This past weekend was the Superior Birding Festival. I was co-leading a tour to the Peshekee Grade. The Peshekee Grade has some excellent boreal habitat for Boreal Chickadees, Gray Jays and Black Backed Woodpeckers. 

We were treated to lots of Cape May Warblers, a very Cooperative Black Throated Blue warbler, 4 Boreal Chickadees and a Moose! We had 53 species for the day   

Check my owl tab to see some of my updated Owl photos

Friday, Saturday and Sunday was the Whitefish Point Bird Observatory's annual Spring Fling. It was my 11th year and my Dad's 17th year attending Spring Fling. We saw some good birds too. We also saw a Long Eared Owl flying before dusk on the Hawk Platform but it was too dark for pictures.

Tuesday while out birding with a friend I spotted an Adult Lesser Black Backed Gull in a distant gull flock swimming in the lake.

We then headed over to South Beach. I spotted a Herring Gull type bird with yellow legs. A typical herring Gull has Pink legs. 

A California Gull has yellow legs but, would have a darker back and be smaller then the herrings. A Yellow Legged Gull would be extremely rare. A backcross between a Herring and Lesser Black Backed Gull would be another option. 

We also saw an Adult Greater Black backed Gull, and an Adult Glaucous Gull.  

At another spot we had a Juvenile Greater Black Backed Gull and an Adult Iceland Gull.

Today, I refound the yellow Legged Herring gull. I was able to get a few flight pictures of it.

We're still unsure on exactly what it is. I will post when we can figure out what it is. 

For the third consecutive year, a Slaty Backed Gull was in Marquette! Me and another local birder were looking at Gulls when we found a black backed gull. We weren't sure what it was but it had a broad tertial bar which is good field mark for a Slaty Backed Gull. It flushed and it was pretty far away so we couldn't see the sub-terminal spots or the string of pearls. We then headed to another good gulling spot in hopes of finding it. We found it and it flushed 10 minutes later from an eagle. I wasn't able to get any pictures of it in flight but my friend thought he saw sub-terminal spots.  

We kept looking but were unable to find it. The next day it was found by my friend and I was able to get there to see it doing nothing.

After I was there for 45 minutes it finally stretched and we were able to see the string of pearls confirming it a Slaty Backed Gull!

A few people came and saw it and after about a half an hour it flew to South Beach which is a short distance from where we were.

This is how we found it! Bathing in some open water. We walked down to beach and a few more birders came down and flushed all the gulls. It flew by which gave us some good pictures.

My dad and I headed out to my camp in Amasa, Michigan. When we got close to our camp I noticed a bird fly across the road. It was a Gray Jay! 

The Chickadees were very hungry!

After snowshoeing for a while we went and watched our camp bird feeding station.
I decided to play a few Gray Jay calls to see if they'd come in. Within ten minutes we had two eating bread!

I walked out the front door of my house and heard the crows, jays and chickadees making a ton of noise. I immediately thought owl. I ran and got my camera and headed to where the jays were making the noise. I looked for 5 minutes without seeing anything. As I was heading back to my house I thought it would be cool to see a Barred Owl sitting on a tree in the open. I started shoveling again and more crows started to come. I ran into my house, got my binoculars and headed back over to see this sticking out like a sore thumb. 

I called my mom, she and 3 of my brothers came and got to see it. My mom got one of the neighbors who also able to see it. I called another birder to come see and it let us get fairly close to it.

Yesterday, January 25 me, my dad and my brother were birding around town and headed over to a good viewing spot on the Dead River. When we got there, this caught my attention.

While I was looking at the woody in my scope I heard this ''hoo-hoo hoooooo hoo-hoo''. I thought to myself 
''Am I hearing this right?''
I hear ''hoo-hoo hoooooo hoo-hoo'' again and I call my dad and brother out of the car. There was a deeper Great Horned Owl call(male) and a higher call(female), both calling to each other. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see them, as often is the case with owls.  
It was really cool and definitely a cool first for me! 

Saturday the 17th and Sunday the 18th was the Michigan Audubon Society's winter birding in the Sault tour.
We started out in the Sault and headed out to the farm fields to find Snowy Owls and other open area birds. We had about 10 snowies before lunch. Here are a few of them     

After lunch we headed to Pickford and Rudyard to look for Snowies, Rough Legged Hawk, Northern Shrike and anything else that was of interest. The bulk of the Snowies and rough legs were around Pickford. There were about 20 Snowies! There was also a few Rough legs and a Shrike. 

The next morning we went to the Sault power plant to look for waterbirds.

There was nothing out of the ordinary other then a Merlin here but there was a Muskrat at the Sugar Island ferry dock a few miles to the right then where the above picture was taken. We then headed to the Dunbar feeding Station. We saw a snowy on the way. There were a few Pine Grosbeaks around and a few people in the group including myself saw a Northern Goshawk fly over the cars and out sight the day before at Dunbar. At the boat launch I spotted a canid far out on the ice. It was a Coyote. The day before at Dunbar we had one maybe two Hoary Redpolls with some Common Redpolls.

We then checked a few fields and found another Snowy Owl.

A closer look thru binoculars showed this! 

We then got lunch and headed to a feeding station in Kinross. 3 Male Pine Grosbeaks were the highlight along with a trio of American Tree Sparrows.

We then went to the Hulbert Bog in hopes of finding a Gray Jay. We weren't able to find a Gray Jay but there were some cooperative Black Capped Chickadees.