The Hunt for the Blue Devil

Lower Rio Grande Valley Texas

Big Year Day 38, 39-41

Big Year Total:  421
Coded birds:  25
Cool animals: Bobcat, Harbor seal, gray whale, California sea lion, pronghorn, porcupine, sea otters, racoon
Miles driven.  10,750
Flight Miles 24,000
flight segments: 24   Airports: 17
Hours at sea: 14
Miles walked 49
Miles biked 2
states/ prov. birded:13

After I conquered my Pink Menace the American flamingo, my friend Chris Feeney, who had a nemesis bird of his own to exorcise, the blue bunting--his exploits in chasing and not finding that bird in some sense put my 'pink' problems to shame, I gave the bird a little jazz, I nicknamed his nemesis bird the "Blue Devil."  I didn't do this in the sense that it was a mean devil but used the contemporary music definition of the blue devil:

• Blue devils, demons causing depression, according to some the etymology of the blues music genre

 Missing this bird so many times has led Chris to depression, and well, buntings have a nice singing voice and of course...they are deeply and gorgeous little blue birds.  So it came as a shock a couple of weeks later when what should show up in Texas, but yet another blue devil.  Poor Chris with scheduled medical tests couldn't go but when a second code four appeared--the white-throated thrush and Olaf was back from Alaska, I couldn't get to Texas soon enough!

First, I had just got home from Alaska on Day 38, Feb 7, but with a blizzard raging west of Minneapolis, all i could do was go to my grandmother's house to watch the Super Bowl.  One not wanting to waste a day, i went looking for a stale report of a saw-whet owl in St Croix Falls and in the middle of a massive text with a man named Tony Lau who had seen it three weeks earlier I finally found the roost but unfortunately no owl.  I continued north to Grandma Lucille's.

I needed something so I tromped in the woods in search of the elusive ruffed grouse I had jumped repeatedly in a corner of the family property.  I started making spirals until finally I cut a grouse track.

I didn't see any wing marks at any point so I circles around as it couldn't have gone far.  This circle took an hour.  I scratched my hands on the prickly ash, tripped on the barbed wire and then about the last place I would have looked for a grouse and not 30 yards from where i lost track of the trail, it flushed bird #414

#414  Ruffed Grouse

I went back and took a nap in my old room, sigh, memories, then bad memories, Super Bowl L was a real sleeper...yawn

I looked for the owl again at Interstate Park but again an empty branch.  Snow and ice was coming down so I made for the airport.  Luckily, with my elite status of researching for this big year, I got through the security line in 5 minutes and then I got upgraded.  Then my return got upgraded.  The perks of heavy travel.

I landed in Harlingen and hit the ground running, or speeding, and by 320 I was at Estero and 325, I had a coded life bird, the white-throated thrush.  It could not be any easier.

#415  White-throated thrush

I went to go check a hole for an owl, this would be the 7th time and so I paid my tab $5, and headed to the other part of Estero.  I spotted an ash-throated flycatcher in a tree and then it called briefly before flying away.  I had hoped to eventually see one of these down here in the winter.

#416  Ash-throated flycatcher

Then in my hurry to get to the owl spot on Alligator Lake, I tripped on the bridge, and just wiped out terribly.  I groaned in pain and cursed at the damn boardwalk and my stupidity.  I slowly checked for broken bones, none appeared broken.  My shade on my lens had flown into the ditch and I had scratched my filter but camera looked okay and then I saw things sticking out of my elbow.  I flicked out rocks and luckily the blood cleaned the wound.  My knee was just really bruised.

Then two irritated birders standing by the lake came up to me and I kid you not, one said.  "J%$# Christ stop F%%^& swearing you're scaring the fulvous whistling ducks."

Wait, I need that bird! I thought and forgot about the injury.

#417  Fulvous whistling duck

Okay, maybe my foul mouth got me a bird, but I was hurt, too.  The pain returned to my arm and knee when the owl wasn't there.

Then I went to Frontera Audubon Center for a continuation of a stakeout that seemed that I had stated over a month earlier and in some ways it felt like I had never left.  This time I was searching for another skulker, the blue bunting, the devil in blue.  It was drier this time and the sun was much improved.  That first night, I searched for about an hour as the park was open but alas, I saw nothing.

I knew Feb 9th was going to be a long day of standing, searching, sneaking and that would e good except, my body ached from my fall.  At 0700 I arrived feeling like it was just going to be a long and tiring day.  I had this feeling about a circle of benches I found, that this was going to be the spot, unfortunately by 0830, it wasn't.

I then began to run into people who knew me...a helpful Vet from Houston I had met at Refugio, then I ran into Liz Southworth from Massachusetts.  I have run into Liz at...Nebraska, Arizona, and British Columbia, we have been a day apart a couple of times in Florida, California, and if my memory serves me, once before in Texas too.  She is friend of my 'coach' Chris Feeney but interestingly despite my knowing her, we have never formally met.  Birding is a small circle, sometimes way WAY too small.  It is usually better to be anonymous, and get in get bird and get out but this was going to be a long day, I could feel it and I was not very energetic.  Liz looked left and then I looked right and then I got a call, bird seen!

Well it was but by the time I got there, no bunting even Liz a few feet away didn't see it.  By lunch, Liz was frustrated and went to see the thrush, I camped out at my circle and then at 1200 I vowed to go see the tropical parula.  I can't explain the supernatural sense I get when I'm in the birding 'groove.'  I can sense when the target bird is around and some times when I really in the zone, i can sense what i'm going to see.  Many of you will laugh at this but those of you who have seen it at work, will understand.  I do not understand it.  It isn't a dream.

The night before this, I was dreaming of being on a committee to undertaand why the Kiskadee was looking to die out in a couple of years....I never think about the great kiskadee...so why this dream?  Obviously it wasn't a premonition about anything.  While I was listening to a couple of men gab at feeding station C&H at Frontera, I got the feeling.  I do have great low frequency hearing and can detect the slightest of movement, even a mouse step.  I froze instantly.  I saw something out of place deep deep in the woods and sensed a twitch I think, IDK.  If I knew, I could use my "birdy sense."  Initially I figured it was the tropical parula as I was mere feet from when I saw one on December 31.  Then whatever it was twitched.  I zeroed in on the movement.  Then I saw the blue.  It was the blue devil!

