting on top of a log.  Although we couldn't get very close, I got to watch this bird in amazement through binoculars for some time, and I managed to get some rather distant photographs of it.  Something amazing about hearing Ruffed Grouse drumming is that it can be heard up to a half-mile away.

After several hours, we called it a day on the fishing.  Tabby went home after the fishing, and Gretchen and I got a pizza and took it back to the cabin.  At this point of the day, it was getting late and I realized it was getting to be that time that I'd need to prepare for the Kirtland's Warbler trek.  The pizza was great and we had time for more smores after dinner.  An Eastern Whip-poor-will called by the Yellow River near the cabin.  The time was great with my wonderful and generous Aunt Gretchen, and it was weird to give her an "air hug" rather than a normal hug.  She would stay at her cabin for another day before going back to South Dakota.  Up next on Northerly Treks is a big quest, one for that awesome bird that I keep mentioning!