The ice has completely left Crane Lake as of Wednesday, May 7th. It is pretty close to a record late date.

I went for a hike at the Vermilion River Gorge yesterday and the Gorge is spectacular. I have never seen the water in the Vermilion River so high - the rapids in the Gorge are really rolling.

On the trail I ran into an immature GRAY JAY! Wow!  I have read that Gray Jay nest early. They start nesting when it is winter - in March. They line their nests with deer hair because they need to keep the nestlings warm. Well, these Gray Jays must have some really great parenting skills because they kept this young baby bird well insulated through the horrible late season snowstorms that we experienced this spring.

The young bird was totally gray with the pink gape of a young bird. He was making lots of begging calls and at one point he sat on a branch with his mouth open. Just like young birds will do when the parent bird flys in with some food.

Yesterday morning it was a quiet calm morning and there were several species of waterfowl moving around on the partially open water on the lake. We’ve experienced a concentration of waterfowl here on Crane Lake as the lakes up north are still ice covered.

Lesser or Greater Scaup? Or bluebills as some people call them.

Horned Grebes

These Horned Grebes took off - I like how you can see their footprints on the water.

The ice on Baylis bay on Crane Lake went out on Saturday. As of Sunday, the main part of Crane Lake was still ice covered.

This partial opening of the lake brings a great opportunity to view the wildlife that is trying to head north to open water. Since the lakes to the north are still frozen, birds tend to get bunched up in any available open water.

Common Loons are particularly noticeable. There were two big rafts of loons of at least 40 birds a piece floating out on the lake. Some of the loons were sleeping while others were keeping guard.

A small group of horned grebes were present.

A lone red-necked grebe was present as well.

Lots of buffleheads are on Crane Lake too.

Yesterday I drove down the Echo Trail (county road 116) to Lake Jeanette to take a hike on the ASTRID LAKE TRAIL.

It was a beautiful warm sunny day although there were still patches of snow in the woods.

This trail goes through some beautiful “boreal” forest. The beginning of the trail goes through a Black Spruce forest and the trail is raised above the spagnum moss. The forest floor is covered with LABRADOR TEA bushes - they stretch out across the landscape as far as the eye can see. I am going to have to come back here when they are in bloom - should be spectacular! This unique bush stays evergreen all winter - they don’t lose their leaves.

It was fairly quiet in the woods - it’s still early for those summer migrants. A merlin falcon was grating out his call over Lake Jeanette somewhere. Merlins are noisy little falcons that nest up here in the border country. Once they establish a territory and find a nesting site, they are extremely noisy going to and fro. Their call is not necessarily a comforting one and it can drive some people crazy. I find it very interesting and enjoy hearing them.

Later I heard the plaintive whistles of a couple of broad-winged hawks.

One sounded close and I couldn’t believe how close he was until he flew. Then both hawks took off into the woods flying between the trees. I heard a third hawk further back behind the two.

Deep in the forest among the conifers I heard the very quiet chip notes of golden-crowned kinglets. Then I saw a few and they had their golden crown exposed quite dramatically. You don’t get to see that very often, but it seems that when they are on their breeding territory, they will readily flash their awesome crown. It was so extended that the top of their head was a effervescent orange color.

Ruby-crowned kinglets were also present singing their loud song and flashing their ruby crown.

This plant pictured above is one of my favorites. It is called Ground Cedar. You don’t see it very often I think it might be kind of rare. It is from the family of club mosses and stays evergreen all winter. It looks like the leaves of a Cedar tree but they aren’t related.

This is a photo of Caribou Moss. This plant is actually a lichen and it grows everywhere up here in the boreal woods.

Finally, the next picture is something you don’t see on your average blog. It is wolf scat (translation: wolf poop).

What I find interesting about wolf scat is the amount of deer fur in it. There’s also a pretty big bone fragment in there. This is another common sight out on the trails. I’ve never seen a wolf out here while hiking, but they probably have seen me.

Here is a field report from Minnesota DNR Conservation Officers (CO) that was in last week’s “Outdoor News”:

CO Tony Arhart (Deer River) worked ATVs, ice fishing, and spring trapping activities. He also worked a wildfire detail and investigated a complaint in which a woodpecker vandalized a truck-side mirror and rang door bells.

I can just imagine in my mind a woodpecker going around and ringing doorbells! Very funny!

The federal regulation that would have required a valid passport for re-entry into the United States has been pushed up until June 2009. This means that if you are travelling by land or sea, you will only need a photo id and a birth certificate when checking into US customs.This is good news for some of our tourist activity includes a trip into Canada via the lakes that border the US with Canada. It has always been easy at Crane Lake to enter Canada - there is a Canadian customs office right up on the next lake, Sandpoint Lake.

That’s what this recent arrival to Crane Lake sounds like he’s singing. It’s the Song Sparrow and his cheerful little song can be heard all over Crane Lake right now.

Sometimes their song varies a little, but the mnemonic phrase associated with his song is: Maids, Maids, Maids, put on your tea kettle, leddle, leddle, leddle.