Time slowed down as the devil and I did a dance for it to remain hidden and I to try to get a photograph.  I told someone I had it for 15 minutes but it may have been 5 IDK.  I had one great shot at a photo but it moved when I was re positioning around a tree.  Then my autofocus miss fired and I switched to manual.

It made a slow half circle around the feeding station including a little time in the edge of the cemetery next door, but I had it, the blue devil was off the board!

#418 Blue Bunting

I got all the important parts, just not on the same photograph

Unfortunately, Liz was absent and the guys gabbing made me mad, so by the time I found another guy staking out a water hole it had disappeared into the thick brush.  I'm sure it was perched and I spooked it a bit when I sensed it.  Lucky me....again!  That is all I could say.

I then looked a bit for the parula, got sick of Frontera and went to find birds I needed.  I went to Santa Ana..

Santa Ana NWR

#419  Tropical Kingbird

Everyone likes this shot but to be honest after I spied my first tropical kingbird, I found them everywhere.

Here is one when I came back to Frontera,

I saw them at Bentsen, Estero, Anzulduas, and even one on the side of the road in Mission...go figure....

Then back at Frontera, i came face to face with a legend, a hero, a God of men in the birding world, at least I thought so.  Back in Ripon College I learned field birding from Professor William S. Brooks, and my college president, William S. Stott.  Both of these men had cameo appearances in my "Boobies, Peckers, and Tits" project but the man who was THE real man of birding was Benton Basham, the first man to reach 700 on a Big Year, 1983 and held the record during my formative years of college, 1983-87 (I graduated in 1988), he was also the first man to surpass 800 on his life list.  While I was cruising around Frontera, who do I run into but the LEGEND Ben himself.

Although it looks like Neil Hayward and I will be on a boat together in May in Adak (I guess a plane too), I doubt very much that I will run into any of the former Big Year record holders during this big year, in fact even if I did, they wouldn't seek me out and I guess Hayward and I will have some conversations as it is a very small boat for three days but again....birding is a team sport but then again...it isn't.

Here staking out the Blue Bunting water hole was the legend himself, Mr. Basham.  Oddly, Liz came by and gave up my big year plan and then he actually cared about it.  He was such a humble fellow.  Giving advice and to be honest I felt like I was just tussling with the devil in the desert of February in a big year and I run into Moses, and Moses cares enough to want to lead me to the promised land.  Mr. Basham even reminded me of a guru, beard and all.  He was enthusiastic and he actually wanted my card!  He was very happy when I gave it too him too, and just didn't seem to be polite.  Wow!  In the middle of the woods, I find both the devil and salvation, in the form of the legend.

I got fired up with Mr. Basham's positive energy and even my knee and elbow didn't hurt so bad.  Liz and I were going to meet for dinner but first, enthused, I was going to give that old hole one more look, it was only 10 minutes away.

Estero Llano Grande

Einstein wrote that the definition of stupidity is to do the same thing over and over and over again but expect different results.  Seven times I ventured to a certain hole in a box in Estero Llano Grande and 7 times all I found was a hole, an empty hole, including yesterday, not once but twice.  So after parting ways with Mr. Basham, I drove back to Estero and walked to the hole being careful not to trip and looking for any of my missing blood on the boardwalk, I went to the hole and surprise surprise, this time I GOT DIFFERENT RESULTS!  Sorry Mr Einstein.

#420  Eastern Screech Owl

COOL!  Owl number 8 and I was told to have a goal to have them all by the end of June.  11 more owls to go.

On day 41, i overslept, my cell phone battery ran out but it was only 0645, so I dressed and skipped a shower and made for Bentsen State Park and a hook-billed kite flyover...the only thing that didn't work out was the kite...no kites.....then I walked the grounds of the nearby National Butterfly Center, and saw nothing of note except another owl, now all the holes seemed occupied, unlike before and just like the tropical kingbird.

This one has a little roof over its head.

Anzulduas Park

Then I went to Anzulduas Park, hoping to see a kite flyover or anything.  There was actually less police and border agents this time, only 14 patrols, last time 21 cars.

What these officers are doing defies my imagination, apparently they are protecting us from this guy

The only person I could see at the park across the border was this guy. Is he that scary?  Is he Poncho Villa's great grand child? Is he plotting a revolution?  I have no time for these border guys, state or federal.  I won't ever talk to them.  They drive around like maniacs and park in front of critical birding habitat.  I actually drove .5 MPH in the park in front of one apparently in a hurry, just to piss off one of them.  Now, I know they are just doing their jobs but they are the visual part of a larger issue.

Here is why I have no time for these guys. The border issue is a joke.  Our enemies are not the Mexicans or Latinos, they have more in common with us than some other nationalities that don't want to be us, or just want to use us.  These fine people are just trying to better themselves and it is sad, truly sad that the Mexican and other Latino elites in their home countries have no time or place for their own people.  Give credit to the Cubans, they at least try to better the whole lot, not just enrich the few.  Now I have Cuban employees, one is the son of Batista's former secretary and they lost everything, and are mad but you know, in 55 years, you have to get over it.  You move on. These people (the peasants) were taken advantage of by the Spanish, then the elites of there own countries and then the US Multinationals, then the CIA....

Secondly, it is these people who are doing the cooking for, cleaning up after, doing all the dirty work here and other places for the older retirees that in many cases, are the ones supporting the politicians who loath these people.  The CNAs at the nursing home who have to clean up your ...well you know...are these people.  The politicoes these conservatives support have came up with such an assinine policy of having 500 Texas state troopers and basically with the Border patrol and line cars end to end from here to Laredo on the border.  Mostly these guys constantly driving and roaring their engines, helicopters buzzing me, and general have even speaker warnings to the immigrants to stay HOME...it screws up my birding or at least my tranquility!  Seven of these guys drove past me in 15 minutes on the levee at Bentsen!  Was there a second guy on horse back?

Now I was made aware of a shooting at Anzulduas....hell I was shot at in Laguna off the border.  Drugs is the issue, they say.  But with all this enforcement, has the supply of drugs actually decreased?  I have heard that the price of Meth has dropped due to competition from the importers and rural meth labs have been put out of business from Mexican etc competition.  How could this be with end to end border patrols?

