I think I talked about the ivory gull that was in Duluth back in 2016 when the podcast was going, but I never wrote up what a great day it was. This was back when my friend Wendy Cass lived in the same state as me. She was a regular to Birds and Beers and when the ivory gull showed up and stayed more than a week, she revealed that she hadn’t birded Duluth, Minnesota in winter and I decided it was time to pop that particular cherry.

Duluth can be as much fun as Sax Zim Bog in winter. There can be sea ducks, rare fulls, owls and if you’re lucky, a gyrfalcon. Pretty much all of those were being reported so I picked up Wendy one Sunday morning and off we went. As much fun as it can be, it can also mean standing on SUPER cold Lake Superior. Years ago some friends and I hired a guide out of Duluth to take us birding in the bog. He kept adding gulls on Lake Superior to our itinerary. We were like, “Thanks, but no. We want owls this round.” He kept pushing, even trying to sell us on how beautiful ring-billed gulls can be in the early winter light. I finally joked, “I will pay you extra not to show us gulls.”

The icy terrain around Lake Superior on a frozen January day in 2016.

Wendy was far better prepared for our walk from the parking lot to Lake Superior with her ice spikes.

It was easy to figure out where the ivory gull was being seen. We saw the bird and some birding friends right away. Someone put a pile of fish down to bring the gull closer.

Ivory gull chowing down on fish birders left for it (good thing it wasn’t an owl). I got this with my iPhone 6 and Swarovski ATX 95mm scope.

It was so cool to see the gull right away and socialize. Even though this bird had been seen for several days, there’s always the chance that one the day you decide to go on the two and a half hour drive up that it could disappear.

Incidentally, this is the bird that caused a stir on birder social media in 2016 because one morning, someone found a carcass of an ivory gull that had been eaten by a peregrine on the Wisconsin side of the water. Birders all over were losing their shit because they were going to see it that day or the following day. Then a guide up in Duluth said, “Hey, we’re looking at the ivory gull now!” He was unaware of the carcass and everyone demanded pictures. He posted a selfie with the gull a few feet behind him. There had been two gulls—and one would have been countable in Wisconsin. Everyone rejoiced; memes were made and people had another two weeks to go see an ivory gull in Duluth. I compiled a bunch of memes and gifs that represented birder emotions that morning.

After Wendy and I got the gull, I took her to some prime winter gyrfalcon habitat.

Yep, a grain elevator can be prime winter gyrfalcon habitat.

Look at that sexy beast! We got the full show from this bird, including going after the many terrified pigeons at the grain elevator.

It was great to be getting two great birds right away on top of the other northern birds we can get: eagles, rough-legs, waxwings. But just seeing these harder see species without a long wait felt like such an honor. I try very hard to remind myself that this is one of the reasons birding is so fun. There’s all the days when the bird doesn’t or if it does, it’s really far away. This was a party.

And speaking of parties…I usually bring a flask for rare birds with some nice scotch. We don’t drink the whole thing, but just take a celebratory sip—it’s even better if you have the one sip while the bird is still there. Wendy brought her own flask.

Um…Wendy…what kind of birding party is this?

Wendy’s flask was unlike any flask I’ve ever seen…I was like, “Honey, are you sure that’s a flask??”

After celebrating her two lifers we decided to go for one of the many snowy owls that were reported that winter. One being at the local Menards!

We drove right under this snowy owl on a light post.

Save big money and get a snowy owl at Menards!

We pulled into a parking lot where we could safely get a scope view of the bird. It had already been banded and the person who bands birds up in Duluth likes to tag them with shoe polish. I’d always heard that the reason was to easily mark them so the bander wouldn’t keep chasing the snowy owl all winter. Snowy owls have feathers down to their toes and they way they sit, you rarely see their feet anyway, so it’s not always easy to see a banded foot. I’m not a fan of marking them with shoe polish and this particular bird had it on the head and wing—that seems excessive. I referenced that I wasn’t a fan of this on Facebook and some people came out of the woodwork to ask why I’m “anti-banding” which I found hilarious considering all the banding I’ve done in my past. But I question putting something like shoe polish on a bird that uses its feathers for camouflage, especially in the longterm. I wonder how it affects a bird’s chances of getting a good mate during breeding season. Maybe if I saw some of the research and reasoning behind the shoe polish, rather than news articles that basically say, “oh hey, here’s a guy who bands snowy owls” I might be a better fan of it.

Here’s a closer look at the owl.

Snowy owl with shoe polish on the head and the primaries. Some say that another reason for the markings is to keep photographers from harassing the owls.

Here’s a second snowy we saw. It was also sporting the shoe polish head look.

Shoe polish birds aside, it was a great day with Wendy. She has since moved to the west coast and I miss her, but will always treasure this fun day trip to Duluth getting her all the lifers.