Birding Grand Forks and East Grand Forks

Some of you have already heard a lot of this story on my trip to Grand Forks, North Dakota and East Grand Forks, Minnesota.  This trip was set to take place on June 10th, 2016 through June 11th, 2016.  The goal of the trip was for me to attempt Short-eared Owls for TOBY with Sandy Aubol.  On the side of that goal, there were bound to be other birds abound that would highlight the trip on the side.  After I birded with Josh near his home around Kandiyohi County, I was then set to take a four hour drive to Grand Forks, North Dakota, and East Grand Forks, Minnesota.  Because of a problem with the local vehicle rental place, I wasn't able to rent a car, but Josh kindly loaned me his van on the spot.  And right around noon, the four hour drive was underway.  I made camping reservations to stay overnight in a campground at the Red River State Recreation Area.  Once getting there, I pulled up to 93 degree heat with humidity on the side.  It didn't feel nearly as bad as Arizona!  Although Short-eared Owls were clogging up my brain, there were going to be other birds to see in the expansive marsh and prairie habitats that were going to be covered.  Once I got to my camping area at about 4:30, I met up with Sandy and we would spend the next five hours birding together.  As I said in my Short-eared Owl post, Sandy was as nice as a guide as I could have asked to go birding with.  She's kindhearted, has a great sense of humor, and really knows her birds.  As Red River State Recreation Area is in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, Sandy knew of a good bird that I could land as a life bird before we hit the North Dakota prairie and wetlands up.

I shot this picture from far away but one can still easily see that this bird has a bright red head.  Sandy was showing me my first ever Red-headed Woodpecker!  This woodpecker was one I tried for less than two weeks prior in Arizona's Santa Rita Mountains without luck.  As Red-headed Woodpecker is a big vagrant in Arizona, it's expected in Minnesota and it's still a big deal.  This woodpecker is very striking, and with it's bright red head, black back, white front and underparts, and bright white secondaries to contrast on it's black wings, it makes it one of North America's most distinctive woodpeckers (birds for that matter) in an instant glance.

The Red-headed Woodpecker is also easy to identify in it's range because it is the only woodpecker that has a red head out of the other breeders (the west has a red-headed woodpecker species too!).  Red-headed Woodpeckers are impressive to watch in flight, where they will do a lot of their hunting from.  Hunting techniques also include ground feeding and gleaning from tree limbs and trunks.  I was very impressed with Sandy from the start of the outing and I was excited that the Red-headed Woodpecker is now on my life list!

After enjoying the Red-headed Woodpecker for about ten minutes, Sandy and I headed west and northwest into Grand Forks, North Dakota to begin our Short-eared Owl prowl.  This post will cover most of the other birding we did other than the owling now that I've already written about the owls.  We headed off into an area called Kellys Slough National Wildlife Refuge, where we spent most of our time birding in and around the Refuge.  Birds were everywhere, and I got to enjoy several life birds as well as seeing some birds on their breeding grounds for the first time that I've seen in Arizona in winter.  After seeing a few Brown Thrashers on this trip, it was neat to see one out in the open.  This is a bird that is commonly known of as a skulker, but this time, it was saying "cheese".

Eastern Kingbirds and Bobolinks were everywhere in their favorite habitats.  While focused on the owls, I didn't think much about stopping and looking at them after getting good views of them earlier in the day when birding Kandiyohi County with Josh.  I did ask Sandy to stop when this Eastern Kingbird was almost sitting on the road.  Gosh, Eastern Kingbirds are cool.  (Josh says the same thing about Western Kingbirds).

Sandy then pointed out the voice of a new life bird to me, the Le Conte's Sparrow.  Le Conte's Sparrows are secretive little sparrows consistent with those in the Ammodramus genus.  These sparrows live in tall grass, and are very hard to see most of the time.  After some looking, Sandy spied a Le Conte's Sparrow sitting on top of a grass perch that she was able to get her scope on.  The scope views of the Le Conte's Sparrow were killer, and I got to see the colorful sparrow well through the scope.  It was out of my camera's range, but I did take video of the bird singing with my iPod.  If sparrows were the main target, then I know Sandy would have found a closer Le Conte's easily, because she's awesome like that.  Here is a video of the Le Conte's Sparrow singing.