Hate my politico opinions....but you see it down here and the stupid checkpoints all over the roads remind of 1938 Nazi Germany..."papers please!"

You know, in all my time at the border, I've seen same amount of illegals sneaking through as supposed extirpated birds...NONE!  What a waste of resources.....

Okay, I AM opinionated.

After my game of chicken in reverse with the cop I stopped and located a black-throated gray warbler in a tree by the bathroom, it WAS a bathroom stop and my camera was in the car....bird #421 none-the-less, and every warbler is a good bird in my book, well now it is in MY book...especially western ones.  So that finished up my birding for the trip....421.  I also added a raccoon at Santa Ana, first coon for the year.

I also saw some truly odd things, use your imagination here.

I saw a man reading a novel at a bird stakeout, camera in one hand, novel in the other...not sure if that is good or a bad thing.  I wouldn't be skua-ing him on a bird stakeout.   Seeing the bunting required full attention.

I then offered an idea to him and the other three there that maybe I should order out pizza for lunch...has anyone ever had pizza delivered to a bird stakeout?
so much to do...so little time...

I saw a woman on a trail in Estero walking 5 dogs on five separate leashes, a big collie down to a tiny chihuahua.  What happens if that coon's cousin pops out on the trail here?
That would be entertaining.

I saw a birder with the biggest camera lens I have ever seen, bigger than mine, she was maybe 4 foot ten, was also packing a large swivel mount tripod.  I wanted to take a picture of here, but well, she was too much for my more modest lens.  The odd thing was she was maybe a mile from her car.  She could be the strongest woman birder...

sigh............I was once lost in the wilderness being tempted by the devil, and now I have been shown the road home...saved by a modern day Moses, Mr. Basham....I was actually going home!!!!

Sadly only for a day...
I leave for Hatteras NC tomorrow

I'm reminded of a religious cliche...
Eat, Pray, Love....

Eat take out pizza at a bird stakeout
pray that the Legend comes and saves you from the blue devil
and love that you are not a dragonfly in the sights of a tropical kingbird

Sorry Chris, but it isn't my nemesis bird

Olaf

Positively Nome

Nome, Alaska

Big Year Day 36-7

Big Year Total:  413
Coded birds:  23
Cool animals: Bobcat, Harbor seal, gray whale, California sea lion, pronghorn, porcupine, sea otters
Miles driven.  10,450
Flight Miles 21,000
flight segments: 24   Airports: 16
Hours at sea: 14
Miles walked 46
Miles biked 2
states/ prov. birded:13

What do actor Willhem Defoe, naturalist Charles McKay, and Olaf Danielson have in Common?  Probably not much but we were all born in Wisconsin, actor Defoe and McKay were both born in Appleton and I, strangely, have only ever been in Appleton once in my life despite going to college 45 miles from there, but I had the worst case of food poisoning ever and was dumped out of a Northwest Airlines flight there in March of 1988 (my 22nd birthday), before being picked up by 3 drunk college friends in a 1969 Corvair (maybe the most dangerous car ever).  All I remember about the trip back to school was somebody deciding to take a shortcut through a picked corn field, maybe it was a hallucination.  So I guess all three of us survived or time in Appleton to strive at other things.  The learning point of that experience was to never eat Thai food in Scottsdale.  Gosh I could write a book on that trip....

Charles McKay...one of the mystery people who has a bird named after him.  After finally getting his Bachelor of science after attending no less than four colleges.  I think he graduated from Butler, although he had stays for sure at was to become Lawrence University and Cornell.  He volunteered for Army Signal Corp duty, was stationed in the Bering Sea and observed a very strange, almost all white bunting, in 1881 or 1882 which now has his name attached to it...the McKay's Bunting.  Oddly at age 28, in 1883, McKay went on a kayak trip around the corner to see if he could see something.  He was never seen again.  There lies the mystery?  Did McKay move in with the native peoples?  Did he drown?  Did he get eaten by polar bears?  Maybe he even got pecked to death by Eskimo Curlews, which cause them to get an error in the DNA eventually leading to their demise?  Nobody knows, his story then just abruptly ends....

Here in Nome, Olaf's story continues.

Since I was in Kodiak, I flew up here to get this little "monkey" off my back.  Nome is near Kodiak correct?  That is like saying Oklahoma City is near Minneapolis, but it was closer than coming up here solo for the bird and it is only getable in the Fall/winter as otherwise largely the bird is confined to St. Matthews island, a place no one can get to except for the rare tour.

I have been accused of being too negative about Alaska, even though my wife texted me and said my comments were dead on, she watches house hunters-Alaska and thinks everything is built ad hoc.

So let me say in defense of Kodiak, which I still reserve judgement on, the weather could be worse a major Pacific storm is hitting it today/ tomorrow with 55 mph winds and real rain, not the irritating rain I saw, and I would be stuck there. Like they were getting so much that the weatherman didn't want to predict the final total.  Nome is looking better and better, and to be honest, it is only 20 degrees ABOVE here, much warmer than I planned and expected.  It was a very nice day here yesterday, even very little wind.

I sat next to an elderly native on the cab ride to the hotel and making conversation said it was "balmy" outside.  She didn't understand the term, I explained it.  Then she went off on a tirade against people in bikinis, and scantily dress.  Se said they might as well be naked, then asked me if I agreed, well I did, but she didn't realize what she was asking me.  Then I said I was here to see a bird.  Then still on the anti nudity or at least anti-bikini thing, she then surmised that it would be like me going naked around Alaska seeing birds.....I wanted to say, yes, I have, but well I just smiled as did the cabby.  She got out and said that I should fear the Lord, and well it was so nice out, I couldn't help but smile.  It is always good to get advice from our elders.

But don't let the blue sky fool you, this was no beach vacation in bikinis or less as the pack-ice has formed and looking out towards Siberia, all one sees is ice

 But as it was a nice day, I decided to go as directed and scope out a feeder in a place known as Icy View, which isn't marked as such but eventually through trial and error, I found the place.  The feeder was empty but they had thrown seed on the parking lot.

I always feel like a criminal when I'm staking out a feeder in a strange place.  There was abosolutely no life around for birds except a lone raven.  It sat there in the cab of the rental jeep and waited and waited and then out of nowhere, a bird appeared.

