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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Bird count in the burn was cold, stark and amazing

Steve Wilson
Posted 1/19/22

How cold was it? Very. The Jan. 2 Isabella Christmas Bird Count, our 40th annual, ranked fourth on our list of coldest count days. This jolly fellow, above, who stopped by on his way back …

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Bird count in the burn was cold, stark and amazing

Posted

How cold was it? Very. The Jan. 2 Isabella Christmas Bird Count, our 40th annual, ranked fourth on our list of coldest count days. This jolly fellow, above, who stopped by on his way back to the North Pole, could barely utter his trademark “ho-ho-ho” for all the ice encasing his mouth. Just kidding, it’s actually Steve Schon, of Ely.
Starting temperatures on count morning ranged from - 32° F in the lowlands on the west side of the circle where Steve was searching, to a relatively balmy - 20° at the count’s highest elevation on the east side. High temps there reached 6°, but elsewhere in the circle struggled to reach 0°.
Fortunately, it wasn’t windy and the sun shone all day. Still, keeping warm in the early hours of the count was challenging. If one could survive until midday, though (most did), conditions actually approached “comfortable,” as long as you kept moving. 
As a testament to the hardiness of Isabella CBC participants, they turned out in above-average numbers. Thirty-five ventured out into the woods, some for as long as eight hours. Despite the cold, we managed to equal our count’s average number of party hours, although a higher proportion of those were spent in cars than is typical.
Would the birds made a similar effort to participate. The 20 species we tallied was down only a tad from our average of 22. But both our total numbers of birds and birds seen/party hour were down a third from our averages. Early indications suggested this would be the case when parties sent in results accompanied by remarks expressing variations on the theme “Where the hell where the birds?” (I’m paraphrasing.) 
Despite the low numbers of birds, there were some highlights, most notably the discovery of 10 spruce grouse along the traditional stretch of Hwy. 2 that I like to call Spruce Grouse Alley. This is the third consecutive year we’ve recorded double-digit numbers for this elusive species. This year’s find stands apart from the previous years, as it comes in the wake of last summer’s massive Greenwood Fire. Almost all of the two-mile stretch of highway where the birds have been most reliably seen had burned, a fair amount of it intensely, killing all the trees. It’s a relief to know this population of birds survived the fire. Yet to be determined is whether enough suitable overwintering and breeding habitat remains to sustain them in the future. 
The fire did have a profound effect on the birds found in the burn area, particularly where the fire burned with high intensity the day the fire scorched over 10,000 acres. Three parties, including ours, ventured into areas that experienced 100 percent tree kill. Not a single bird was seen or heard by any of these parties. That should change dramatically next winter, at least for woodpeckers - including the uncommon and rare black-backed and three-toed woodpeckers - as bark beetle populations establish themselves in the dead and dying trees next summer. 
Surprisingly, at least for Steve Schon and me, our time spent in the burn was the highlight of our day. It was magical. We’ve both been in large burns before, but never in winter. The patterns of black-on-white were spectacular. Steve and I have, collectively, nearly 100 years of roaming the woods up here, and neither of us had experienced anything like this. Steve commented that he felt like we were in a painting about the same time I was thinking we’d entered an Ansel Adams photograph.
 What made the experience particularly unique and memorable, though, was the combination of the visual landscape and soundscape. We’ve all heard trees popping on cold winter days. This was another level, beyond anything we’d experienced in frequency and volume. We stood transfixed listening to volleys of sound from all around us, occasionally bursting into wonderous laughter at some that could be mistaken for rifle shots they were so loud. My guess is that the extreme temperature and rapidly-warming tree surfaces, enhanced by the full sunlight hitting the blackened bark, with no foliage to block sunlight or absorb sound, created a freeze/thaw dynamic that is seldom replicated. 
A big shout-out to all who showed up and braved the frigid temps or patiently watched their feeders, despite the pandemic and the absence of our traditional lasagna get-together. Next year!
Steve Wilson, of Tower, has been the compiler of the Isabella Christmas Bird Count since its founding.