The Le Conte's Sparrow wasn't the only sparrow that was a major highlight, there were actually several.  One more of those was an even more secretive sparrow in that same genus, the Nelson's Sparrow.  The Nelson's Sparrow has a short and harsh sounding song, and it was only the second time in my life that I have detected a Nelson's, thanks to Sandy.  It was neat to be in it's breeding grounds and to hear it sing.  My first Nelson's observation came in San Diego several years ago, where Dominic Sherony and I had killer looks at a few of them.  

Something else very cool was hearing Wilson's Snipes give their winnowing sounds which the male makes from his tail feathers.  This sound sounds similar to the call of a Boreal Owl, and it's strange to think what it's really coming from.  Sandy and I heard the snipes calling from the wet fields and marshes numerous times during our search, and one of them kindly perched up on a post for us.

Prairies are peaceful to bird in and are beautiful.

In the prairies, marshes, and open wetland habitats we drove through and looked over, Sandy and I also encountered a Tundra Swan, Blue-winged Teal, Northern Shovelers, Redhead, Ring-necked Pheasant, a group of Sharp-tailed Grouse, heard-only American Bitterns, Northern Harriers, Sora, Marbled Godwit (flew out of the prairie and called loudly at Sandy's passing vehicle), Wilson's Phalarope in a small pond, Ring-billed Gull, a Western Kingbird, Sedge Wrens, a Gray Catbird, Clay-colored, Vesper, and endless Savannah Sparrows; Red-winged Blackbird, Yellow-headed Blackbird, and Western Meadowlark.

Sandy also gave me two more life birds for the outing.  One was another sparrow, and another Ammodramus sparrow at that.  This second sparrow lifer was a Henslow's Sparrow.  Henslow's Sparrows are rare in this part of North Dakota in Grand Forks County, with the last one being recorded in the area in 1999.  A Henslow's Sparrow was found in a reliable spot this year where Sandy has seen it several times.  After Sandy and I drove by the spot a few times during our outing, we missed the Henslow's Sparrow.  The third try proved to be a charm and we heard the Henslow's Sparrow immediately.  Sandy described the song as if the sparrow was singing, "Hick-up".  The two syllable song the sparrow sang out made Sandy's description a spot on statement!  As the bird sang, Sandy spied it and for the second time of the day, she gave me excellent scope views of a lifer sparrow.  Seeing the Henslow's through the scope well was a great experience, as well as seeing a Henslow's where they are considered rare.  Here is a sound recording I made of the bird singing, "Hick-up".

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, the Short-eared Owling was incredible.  Sandy was right on about everything with Short-eared Owls and if it weren't for her knowledge, than Short-eared Owl searching would have to wait until later in the year.  Here's a picture (one I actually didn't use yet) as a reminder about how awesome the owling was as the sole focus of the outing...

As it was about to get dark over the area, Sandy took me to a damp field where she has heard another life bird for me, the Yellow Rail.  The Yellow Rail is a tiny rail, and it, along with the tiny Black Rail, are two of North America's toughest birds to see.  However, they aren't so hard to hear.  Yellow Rails favor tall and damp grass fields for their habitat, and seeing one requires almost 100 percent of luck.  Birders will try and walk towards calling birds and will somewhat get on all sides of the bird to attempt at seeing the bird fly.  Yellow Rails do have distinctive white patches on their wings that are distinctive when they are seen in flight.  Sandy and I were happy with a heard bird, and it didn't take long for a Yellow Rail to start calling.  The call sounds similar to someone hitting rocks against rocks.  I stood there and listened to the Yellow Rail with Sandy for about ten minutes, and I managed to get this sound recording:

My time with Sandy was incredible, thank you much Sandy!  Getting four life birds was fantastic, as well as getting my main goal for the entire trip, the Short-eared Owl.  Sandy delivered success to me, and it couldn't have ended better than our last bird of the night being a Short-eared Owl...

After Sandy dropped me back off at the campground I was staying at in East Grand Forks in Minnesota, I got some sleep and still had some major birding to do on my home on June 11th.  I had some ideas, but sadly, they crashed.  I opted into walking around the campground within the Red River State Recreation Area.  As I write now, I wish I would have gone back to where Sandy and I went for a few hours.  But some of the birds within the campground were solid, including more of the Red-headed Woodpecker.

Red River State Recreation Area was lined with campsites, 100 in all.  There weren't very many open spots.  Yeah, Kellys Slough would have been a much better choice Tommy, you idiot.

But the Red River itself was pretty cool...

One of my highlights was this Common Grackle, which is probably every Minnesota birders' lowlight.  