White back, lighter color, it was it.   #413  McKay's Bunting.  One of 6000 of this species and I was looking at one and then it went to feed and a couple more appeared along with a single snow bunting.  Then they spooked.  It is hard to imagine how flighty these birds are and it took 20 minutes for them to cautiously come back.

Then the local dog came, as he had had just about enough of me, the birds flew off and he sat defiantly at the tire of my rental,  Birding apparently over.  I did come back later when Fido was gone but then the family to the house returned and they gave me an unwelcome look so I left.  I drove around and staked out the cemetery, another feeder in town, and saw absolutely...nothing.  

I did see them in the morning though and have to put in this picture, McKay's Buntings on a powerline?

there looks like two flocks up here, one mixed and mostly McKay's and the other all Snow buntings so if you come, remember that and the feeder in town is active at first light, when the traffic starts to move, they get skittish and don't come back.

I then went off to a bridge someone had seen a boreal owl commonly and waited to as late as I could before a dared drive home, and again, nothing, well 37 rock pigeons and three more ravens.  The roads around here are like driving on a frozen lake which I spent the better part of my youth negotiating.  One doesn't make sharp turns or stops and things work out, but lakes don't have hills and I'm a little leery of driving up glare ice on a hill in an unknown car.

Let me say another positive thing.  Unlike my car in Kodiak with a critical warning light on, the lights on this rental Jeep when I got it were only for a low front left tire (which clearly had some air in it so I ignored it like the owner) and for it to change oil.  I vast improvement.

The hotel I satyed at Dredge 7 Inn had both hot water and towels, so no complaints there.  It was a bit quiet, and there is no receptionist, kind of a help yourself kind of place but that was okay.  

I did have some social interaction, running into the new mayor, Richard Benneville in Anchorage, the man who makes the colorful city of Nome even more colorful.  We met last June when he was just colorful and not in the political hierarchy of the city.  He says he likes his new job.

Dining in Nome is always an adventure.  It was nice to have choices at the "Husky" which features Japanese fod, as well as Chinese and American.  I made a joke about the hamburger not being of a husly and the woman didn't understand English only Japanese.  As such I ordered tempura halibut.  Sushi here.....no wasn't that brave.  I have something cooked.  So eating some of the plainest cooked Japanese food I have ever had while listening to a very racist Mac Davis (co-star from BJ and the Bear, he wasn't the chimp either) song from the 1970s, (something about the Japanese taking over America) I found it good the poor woman only spoke bad English, she wasn't offended by the music she had undoubtedly put on.  I would have had a lifer beer with it, but she explianed to me they had lost their liquor license?  

To do so in Nome was undoubtedly a story worth hearing but alas. I couldn't speak her native tongue.  I wonder how she got here and why?

It was good that I didn't get food poisoning, and I awoke to darkness at 0800 the next day and at 0930 it was snowing and still dark.  The woman came by to clean rooms and advised me that if the plane got cancelled tonight, my room was still open.  I asked about that and found out it was quite common.  I had wondered why I had built in some needless extra days but today, I wasn't sure I'd even see the road let alone see a a bird and maybe they would never let me leave?  IDK.  

Texas was calling, but as the first local woman said, "Fear the Lord" and I knew then that living here is controlled by a higher power and only the Lord would determine if I was allowed to go to Texas from here or not.  I think I'm trying the Polar Cub for breakfast, I should spread my luck..I mean money around.

Stay warm and if you don't hear from me (not unlike McKay), send up a search party, I'm in Nome.

Maybe I can tap my heels together and say "there is no place like Nome"  and I will magically be transported to Minnesota?

Olaf 

A Kodiak Moment

Kodiak Island, Alaska

Big Year Day 33-35

Big Year Total:  412
Coded birds:  23
Cool animals: Bobcat, Harbor seal, gray whale, California sea lion, pronghorn, porcupine, sea otters
Miles driven.  10,400
Flight Miles 21,000
flight segments: 24   Airports: 16
Hours at sea: 14
Miles walked 46
Miles biked 2
states/ prov. birded:13

Kodiak....?   I don't know what to write.  I've never been here before.  Is this an outdoor mecca and wildlife wonder land or just a wet and gloomy place that smells strongly of fish?  Is this the perfect place to get away from it all or a place to be eaten by bears?  I don't like bears, and I was relieved when I read that even here, the not so cold part of Alaska, the bears hibernate....whew!  I still found myself looking suspiciously at tracks, had the feeling I was being watched, you know wolverines and wolves...

here was a fresh one I found...but they don't have wolverines and wolves......It is just a dog track.

But just when I determined it was safe to be outdoors, it began to rain, a big old fat rain, and then a little light to heavy stinging rain, and then for a while it seemed to even rain straight up, to steal the words from Forest Gump..  It was a heavy rain for two days and it also blew the whole time.  It was a tough go...

It is a funny thing with bird chasing, when you get to a place, you start to think you should have went to another place.  While here, and enroute, rarities showed in Texas, Massachusetts and California, but I was committed to Alaska, and Alaska in winter, and I'm sure the armchair quarterbacks out there think this was stupid place to go.

It was really a haul to get here, 4 hours beating a blizzard to Minneapolis for a 0630 flight to Seattle, 3.5 hours more to Anchorage and a connection after a 3 hour layover to here and enroute I was unsure if the birds would even be here, probably froze out as it had gotten cold.  Then the woman at Avis grilled me that I would be charge lots of money if animal hair, blood, fish guts, fish, animal parts, etc etc would be found in the car. I had to sign a waiver and then another waiver I didn't smoke, and then still another waiver I didn't read, but maybe it was that I didn't smoke fish....Finally I got the car.

I was dog tired, and it was low light and I couldn't figure where to even look for this bird, you see the name of the lake is confusing, one thing locally another on Google and still another on the sign.  It sucked and I was tired so I packed it in and just tried to find my bed and breakfast, then lost I plugged it into Siri, still lost, I called the woman at the B&B, still lost, I finally stumbled to it.  The street it was on looked like an alley.  I hadn't noticed the sign.  I was out of it, but the Crank Crow as this woman calls her basement, is fine.  It was all you needed, well all I needed.  It is hard to judge B&Bs, some have formal breakfasts and this one had a kitchen with food in the fridge.

again, I don't know what to say.