“A mnemonic device (pronounced /nəˈmɒnɪk/) is a memory aid. Mnemonics are often verbal, something such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something, particularly lists. Mnemonics rely not only on repetition to remember facts, but also on associations between easy-to-remember constructs and lists of data, based on the principle that the human mind much more easily remembers insignificant data attached to spatial, personal, or otherwise meaningful information than that occurring in meaningless sequences. The sequences must make sense though; if a random mnemonic is made up, it is not necessarily a memory aid.”

^{above definition is from Wikipedia the on-line encyclopedia.}

Saturday’s snowstorm brought some unusual news from the northeast portions of Minnesota. Check out this report from the MOU (Minnesota Ornithologists Union) listserver:

I also saw a lot of “reverse migration” yesterday around Two Harbors.
There was a constant stream of Yellow-rumped Warblers, Tree
Swallows, Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Hermit Thrushes flying southwest
along the lakeshore and out over the lake.  I saw at least 80
yellowlegs (mostly Greaters) in several flocks, all flying southwest
along the shoreline.  Smaller numbers of raptors and waterfowl were
also moving southwest throughout the day.  In my yard, I had a flock
of about 250 Rusty Blackbirds.

Jim Lind
Two Harbors

—– Original Message —–
Subject: Yellow rumped warblers Duluth, and the North Shore…
From: SCmzd AT aol.com
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 21:43:02 EDT

Spent at least five hours at Stony Point (North Shore), and Lester
River (Duluth), shore fishing. Was amazed by the amount of yellow
rumped warblers I saw migrating SOUTH! That’s right, well over 200
yellow rumped warblers, over 100 tree swallows, several loons, 10+
tundra swans, sparrows, and a few hermit thrushes, all of them moving
down the north shore towards  Duluth. 

It looked and felt like fall migration. That 200 number for the
yellow rumpeds is a very conservative est. in my opinion. 

Happy  Birding, and hopefully warmer,
Shawn Zierman.

It was a weird day in Crane Lake too. During the storm there were birds everywhere. Maybe the birds here were migrating south from Canada and the International Falls area where they received upwards of 9 inches of snow. We only received about 3 inches of snow in the Crane Lake area. Sunday, after the storm, things were pretty quiet birdwise. There were still several species of birds on the tar road where the snow had melted - most notably Killdeers trying to stay out of the snow.

It will be warming this week and all this snow will be history soon - can’t wait!

We didn’t receive the predicted amounts of snow they were talking about. The radio stations were saying we could have up to 12 inches or more. Thank goodness we only got about 3-4 inches. It was cold and windy all day yesterday and last night it never got above 25 degrees. But, the rivers are roaring. We took a drive to the Vermilion Falls yesterday and there was so much water going over the falls it was kind of scary. You could see how high the water was - almost up to the viewing platform.

The Echo river over at Nelson’s Resort is cutting into the lake.

This pair of Buffleheads were getting their feathers ruffled by the strong north wind.

Hooded Merganser in his breeding plumage.

Some of the spring migrants are here - and they are suffering. FOX_SPARROWS are hanging out by the foundation of the building and they occasionally sing their beautiful song - so I can hear it easily. They have a very pretty song that you only hear in the spring. Fox sparrows only migrate through the area in the spring and fall, and in the fall they are silent. A yellow-rumped warbler was in the yard and a hermit thrush. Rusty Blackbirds are numerous, they were foraging on the edge of the ice. As we drove back from the falls, we saw a Woodcock out in the middle of a snowy opening by the road. You usually don’t see a woodcock that easily! He slowly pumped his way to some cover - he looked like a spotted sandpiper the way he pumped his body - weird!

Killdeers and Robins were in the middle of the tar road trying to get away from the snow.
Hang in there - spring is coming. 

On Friday at Pelican Lake, the Ospreys were stacked up like cordwood.

There was a small patch of open water where the Pelican River exits Pelican Lake at Orr and there were 7 Ospreys hovering in the strong north wind waiting their turn at a fish.
Many other waterfowl were also present.

Lakes in the area are still ice covered with small strips of open water along the edges. A group of 6 Swans on Myrtle Lake were taking advantage of this.

Saturday we received a couple inches of snow (not welcome) and the small yard birds; juncos, white-throated sparrows, fox sparrows are taking refuge under the porch of my
house.

I see by the latest weather that there is a thunderstorm hitting Orr right now. Bring on the rain and get that pesky ice off the lake! We’re all getting ready for Walleye fishing opener which will be early this year on May 10th. Should be a good start to the season with high water and lots of flowage coming into the lake from the rivers.

Spring migrant reports from the Pelican River include Ospreys, Swans, Loons and lots of waterfowl. They are just waiting for the lakes to be ice free and tend to get stacked up in great concentrations in open water areas. It’s a great time to scan these open water areas for rarities. I heard of a sighting of a Pacific Loon in southern Minnesota - so keep your eyes open and check every bird - you never know what will turn up. Spring is a great time of the year in Crane Lake!