This Chimney Swift flew overhead.  As you can see, it was quite cloudy on this morning.

Something else that pulled me aside was this male Eastern Bluebird on a bluebird box.  For the easterner, its a classic backyard sight to have a bluebird box and a bluebird to go along with it.  I swear, I felt like I made my own history in so many ways on this trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A female Wood Duck also flew by.

Here's one more of the Red River.

Stay tuned for at least seven more posts from my Minnesota vacation.  There's a lot yet to come.  Up next, I visit an awesome spot on my way back to the Wallestad's home from Grand Forks at a Minnesota hot spot that Josh thought I should visit.  And I promise, this spot will be a good one...

TOBY Goes to North Dakota

Hi Everyone.  T.O.B.Y. (Tommy's Owl Big Year) is back with another post.  This time, I took my North American Owl Big Year to the northeastern section of North Dakota.  Before I get to that, I have a lot of other awesome things going on in my birding life.  During the trip to North Dakota, I was also on my third trip to Minnesota this year.  While most of the birding was in Minnesota, side trips were taken to Wisconsin, and as I mentioned, North Dakota.  26 life birds were detected.  Stay tuned for a lot more in the coming days and next couple of weeks for the fun.

Now, it's back to TOBY.  For my trip, my great friend Josh Wallestad hosted me to stay at his house with his family and bird with him for a week's time.  The trip had some hardcore birding involved (stay tuned for many upcoming posts).  Before the trip started, we had made plans to target Short-eared Owl at some grasslands in Wisconsin where they are reliable most years.  Because Short-eared Owl would be my 18th addition to my Owl Big Year, it became my most hopeful bird for the trip.  As the migration season went through and as the Short-eared Owls were in hopes of breeding, the fact is, the vole population is down.  When the vole population goes down, the owls won't breed.  And when owls don't breed, they leave.  So Josh and I had another idea...North Dakota.  In the Grand Forks area of North Dakota, Short-eared Owls have been plentiful this year after being absent the previous two years.  Josh went this year (see post on Josh's blog here) and saw a few of them where he had some epic sightings.  And luckily, an awesome birder named Sandy Aubol lives in East Grand Forks, Minnesota (which is just west of Grand Forks, North Dakota), and she showed Josh the Short-eared Owls.  Sandy birds grassland/prairie habitats weekly that are just northwest of Grand Forks, and she has been having plenty of Short-eared Owls to go along with it.  With me having one distant look at a Short-eared Owl for life and a crappy photograph to go along with it as well as wanting to lock up my 18th owl for TOBY, you better believe that I was eager to get out there!  A close up sighting would be equivalent to my first Short-eared Owl that was my life bird.  In case you don't know what I mean by that, seeing a Short-eared Owl on this outing would feel like I was seeing my lifer.

Josh asked Sandy Aubol if she would be interested in showing me Short-eared Owls for my Big Year, and she gladly said yes!  Josh and his wife Melissa kindly loaned me one of their vehicles for a four hour drive from Kandiyohi, Minnesota to Grand Forks, North Dakota/East Grand Forks, Minnesota.  This was after Enterprise told me I couldn't rent a car from them because I needed a major credit card, not just a debit card.  They never told me that over the phone, they are unprofessional people.  On June 10th, 2016, I drove up to Grand Forks and East Grand Forks to meet Sandy, and we almost immediately went for the Short-eared Owls after looking at a cool bird (stay tuned for another post).  From the start, I could tell Sandy knew what she was doing and I knew in my gut that she was going to put me in position to score on a Short-eared Owl.  She is a very kind and generous lady, and is the best person I could've asked to bird with for this trip.  I had a blast with her from start to finish.  Sandy took me through many marsh, grassland, and prairie habitats and showed me an assortment of birds as we were owl hunting (as I mentioned before, I will do another post on the Grand Forks Birding outside of Short-eared Toby'ing).  I've always liked to bird in prairie and grassland habitat, it's quite peaceful.  The area we birded is called the Red River Valley, where many prairie, grassland, and marsh birds thrive.

As Sandy and I drove, she explained to me about where she was seeing the owls and what times she was seeing them.  My eyes were peeled.  At times, Sandy was seeing them as late as 9 in the morning when she ventured out as well as early as 5 in the evening.  A few times, Northern Harriers got me to anxiously raise my binoculars before any Short-eared Owls were noticed by us.  The grasslands were filled with songs of other birds to keep things interesting while we were looking for the owls.

