Today the bog went to the birders.

[JayinMN]

Today the bog was buzzing with birders and photographers alike. There were ten plus people at a time at the feeding station on S. Admiral Rd and the birds were doing a good job of keeping everyone entertained. The Boreal chickadees made many appearances despite the crowds. One guy started feeding gray jays from his hand, thats a first for the bog jays. There were people of all different ages and from a few different states stopping by for the chance to see a Boreal chickadee. Of course I got some bird shots, but I thought the birders were a little more interesting today.

Some of the photographers.

And the crowd started to grow. Look birders and photographers CAN get a long!

I found this guy the most amusing. I never got his name so I guess we will call him the "Gray jay Whisper." If you visit the bog bring some bread and try it out for yourself.

[Jim Almquist]

Jay that couple got to see a GGO down by the lake close to where we saw that one. She got some shots but there was a branch in the way and by the time I got there is was gone.

[jonny_redhorse]

Jim and I met a few carloads of birders this morning at the intersection of cranberry and s.admiral....when I left Jim...I met about 5 more vans/cars on sax road plus some pulled over on hwy #7.....I'm sure their destination was your station...birders were out in force for sure!.....I missed that NHO that Jim managed a few quick images of on s-Admiral....Yesterday there was nobody on the roads.....my kind of day

[Steve Foss]

Great stuff, Jay. After you and I split up, I got back on that northern hawk owl along Cty. 28 and did some nice work with the 400 and 1.4 teleconverter in the last light of the setting sun. It landed down a lot lower and let me get very close. Then along Hwy. 7 just south of Byrns Greenhouse I saw a great gray owl just after the sun set and did some work with that one, too.

It was a pretty cool day. A little much socializing, perhaps, but you gotta have days like that too, and of course the boreal chickadee seemed happy to put on a show in front of all those 400, 500, and 600mm lenses.

[JayinMN]

Man those GGO are getting to be pretty unpredictable in where they are going to pop up. It used to be "just go to Nichols Rd" but thats not the case anymore. I never would have thought of driving Hwy 7 for one.

Steve you should have picked up the dead squirrel on Stickney and drug it around on a string for those owls...

Jim how many birds did you add to your life list today?

[Jim Almquist]

Today was a 3 for the life list The bad part is trying to narrow down the shots I want to post

[jonny_redhorse]

during the"owl invsion" a few years ago ,I saw my first "3" great grays along hwy#7....sitting on the power poles....maybe were in for another "mini" invasion ...sure would be nice!

[buzzsaw]

The jay whisperer is saa wheet!!

Looks like you guys had nice light! Is there a woman named "Tammy" in the crowd by chance?

[Jim Almquist]

Buzz if she shoots a 500mm that is her mates arm that is the Gray Jay Whisperer. She did get a chance to get some shots of a GGO but had a branch in the way. Here is a few more of the Gray Jay doing his thing.

[Steve Foss]

Yep, Tammy it was.

[buzzsaw]

I thought she might be up there per an e-mail exchange we had late last week.

[Dbl]

Cool day!

[MARINERMAGNUM]

I wanna know about the Mayonaise jar on the ground in the 1st shot!

[Jim Almquist]

Jay was nice enough to share his cracked corn.

[JayinMN]

LOL..it was the only thing I could find in my garage this morning that I could take some seed in. I was waiting for someone to say something about it.