I would like to say some things about Alaska in general.  Alaska is a place that seems to be put together in a hurry.  Everything here, Nome, and even Anchorage, is done just good enough to get by.  There seems to be no planning for the future.  Things are built cheaply, and haphazzardly.  Every place, even those that don't need to, have that boom-town feel to it.  Alaska doesn't like signs or at least big enough ones for us who don't live here to be of much help.  The only drawback of this Bed and Breakfast is that the down spout of the eve system unloads right on the door to your room and since it always rains, this is a problem.

And not finishing the siding under it and since the prevailing wind hits this wall, it will be more than your head that will eventually be a problem, but this isn't the owners fault really, the whole town is designed just good enough.  They have their container port, right below an unstable mountain face, that when the big earthquake comes, and it will as it has before, there is I bet a 25% chance the slide will take out the whole terminal.  Then as they don't have room for the containers here, they have to truck them off site in two directions, so they have to load and unload them twice.  There is a hundred percent chance in an earthquake the road will be taken out, so whose bright idea was this?

There is NO city planning--parks near industrial sites, schools all over, and streets well wherever they got put.  The constuction of houses, etc, looks like a building inspector's nightmare.  I know that Kodiak was a backwater until 1941 when the military hastily fortified the area to protect from the Japanese invasion but heck, the was 75 years ago.....this isn't a boom town.

Okay, enough ranting.  I came here to bird.

I went to Gibson Cove just past the container terminal and found two year birds and a lifer, the gorgeous Steller's eider.  The place really smelled like fish, almost overpowering.  It was a good start though.

#406  Black Scoter

with Harlequin ducks

#407  Steller's Eider

Then I worked again at this lake problem, which one of the four was THE lake....one lake had nasty Coast Guard keep out signs, then a nasty Coast Guard Police cruiser, so I went where it had to be. Geniveive Lake on Google, Boy Scout Lake by local lore, and the sign says Margaret Lake...

IDK what it was called but between the rain, patience, luck, an eagle eye, and sneaking to as close as possible, I found the goal bird, the Common Pochard.  They spent the two days I was here, they being her, 14 ring-necked ducks and two female greater scaup tucked into the far right corner of the lake.  But I had her and got a picture too.  Which wasn't that easy.

#408  Common Pochard

I tried to walk closer in the woods side and got spooked by the track but did get a pacific wren.
Too wet for pictures

#409  Pacific Wren

Only the common goldeneyes came close enough for out of the window photos

You can see the rain, and this was tolerable light stinging rain.

I then went past the coast guard base to Woman's bay and found a couple of year birds
My favorite goose.

#410  Emperor Goose

they are so handsome...

#411 Rock Sandpiper
there were about a 100 feeding at low tide on a point.

There were also sea otters, you got to love sea otters, this one was checking me out.

So then I spent the second day trying to call in American Three-toed woodpeckers, but all I called in was more rain, apparently.  I saw very few small passerines, maybe 7 wrens, and that was it.  Then Rich MacIntosh, the local guru, who was comfortably in Hawaii, the man who found the pochard had also seen a tufted duck on the 17th and presumably it hadn't left, but it was a female.
I have great photos of my life bird so I just wanted to see it but where?

I tried to get on Buskin lake and agsin found the police and then I waited out the weather and then looked at every nook and cranny of the other lakes but no scaup with a tuft.  Finally, a little angry and now really wet, I went all the way to the back of Buskin Lake by road to near the golf course, yes they have one, don't know if anyone uses it.

as you can see the cloud move up so I could see a little, they have mountains here!  Since this is a bigger lake, I needed better visibility as it was certain if I could ever get to the lake i wouldnt be near the duck.  Then I sloshed across the driving range, through the mud, found a trail, and somehow surprisingly got to the lake.  I looked and then found the flock of scaup maybe 200 yards out, then spotted a smaller scaup with a tuft on its head, tufted duck...bingo.  Too wet for a camera and too far and low light for digiscope, heck, lucky I even saw it clearly, but I did...and it is a code three.  I looked for my two friends in the Coast Guard Police Ford Explorer and quickly retreated to the car. I was happy third coded bird of this trip

#412  Tufted Duck

Why do I feel like I wasted a trip?

Besides the birds, I remained entertained watching the goings on at the US Coast Guard base.  I almost wanted to use my military clearance to get on the base and bird but there was nothing I could think of that was there so I sat on the road and since the cops were on to me, I thought better of it.  They had a ready plane with its engines running frequently I think ready to go and rescue someone.  It did make for loud background noises while I was sorting scaup for a tufted duck to no avail before I found it elsewhere.

They also were practicing using the helicopter to blow a boat in a certain direction as shown here.

Again, not sure what to write. I can surmise...cool birds, bad weather, ships, and planes, what else could a Bad Weather Big Year birder want?

Then there was the Tsunami warning.....almost forgot about that.

I was about four miles from a hill at the time in a tidal marsh.  The words oh F%^K! came out of my mouth.  I was maybe 100 yards from the car during the only time it didn't rain. The only thing worse than bears...tsunami......oh wait, maybe it was just a siren test.  I don't know.  Scared me.  I bird on pins and needles in tsunami prone areas.  I texted my son if there had been any large Pacific basin earthquakes and before he got back to me I decided to head up to bird away from the low bays.  The 2.0 earthquake that had happened in Anchorage wouldn't cause a splash in a bathtub, so it was just something else.

I would like to thank all of you followers out there in keeping up with my travels.  As of writing this, I've had over 680 views of my blog titled "Iowa."  I don't get paid anything from this and as you see, besides my own novels, I am advertiser free, but again I'd like to thank you for your support.

Remember what a friend told me, if a tsunami is really coming, "Run, Forest, Run!"  ...wait, I think he was describing my bird chasing....I guess it works for both.  Am I Forest Gump?  I hope not.

Olaf

Birding the Willie the Walleye Route

Big Year Day 28-31

Big Year Total:  405
Coded birds:  20
Cool animals: Bobcat, Harbor seal, gray whale, California sea lion, pronghorn, porcupine
Miles driven.  10,350
Flight Miles 14600
segments: 17
Hours at sea: 14
Miles walked 45.5
Miles biked 2
states/ prov. birded:12

Some people get their kicks driving route 66, others Scoop the Loop, or Cruise Rodeo Drive.  Occasionally people even drive Park Avenue or the Magnificent Mile, but Olaf likes nothing better than to bird the Willie the Walleye Route in the depth of winter.

