Gooseberry River

Gooseberry Falls State Park was our destination Monday afternoon.  The park is along the Gooseberry River and sits on the shores of Lake Superior.  We spent three nights camping there.

The falls along the Gooseberry River are one of the highlights of the park.  The top photo is the right side of the lower falls.  The photo above is the middle falls.  The falls were pretty crowded on Labor Day, so it took some creative angles to not have people in the pictures.

Above is the middle falls, looking upstream from the river bed.  The State Route 61 bridge over the Gooseberry River is in the background.

Joy and Laney posing in front of the falls.  Laney and I enjoyed climbing on the rocks and playing in the water.

Middle falls

Here is a view of the Gooseberry River as it makes its way out to Lake Superior.

I am pretty sure this is the right side of lower falls.

Laney and Joy pose near the left side of lower falls.  It took some rock-hopping to get over to see this side.

Middle falls in the evening

It would be fair to call our trip a 'waterfall tour'.  Everywhere along the north shore the waterfalls were amazing.

Upper falls was just upstream of the highway bridge.  There was another falls even further upstream called fifth falls.  I ran there one morning, but we didn't hike to it.

Cedar Waxwings were everywhere, and the first-year birds were particularly vocal.

Bohemian Waxwings

Bohemian Waxwings, Duluth, MN

Due to their nature, we new that Bohemians would be hit-or-miss. We had heard that a large flock was in the Duluth area, but they had been reported several places. These gorgeous northern waxwings are called Bohemian not because they are from the Czech Republic, but because of their wandering habit. (I love the pattern on the wings of the bird in the bottom center of the photo.)

When we were watching the Hawk Owl, I asked another birder about Bohemian Waxwings. They said that they had just seen a large flock at an intersection on the north side of Duluth earlier that morning. After checking out the Hawk Owl to our satisfaction, we headed that way. We didn't see any waxwings from the car, so we parked and started walking down the road. Shortly, the large flock descended on the roadside trees. It was incredible to be immersed in their calls and activity.

Bohemian Waxwings have a call that is similar to Cedar Waxwings, but is clearly distinct, being lower-pitched. The rufous under-tail coverts, gray belly, and white on the wings are the primary field marks.

The auto-focus clearly missed the point on this picture, but I liked the image it did capture. The background seems to be swirling with Bohemian Waxwings, which was what it felt like to be in the middle of a 300+ Bohemian flock.

Waxwing Search

Last weekend, I had a chance to go up to northern Indiana. Since there have been reports of Bohemian Waxwings up in Northern Indiana, I decided to give it a try. We ended up finding several flocks of waxwings, but no Bohemians. But good old Cedars are still pretty in their own right, and I like to watch them.

Picture Perfect

Ben took this picture of three baby cedar waxwings cuddling together.