Minnesota in Winter
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I – January 8 – 12, 2020
II – January 22 – 26, 2020
III – February 5 – 9, 2020
Alex Sundvall leads
Despite frequent double-digit subzero temperatures, birding Minnesota in Winter can truly be a birders paradise! Snow-covered bogs, Boreal forests and meadows of northern Minnesota offer unrivaled opportunities to see northern owls, forest grouse, Boreal forest residents and winter finches all while wandering about Minnesota’s exquisite winter landscape.
This our longer winter Minnesota tour.
Northern Hawk Owl by tour participant Josh Galicki ©
For most people, a Minnesota winter seems like a wasteland of snow, ice, and cold. But to birders, this place is utopia, with some of the best chances in the lower 48 to see some otherwise incredibly tough and elusive species. Glittering winter scenery provides an excellent backdrop for Great Gray and Northern Hawk Owls hunting from spruce-top perches, Sharp-tailed and Ruffed Grouse stripping Birch buds by morning’s glowing light, legions of Snow Buntings wheeling in tight formation, flocks of colorful Pine and Evening Grosbeaks refueling at bird feeders, frenzied Common and Hoary Redpolls darting among Alder thickets and Tamarack bogs occupied by industrious Black-backed and American Three-toed Woodpeckers. Add in boreal forest residents like Spruce Grouse, Northern Goshawk, Canada (Gray) Jay and Boreal Chickadee; nomadic winter visitors such as Glaucous, Iceland and Great Black-backed Gulls; notable species like Snowy Owl, Northern Shrike, Bohemian Waxwing, Red and White-winged Crossbill, Varied Thrush and Townsend’s Solitaire, those cold temperatures no longer seem quite so bad. If that impressive list of birds doesn’t convince you of the potential found in a winter trip to Minnesota, recent winter trips have found such rarities as Boreal Owl, Gyrfalcon, Barrow’s Goldeneye, Slaty-backed Gull, Mountain Bluebird and Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch. Just last year, both a King Eider and Tufted Duck were present in Duluth!
Pine Grosbeak by tour participant Josh Galicki ©
As we traverse the remote areas of northeastern Minnesota, our chances of finding some interesting mammals are quite good. Past winter tours have recorded Snowshoe Hare, Beaver, Porcupine, two species of Weasel (Long-tailed and Short-tailed), Mink, Fisher, Moose and Gray Wolf. Spectacular species like Pine Marten, Bobcat and Lynx are possible.
As you’re hopefully starting to understand, northern Minnesota is an incredibly popular winter birding destination and there will be numbers of birders scouring the area for owls and rare birds. When you add the stark, yet striking, landscape and unpredictable weather, the atmosphere here is truly extraordinary. We’ll use our experience to help create moments you’ll remember for years to come—search for northern owls, experience winter with the birds that call this part of the world home, witness Minnesota’s sublime boreal forest in its winter splendor while we help you make it through your adventure with a minimum amount of discomfort and a maximum amount of enjoyment! We hope that you’ll join us for this truly one-of-a-kind adventure!
Great Gray Owl. Taken on 2018 Minnesota Owls and More Photo Tour by Rick Bowers ©.
As you begin to look for flights into/out of Duluth, please keep in mind that it’s best if you arrive no later than 2:00 PM on Day One. This will allow us to do an evening search for Great Gray Owls or to chase any rarity present in the Duluth/Superior area. Likewise, you should plan your departure on our last day for anytime after 1:00 PM as we want to be able to use the morning of your last day to search for anything that might still be missing from our birdlist.
HOWEVER…if anyone wishes to arrive a day (or two if you like) early, we can get you into the same room at our hotel (so there would be no need for you to change hotels or rooms during your visit). As on all of our previous Minnesota in Winter trips, we are happy to take anyone arriving in advance of the tour’s start birding in the area, charging each person only their share of the extra van rental, gas and associated expenses. Our leaders are always on the ground in Duluth before the tour’s start, so anyone electing to arrive early would not be alone.
PLEASE NOTE: January/February travel to Northern Minnesota does present winter weather concerns. Arriving a day early allows you to be a bit more relaxed in case you encounter a winter storm. Additionally, you can gain a full day of additional birding at very little cost—remember, no guiding fees are charged, those participating simply divide the extra cost of vehicle, gas and associated expenses equally.
ITINERARY
Day One – Tour participants arrive in Duluth. Group members arrive independently in Duluth. We’ll enjoy some local birding for owls, gulls or staked out rarities as time allows. Night Duluth.
Days Two to Four – Duluth, Superior and Northeastern Minnesota’s Aitkin, Cook, Lake and St. Louis Counties. Our schedule is purposefully kept flexible for one reason—it allows us time to travel to locations that give us the best opportunities to find your target birds.
We’ll visit secluded boreal forests bordering the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness searching for Spruce Grouse, Black-backed and American Three-toed Woodpeckers, Red and White-winged Crossbills, Boreal Chickadee and the always entertaining Canada Jay.
You’ll travel Lake Superior’s north shore and marvel at the simple beauty of ice kaleidoscopes along the rocky shoreline while we scan for ducks and gulls. Long-tailed Duck, Common Goldeneye, Red-breasted and Common Mergansers are the more expected waterfowl species but rarities such as Harlequin Duck and Barrow’s Goldeneye have been found in recent years.