 Now many of you will think to yourself, "where the heck is that?"  Willie the walleye?  Really?

It goes from NW Minnesota to Superior WI and loops through all the prime winter bird habitat.
The route starts with coffee in Thief River Falls, MN at first light.  Occasionally it makes sense to stay at the C'mon Inn in TRF, but today my birding daughter Lena, I and the intrepid bird dog Brighid took off at 4am from South Dakota.  The route goes from there to Roseau then across on Hwy 11 through Baudette to Little Fork, then down hwy 53 to the Bog, Sax-Zim, then to Duluth by way of the Superior National Forest via Two Harbors to the Canal Park, then onto Superior to Peavey Elevator, and Bong Airport.  It used to finish at the Superior Dump, but they have redone the dump and it isn't so good, there are a couple of optional extensions including Mary Lou's feeders and a couple of other locations, but they are generally the same deal.  I have done the route in 2 days, getting almost all of the possible birds but this year, but owls can be elusive so I'm doing it in three, I really need to get the owls. This path will yield an amazing completion of Minnesota's winter birds, with a little luck, you can get everything, but this is winter, something always can happen, and if the weather changes, what may be an easy drive can be just a brutal experience.  Snowpack and winds need to be watched closely.

On the 28th Day, Olaf rested but I had to go get #389  Wild Turkey up on top of the ridge at Summit, SD

I sent a note to Lena's school that she needed to be excused for Friday as we had to go to the Canadian border to see a man about an owl.  Probably the first time they had seen that excuse.  At 4 in the morning, we took off.  The first song on XM Radio was the birder's theme song "X's and Oh's" a good sign and I was thinking about the difficulty in getting owls while Lena snuggled in to sleep in the passenger seat and six miles from home, a probable great horned owl spooked from the ditch and I missed it by maybe an inch.  I say probable as it went right over the windshield by my face, and I had a arm over my face to protect from the impact.  I didn't get the best look. My small scream woke up Lena, "dad, if it isn't a snowy, don't bother me.  I'm tired.  You have a great horned already, so do I."

I had just removed my wife's Thule carrier to lower the wind profile as it was a very windy morning and if I hadn't I would have killed that owl.  I wondered "why"?  Owls are spiritual animals and foreboding, when you see an owl in an odd place it could mean something more than just seeing an owl.

Then for 150 miles I wondered about the significance, was that owl incident before going owling, a good or bad omen?  Then in the next 100 miles I was trying to determine if it was actually brown, maybe it was white?  No, it was brown, I think.  Why would I even still be thinking about this?  We had coffee and gas at daybreak in Thief and it was time to begin the route.

DAY 1:

Fields of the abandoned and the downtrodden

The birding tour begins here, at this abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere (stock photo from my 2013 book Boobies Peckers and Tits) just west and South of Agassiz NWR, in some of the most productive locations for winter Sharp-tailed grouse, Greater prairie chicken, and occasionally even Gray partridge, but I don't look for them specifically.  It took me 1/2 of a mile this year to find the first flock of birds.  In 2013, 2 and 4 miles respectively, and this year two flocks were together.

#390  Sharp-tailed grouse

#391  Greater prairie chicken

Two lek stakeouts cancelled for April!!  Yea, it was a great opening double.  If anyone wants to go to a fun GPChix lek in NC Minnesota, let me know, I won't be there.  It is about a 1/2 mile walk.  I didn't bother to look for the Gray Partridge, the big score were the chickens so we drove back on the scary ice-covered road back to Marshall County 7 which is also a scary ice covered road.

Agassiz NWR

 Agassiz is a very desolate place in the winter.  The goals here at black-billed magpie, occasionally northern shrike on trees, and the feeders at the visitor center.  I saw #392 Black-billed magpie in the first 300 yards of the refuge.  I can never photograph that bird and never tried.  I made the obligatory stop at the feeders at the visitor center.  Lena saw her year common redpoll and used the bathroom.  Note, the refuge visitor center is not open on weekends and if the wind is out of the south, like today, the birds get blown out of the feeders.  The poor lonely woman wanted to talk to Lena but she got scared and zipped out. I've even seen a hoard of bohemian waxwings over the years in the trees east of here, and a ruffed grouse and some other finches but this year it was just a dog stop and a bathroom break.

Hwy 81-Roseau-

The Minnesota elk herd is around Grygla, and there are good wires for rough-legged hawks but the hawks have moved on south this year.  Sometimes the roads off the main road can be scoured but many are closed right now, we drove on after causing concern we were casing a house.

Roseau
Roseau has the second best birding bog in the state, it is either totally ignored, sandbagged or both.  I can point to many sandbagging here and it so infuriates me I'm starting to use the Subway as my new bird location.  Either we are helping other birders or we are selfish pricks, who just take my data and give nothing back.  No one has posted a Northern hawk-owl in Minnesota since January 3, one quite far south of town, not the usual spot,  IDK, so I go where I always go and I ALWAYS see hawk owls and I slowed down and pointed out the suspicious lump to Lena, bingo.  Why was I worrying?  It is in the same tree as December 2014, and Feb 2014, AND Feb 2013....this is a hawk-owl tree.

#393  Northern hawk-owl

We drove down Sprague Creek road which was in worse shape snow wise than usual, that is a good location for spruce grouse, but the road is narrow, and I got buried and abandoned there in 2013 during my BPT project..here is a little trip down memory lane

This year we also got stuck but only slightly.  I tried to find a place to turn around and then did a 15 point turn and looked like Austin Powers in the International Man of Mystery, and at 90 degrees to the road, with only a foot on either side of my wife's car, the wheels spun, so Lena had to go push...
we got out of the tight spot and I didn't have to be ignored by the border patrol again this time.

We drove on the main road, and then I sped past 3 dark grouse on the side of the road.  I almost did a skidding u-turn and then they flew when I got heading north again, but only to a yard.  Then they spooked a second time before I could get a camera on them, and flew over the car...."spruce grouse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  I yelled.   Life is good, really good...bird #394.