After driving around and having fun for about two hours, Sandy and I saw a blob way out in the marsh/prairie that looked owl like.  Sandy decided to get a scope on it.

As Sandy started to set up her scope, I saw another distant owl-like creature, but this one was in the air.  This one was for sure a Short-eared Owl, and it looked like a giant moth flying around and hunting over the grass.  The other bird kicked up to present Sandy and I with two Short-eared Owls.  Just like that, I had my 18th Owl and second ever looks at a Short-eared Owl.  Although they were pretty distant, it was awesome watching them.

Sandy and I watched these two Short-eared Owls cruise over an area for about thirty minutes.  At times they would venture closer, and then they would quickly change directions.

Watching Short-eared Owls over a prairie was a great way to get my 18th Owl of the year.  I was content with the sighting..

It turned out that the night was only getting started.  Sandy is awesome, and Sandy is cool.  I was amazed with her knowledge.  Sandy asked me if I wanted to continue watching the two Short-eared Owls we were already on, or if I wanted to go look for more as she spied two more birds in the distance.  I told her to do what she thought would be best, and she choose the later.  One road and a left turn later, Sandy exclaimed quietly but anxiously, "Tommy...look!..."

I was blown away.  Simply blown away.  God is great, and it was by pure generosity that this look and this outing was possible.  One of the four owls was roadside and was sitting with it's wings stretched out.  Sandy pulled over to her left so I could start shooting some pictures out my window.

Who knows why this Short-eared Owl had it's wings stretched out.  Perhaps because of the humidity?  Maybe it was cooling off?  Who knows.  All I do know was that is was incredible.  Just incredible.

I was shooting pictures quickly, and I couldn't hold the camera still most of the time.  As many of my pictures of this short sequence with this owl turned out a little blurry, this one didn't.  I've wanted to have a close up encounter with a Short-eared Owl badly since 2013 when I first saw one, and it felt great to get that chance again.

Once the Owl took one good glance at Sandy and me, off it went.

Even though it went, it really didn't go too far.  It dove into some grass before popping back up again and flying back to the road reasonably close to us.  An annoying Red-winged Blackbird decided to annoy the owl, Sandy, and I.  This may have altered the owl's flight path.  In these pictures, you can see how awesome of a flyer the Short-eared Owl is and how quickly it can change directions.

Sandy and I even had another Short-eared Owl fly right by the vehicle.  I had a great chance for a great photograph, but I reacted wrong and the shots came out blurry.  As the night went on, we continued to enjoy the owls.

Short-eared Owls are very unpredictable on their flight whereabouts.  They can be coming your way one second, and then turn around the next second.  This is to surprise and catch any unsuspecting rodents that it is patrolling the grounds for.  Short-eared Owls are unlike most owls in the fact that they are often active during the day as well as being crepuscular.  We even heard one of the owls vocalize once as it was harassing a Red-tailed Hawk in the area.  After Sandy and I got a great fix with the owls, we enjoyed many other birds in the area.  Stay tuned for a soon future post that will involve more of birding with Sandy at Grand Forks.  As it was really starting to get dark out at 9:30 P.M., we were near one more area where Sandy knew an Owl was hanging around.  I guess we had one more in us....

Sandy was very generous and kind to show me this spot and to bird with me all evening, I had a blast owling with her.  Huge thank you Sandy for helping me find my 18th Owl for my Big Year!  Wanna hear a crazy story?  I made a reservation to rent a vehicle with Enterprise in Willmar, MN, and they didn't tell me I would need a major credit card for an out of state rental, even though I asked them more than once what I would need to rent a car.  So they told me to scram, because my debit card was all I had.  But Josh stepped in and loaned me his van right on the spot.  Josh is the reason TOBY has even been possible this year, and when I struck out on what I thought was a sure deal in place, Josh was the hero again.  Great Gray, Snowy, Northern Hawk, Barred, and Eastern Screech-Owls were all made possible this year for me by Josh.  And this time, Josh hooked me up with Sandy for Short-eared Owling and got me on the road to get there.  Huge thanks to you Josh!

Josh made up the name TOBY for my Owl Big Year too.  Speaking of TOBY, there's one more owl to go.  This one may make me climb mountains, make me walk through the land of bears, make me drive for hours, make me fly on another plane, make me extremely angry, or make me extremely satisfied.  Some major thought and planning is to come for my final owl I need to get this year to round out TOBY and to see and photograph all of North America's Owls this year.