ZBirding: Birding The Sax-zim Bog

So, let me set the scene: It's -18 outside, with a wind chill of -36 and my dad and I are driving to the Sax-Zim Bog. And before I tell about my experience, let me tell you a little bit about Sax-Zim. It has a total of over 240 species of bird and lots of OWLS. Here are some of the birds....

Life Birds
Ruffed Grouse
Sharp-tailed Grouse
Northern Goshawk
Rough-legged Hawk
Thayer's Gull
Glaucous Gull
Northern Hawk Owl
Black-backed Woodpecker
Northern Shrike
Gray Jay
Black-billed Magpie
Boreal Chickadee
Snow Bunting
Purple Finch
Pine Grosbeak
Common Redpoll
Evening Grosbeak

Notable Birds
Iceland Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Snowy Owl
Great Gray Owl
Boreal Owl
American Three-toed Woodpecker
Bohemian Waxwing
Red Crossbill
White-winged Crossbill
Hoary Redpoll

P.S. Here is a link to the Sax-Zim Bog website.

Now that you know a little about Sax-Zim, let me tell you about my experience. So, we got up at 5am and started driving to Sax-Zim and as you know, it was very, very cold. When we got there, we were given a gift bag and in it, there was a map, a check list, and a snow scraper for a car! When you get a snow scraper, you know it's going to be cold. So, after all the people arrive and go to the bathroom, we board the bus and for the first 45 minutes or so we see nothing. I was discouraged, but when all hope seemed lost, we came upon a place where there had been sitings of Great Gray Owls. Then, we saw a car with photographers. A guide got out and gave the signal to come out and see the OWL. We got out and there it was. A Great Gray Owl! It was amazing. We drove a long way to the next birding site. When we got there, there were feeders set up and I saw ( for the first time) a Common Redpoll and Pine Siskin.

Black-capped Chickadee

Red Squirrel

Common Redpol

Black-capped Chickadee

Hairy Woodpecker

So, we did that for a while. I will just show you the pictures I took.

Male Evening Grosbeak

Pine Siskin

Male Evening Grosbeak

Pine Siskin

Male Evening Grosbeak

Evening Grosbeaks

Then we went to the welcome center and saw more Common Redpols and even a Hairy Redpol and my favorite, a Red-Breasted Nuthatch.

Then to top all off, when I was in the bathroom, there was a Ruffed Grouse spotted. I rushed back out and saw it - and 6 others!

After that we decided to go looking for a Northern Hawk Owl and on the way a sleep. When we got to the place where the Owl wa,s I freaked out because we could not find it. But then it swooped into a tree. I was so happy.

Now that the day is coming to an end, we went back to the first feeders we visited hoping to see a Boreal Chickadee and a Gray Jay and guess what? We saw both.

Gray Jay

Boreal Chickadee

Boreal Chickadee

Well, that was the last bird of the day and we traveled back to the meeting place to hear Greg Miller tell us about his Big Year. If you don't know who Greg Miller is, he is the character Jack Black plays in the movie The Big Year. Here are some helpful links for the movie. The Big Year Trailer The Big Year Book

So, after the lecture, it was about 9:30pm and I was tired. We drove back to the hotel and went to bed. "Get up, come on it's time to get up," said my dad, "I'm awake," I say. That is the first thing I remember when I get up the next day.

To cut to the chase, this time all we had to do was drive to a diner and wait for the bus to come. That was NICE. When the bus arrived, we all piled in and right when we got on the guide said, "The first thing we will do today is go look for a Snowy Owl." I have always wanted to see a Snowy Owl, so when he said that I nearly freaked out. The Snowy was at her regular place, a elementary school, and we saw her on top of a light.

So, after the Snowy, we went looking for a Gyrfalcon (here is a link to info on the Gyrfalcon). Sadly we did not see any, but we did see a beautiful Red Tailed Hawk. I am going to skip the boring parts and tell you about the one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Gull watching!!!

We went to a harbor that we visited previously in the day. This time was different: We saw a ton of stuff! Like Icelandic Gulls (which are code 2. If you don't know about the codes, here is a link to a website), Northern Pintails, Thayers Gull ( also code 2) and more. Here are some of my gull pictures, LET ME MAKE ONE THING CLEAR: I STINK AT GULL IDENTIFCATION SO SOME OF THE GULLS WILL NOT BE LABELED.