I learned later people pay good money to see them.  The last time I saw them up here, there were seven, and a golden eagle and then there were six.........

It was good to see the three grouse in close proximity for Lena to compare and contrast....lucky bonus bird and my roll continues.

We found a northern shrike for Lena's year

and we went for lunch, all target birds accounted for so I skipped the park and the sewage treatment area north of town.  We needed to head east.

The route then takes you through Warroad which has good feeder birds.  Things got out of hand as I looked out my side window as a flock of birds flew along the car and they were Bohemian waxwings.  I slowed and then they flew over the car and then like a maniac, I chased them all over town, finding they never lit in a tree for more than an instant.  I ran stop signs, cut across school parking lots and caused a nuisance of myself but avoided the cops.  It would have been hard to explain, I was chasing a flock of birds.  Lena spotted birds in a tree, her year pine grosbeaks and then we calmly left town after being ditched by the waxwings. 

Every birder doing the route has to be photographed by Willie the Walleye in Baudette, it is mandatory....here is Lena in her lucky photo.

You need to go to bypass International Falls, there is nothing birdy up there, so you go south on hwy 71.  then cut across to Hwy 53 in Little Fork.  There are feeders on this road and some chances for grouse and other cool stuff.  Beware, many gas stations have closed in the past two years up this way, I do not understand what is up.  This brings you to another important landmark.

It is also mandatory to touch the chair of the Jackpine Savage, in Littlefork.  It brings luck, but if you touch the cant-hook (the thing on Jack's left, I grew up in a logging family), it is bad luck.

Day 2.  Sax-Zim Bog

Another early start as we had to scour the bog for a great gray owl.  We started on Nichols Lake road.  I came across a parked car with a birder in it, figuring she had something, I made a u-turn.  She got out, looked in the woods, and then like she had been "goosed"  hopped in and sped away.  We were left scratching out heads.  Whatever,...but no owl.  We drove around aimlessly until full daylight and ...sigh...no owl.  Each time we passed locales for the other birds I needed so finally we just birded.

#395  Evening grosbeak

Mary Lou over in the NW corner of the bog has these gorgeous birds in spades.  I had a flock every winter to watch at grandmother Lucille's feeders but alas after 10 years they left never to return.

#396 Hoary redpoll

We also had an unexpected treat, but it remained unphotographed.  A nearly white redpoll showed up by itself at a feeder dead into the sun but the other birders at her feeders were walking about to try to take photos,  We remained in the car.  They kept scaring the birds.  I'm not sure they got it. IDK.  Sigh....light bird dead into morning sun and then flushed, we waited, it never came back.  We left the feeders to this foursome chasing birds more out of the yard than anything.  But...I had the hoary, now comes the problem eventually.  As of January 30th, 2016 this bird is safely on the ABA checklist, BUT, come summer it may be lumped with the common as one redpoll species so .....it counts today but then what and what about Hayward's hoary?  Do I still get it, do all of us loose it, or just me or none of us?  IDK, I'm sure another way for those in charge to punish Olaf somehow.

We drove around and around the bog passing "Lazurus the Porcupine" 7 times in a tree in the course of the day

We did score two more year birds

#397  Gray Jay

#398 Boreal chickadee

but then the birds dried up.  We looked for black-backs, called black-backs, lost the speaker calling black-backs, then found it again, each time seeing Lazurus curled up in the same tree.  Lena was getting antsy.  We made a bathroom run to the visitor center and they didn't seem too helpful or even friendly, I had never been here when it was even open.  Lena was happy with the outhouse.

I met Julie Winter Zempel through a quirk of fate.  I had one of my paintings stuck in customs as it was originally mistakenly sent to Baltimore from Dusseldorf.  Baltimore, Minneapolis, nearby...correct?  When I and a shipper I knew finally turned it around, the US Customs people were suspicious and my 9am appointment to get it got delayed for 4 hours.  With nothing to do near the airport in Minneapolis last January, I searched for a local bird to see.  I found the Townsend's solitaire in a cemetery and also met Julie.

I posted my hawk-owl and then today Julie looking for a hawk owl saw I was in the area and now Facebook friends, she messaged me.  We never hooked up in the bog due to the lost speaker but we agreed to stay on separate sides of the bog and text each other if anything was spotted.  We spotted nothing and then I got a text.  Julie had the owl, and it was half dark and the owl and her were 19 miles away from us.  The next 15 minutes were a blur.  If I didn't get the owl, I would have to spend three days or at least two, coming back to get it.  On Hwy 9, I drove over 90 mph, Lena texted a farewell to her friends.  Luckily the moose remained in the woods.  As I neared her on Zim road, she texted me it flew and she couldnt relocate it.  I got depressed.  I came up behind a Toyota Rav4.  For some reason, I didn't pass him and about 1/2 mile away, I saw her headlights.  Then the Rav hit the brakes, instinctively I pulled inside him as he was stopped just past a driveway.  There, 40 feet away on top of a tree in low light was the elusive owl!!!!!!!!!!  Lena screamed in delight.  I sighed like the weight of another trip was lifted.

#399  Great gray owl

Wow!!  It doesn't get any better than this.  Eventually I left a happy Rav4 who were still photographing as it dove on a rodent.  I came up to Julie and we did an out of the window high 5.  GREAT BIRD!  "Thank you Julie!"  I told her and then we went to Wilbur's in Cotton for dinner and her lifer pie, for the Boreal chickadee.

We were stoked!  "Did I say, Thank you Julie!"

Who would have guessed that the idiot sending my painting to Baltimore, would have led me to the most elusive of all owls of the northern forest.  That and I had #399

Day 3

Superior National Forest, MN

I needed four hundred.  I had arranged to meet a man named JG Bennett at basically the corner of Forest and Woods in the middle of the Superior National Forest, near a place I had caught my largest walleye ice-fishing in Minnesota, hopefully not a relative of Willie the Walleye. There was no cell service, icy roads, ...no nothing, just trees.

        I had met JG on-line as he desired to see a South Dakota Say's phoebe.  I have the eastern-most breeding colony of Say';s in North America at my cabin.  I have submitted an article on them to the SDOU publication but they didn't care about it, but JG did.  He agreed to swap info for it, and now here was my payback, a Say's phoebe for a black-backed woodpecker.  It could have been the best trade since the Babe Ruth trade a hundred years ago.

