A Carolina Wren.  Photo: Audubon Society

By Jeremy Ridlbauer of the Grand Marais Christmas Bird Count - December 17, 2018

We had an OK day of birding, and the temperatures were mostly above freezing, so it made for a comfortable count.  Not a huge number of birds around and seen, so count numbers are low.

We did have an Black-Billed Magpie and a Carolina Wren on the count this year for unusual species, so you never know what you'll see!

 Black-Billed Magpie.  Photo: Audubon Society

So we did count our circle area of birds and have an OK list compared to previous years.  Thanks to ALL who birded Saturday and checked out our area.

We had 37 species on the count day, and 3 species so far on the count week.
We've had over 1600 individual birds, which is a decent amount.

Circle area is a 7.5 mile radius circle from a point 3 miles south of the middle of Devil Track Lake.  The count circle covers Hwy 61 to Lindskog Rd and north, some of Cty Rd 60, Gunflint Trail to the landfill road, Pine Mountain Rd to the backside of Elbow Lake, Devil Track Rd to Bally Creek Rd, Ball Club Rd to The Grade, Pike Lake Rd, and Hwy 61 west to Cascade Lodge,
and all of the lakeshore between Lindskog Rd and Cascade Lodge.

We're still missing some species that we typically expect to see, so if you've seen any on this list below or others between 12:01 am Wednesday, Dec 12 and 11:59pm Tuesday, Dec 18, we can still count it for the count week species list. 
If you saw any of these on count day, Saturday, we can promote them to the count day results.

Evening Grosbeak
Cedar Waxwing
House Sparrow
Brown Thrasher
Great Gray Owl
Great Horned Owl
Green-winged Teal
Harlequin
Hoary Redpoll
Mourning Dove
Townsend's Solitaire
Red Crossbill
White-Throated Sparrow
ETC!

Thanks to the Voyageur Brewery for providing a meeting place at the end of
the day.

Here are the current results in order of abundance from Saturday and count
weekers:

Black-capped Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Rock Pigeon
Pine Siskin
Downy Woodpecker
Bohemian Waxwing
Common Raven
Blue Jay
Common Redpoll
American Crow
Pine Grosbeak
White-breasted Nuthatch
Hairy Woodpecker
Herring Gull
Dark-eyed Junco
Pileated Woodpecker
Common Goldeneye
Ruffed Grouse
American Goldfinch
European Starling
Canada Goose
Northern Cardinal
Bald Eagle
Gray Jay
Long-tailed Duck 
White-winged Crossbill
Song Sparrow
American Robin
Brown Creeper
Sharp-Shinned Hawk
Black-backed Woodpecker
Black-Billed Magpie
Fox Sparrow
Northern Shrike
Red-Necked Grebe
Red-Tailed Hawk
Rough-legged Hawk
Carolina Wren (seen only for count week though)
Barred Owl (seen only for count week though)
Lesser Scaup (seen only for count week though)