It took maybe 5 minutes in the early morning gloom to spot the woodpeckers, two females, Lena spotted them first.

#400  Black-backed woodpecker

They are sharp looking buggers, and it was a big moment in the history of this big year!  400 for a month!  JG hugged me.

JG was great help.  Then two vans from a VENT birding tour pulled up and we gave them our woodpecker spot as the horde pilled out after scouring the roads for Spruce grouse.  We saw a nice male on the side of the road too, but to pay top dollar to sit in the backseat of a van to road bird for grouse?  Really?  Why would you not just do the eastern part of the Willie Route on your own?  Were these people that lazy?  What a miserable deal, we were a hundred miles from Duluth and who knows where they started this day, the guide was actually from Tucson.....I will use guides where I need the lodging (Gambell) or local intel or feel unsafe, but here?  Those vans looked like vomit comets to me...

Thanks JG debt repaid plus interest.

Two Harbors is a good duck location and a place to find Bohemians but not needing any we by-passed it.  They were having a sled-dog race and so it was a bit of a zoo, so it was good to get safely out of town.

Canal Park, Duluth MN

Duluth has a surprising diversity of gull life in the winter.  Canal park is also a fun place.  I lived the dream just across the lift bridge for a period of my life and was a ship watcher, now a bird watcher...but the place is still cool.

The gulls usually disperse by mid-day but not today, they were in a loafing sort of mood, or were waiting for Olaf to sort them.

#401  Greater Black Backed Gull, adult, way out on a piece of ice

#402  Iceland Gull, a few around, one adult just right of the GBBG, and a juve nearby.  My daughter was hoping the Ivory really wasn't dead, and when the glaucous gull sat down, she said, there is a white one.  I corrected her, and it was truly sad, but oh well, nature.

#403  Glaucous Gull

I thought I could ID the black ducks seen with the mallards in the canal but they were tight to the wall on my side and way out by the lighthouse on some ice, heads tucked in, and I could not be certain so I didn't count them, oh well, just black ducks.  We ate at an old favorite, Taste of Saigon in the DeWitt-Sietz building nearby, still open from when we were medical students up here and the egg rolls were still the best, my daughter even agreed.  We came back out and she tallied a Thayer's Gull, I had photographed it before it put its head out and flew away but that gave Lena four gulls for the stop.

There was a really good adult on the opposite wall which I was showing off to everyone in my scope.  Lena went and enjoyed the feeling of being under the liftbridge with cars going over you and then we left.  We still had a stop left.

Superior WI

The Willie the Walleye Route ends in Superior like the Gandy Dancer Line that went near my home ended in Superior, here at the depot

There is no kissing or touching or anything that needs to be done here, you are just finished.

There are two key species I needed to look for in Superior.  I didn't go to the dump and the Superior entrance into the harbor which is a good spot for ducks and gulls.  To be concise I have all the ducks and all of the gulls already. 

I lived just east of here for seven years and grew up 80- miles south of Superior, so this is home turf.  The marquis species is the propensity of snowy owls to hang out around town, near the airport, Menards, the old Gateway Food Warehouse area, and a couple of schools.  So we went looking but as can be seen by the depot picture, it was high sky.  No owls, they were in a ditch somewhere hunkered down.  The second key bird is to go looking for gyrfalcons at the Peavey Elevator, undoubtedly the guilty party in the demise of the ivory gull, which had disappeared on Tuesday, death by falcon assumed.  Gyrs have been coming in recent years although I have always dipped out.  We ran back into the VENT tour people who were watching a hawk, no falcon. I'd get one in Nome so I did not want to waste effort on it.

JG went home and we drove around endlessly waiting for evening and a hope that an owl would show sooner.  Then I saw something on a powerpole, I got out my scope.  It was a female gyrfalcon, way east and where it had never been seen before as if, it flew over only to be seen by me.  

#404  Gyrfalcon

After I photographed it, it left and was never seen again, oddity upon oddity...?  It was like my blessed state was so obvious only I couldn't see it.  I take gift birds especially rare ones but where was the snowy? 

It was near 5 pm and after playing "Ex's and Oh's" or however it is spelled, sorry Ms. King, twice, the theme song of this Big Year and I went past a mound, turned into a tower access road and turned around and then on a post, there one was, a snowy owl, but where had it came from?  Did I miss it?  Lena was shooting photos out the window in her stocking feet, she had been napping since 330

#405  Snowy Owl

JG came over and saw it, gave me an out the window fist bump.  It was good getting the third owl off.

The trail was over, and we took off for the airport to pick up my wife in Minneapolis.  It was unreal, we had seen everything, we had seen it all.  Black duck aside which I had probably seen but not counted, I had cleaned up the owls, the grouse, the finches, everything, I had no need to return in winter to the north country.  Here I was, sundown on January 31st, and I had 405 birds. I had seen a new year bird on every day in the month. It was probably a record, but...

John Puschock, a birding guru from Washington who on day four of my Big Year, emailed me if I had broken the record yet.  I was crooning about being like at 160.  He was right then and he would be correct now.  I had done nothing.  Seeing 405 species in the month of January, was like proclaiming yourself as the toughest muppet....yea, okay but so what.  I had passed 400 five times and nobody was going to care about this if I didn't go out and put up a good year total.  Neil Hayward wasn't loosing sleep over this, Sandy Komito wouldn't call a man like me and congratulate me, Greg Miller wouldn't friend me on Facebook...it was really and truly nothing.  One of my "coaches" Chris Feeney put it succinctly, yea, "405.  February starts tomorrow and you are going to Alaska and you need more, more, more!"  At least that is how I read it.  I needed to put the hammer down, I left birds on the table in January.  For the year prize (there really isn't a prize), while the other dogs were napping, I had streaked out to a 97 bird lead to my closest competitor, Roger Clark unless there was a sandbagger out there, but the dogs had woken up and were in pursuit..

We had the powerful owl omen to start.  We used the picture of Willie for luck and added the luck of Jack the Pine Savage.  

The owls definitely had it on this trek.  Would there be any luck left for Alaska?  

Am I really going to Alaska in the winter?

Willie the walleye rules!

Olaf