Boreal Chickadee Photo by Rick Bowers ©
Superior, Wisconsin offers several vantage points to scan for raptors wintering in the harbor area and its landfill usually hosts a good variety of gulls. Raptor possibilities include Snowy Owl, Red-tailed Hawk, Peregrine Falcon and, if luck is with us, Gyrfalcon. A typical collection of winter gulls could include Herring, Glaucous, Iceland, Great Black-backed Gull and perhaps a rarity or two.
Expansive bogs, meadows and forests of St. Louis and neighboring Aitkin Counties are reliable places to find Great Gray and Northern Hawk Owls. If snow levels are low enough, an assortment of Rough-legged Hawks and Snow Buntings are likely. These are also the best areas for Ruffed and Sharp-tailed Grouse (sometimes displaying early on sunny days even in February!), Northern Shrike and Black-billed Magpie.
Boreal Owl by Kim & Cindy Risen ©
Duluth and other cities of the Arrowhead region are wonderful birding areas unto themselves. Large numbers of Mountain Ash and Flowering Crab Apple trees are a magnet for Bohemian Waxwings and rarities like Varied Thrush and Townsend’s Solitaire. Highlights from past years include finding 1,000’s of Bohemian Waxwings feeding voraciously on Mountain Ash trees while other winters provided cooperative Mountain Bluebirds, stunning Harlequin Ducks along Superior’s North Shore, an ethereal Ivory Gull and true vagrants as King and Common Eider, Tufted Duck, Golden-crowned Sparrow and Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch. Well established feeding stations buzz with activity, and Common and Hoary Redpolls, Pine and Evening Grosbeaks and the more common winter finches are all likely to be found. Recent Minnesota in Winter highlights include: from 2012, a lonely ice floe with three gulls lined up one in front of one another offering unparalleled comparisons of Glaucous and both Thayer’s and Kumlien’s type Iceland Gulls; 2015 had that Common Eider—first live record since the mid-1960’s!—January 2016 will be long remembered for the cooperative, and utterly charming, Ivory Gull that spent most of the month entertaining visitors from all across the country and 2017-18 saw another nice irruption of Northern Forest owls that allowed us to find and photograph Snowy, Great Gray, Northern Hawk and Boreal Owls for every single one of our clients from December 2016 through the end of February 2018!
Pine Grosbeak male. Taken on the 2018 Minnesota Owls and More Photo Tour.
But it’s those owls that remain so highly prized by visiting birders. While numbers fluctuate from year to year, Great Gray Owl is a permanent resident of Northeastern Minnesota, Northern Hawk Owl is an annual visitor and, during an owl irruption winter, anything goes. When such an irruption takes place, Minnesota’s bogs, meadows and forests provide birding thrills that are one-of-a-kind. In 2005 we tallied more than 200 Great Gray Owls and more than 35 Northern Hawk Owls in a single county…in a single DAY! That year proved to be the single greatest irruption ever to visit Minnesota, but even in recent years, daily totals of 10 or more owls were not unusual. Like the Great Gray, Boreal Owl is a permanent resident of Northern Minnesota, unfortunately, unlike the Great Gray Owl, they are NOT to be expected during a single visit. Our best chances are to hope for an irruption year or that one is found on a day roost during our tour. (Our leader is well connected with the region’s active birders and the local network is always in contact when a rarity appears.) Nights Duluth.
Great Gray Owl by tour participant Josh Galicki ©
Day Five – Tour ends upon departure about 12:00 Noon. Group participants will have a bit of time for some final birding before beginning their journey home. We ask that everyone should book return flights that depart Duluth in the mid-afternoon hours. This will give us one last morning to search for any species that may have eluded us thus far. Tour concludes upon your return to Duluth’s airport or departure from the group.
TOUR INFORMATION
This tour is limited to a maximum of six participants with one leader, twelve participants with two leaders!
TOUR COST: Tour – $1295.00 Single Supplement – $265
All amounts quoted are in US Dollars. The cost of this trip, based on a minimum group size of five, is $1295.00 from Duluth, Minnesota. If the final group is less than five participants, a small group supplement may be charged.
REGISTRATION: A non-refundable deposit of $395.00 and completed registration form are required to confirm space. Without these, no one is considered registered. Registrations are taken on a first-come first-served basis with priority based on the postmark date.
COST INCLUDES: Accommodations based on two persons sharing a two bedded room. We select good hotels convenient to our birding destinations. For single rooms a single supplement will be charged. We try to supply roommates when possible, but we can’t always find one. If we cannot find you a roommate, you will be charged the added cost of single accommodations. Meals as outlined in the group itinerary, breakfasts at our hotel. All transportation, including internal segments described in the itinerary. Transportation may be by private or chartered car, station wagon, van or bus, canoe, boat or ferry. Taxes & Local Fees along with all group admissions, park entry fees and access fees are included in the tour price. Expert guide service, photo instruction and naturalist services.
COST DOES NOT INCLUDE: Not included are transportation to or from Duluth, Minnesota, excursions not included in the itinerary, laundry, personal tips, alcoholic drinks, soft drinks, juices, mineral waters and other beverages away from included meals, room service charges, souvenirs, insurance of any kind, telephone calls and use of TV not included in the room rate and overweight baggage fees.
MEAL COSTS: Only meals indicated in the itinerary are included in the cost of this tour (included hotel breakfasts.) Because a person can eat quite well for as little as $25 per day or they can choose to spend three or four times that amount for a single day, depending upon your choices, we do not include meals where we cannot control the costs. NatureScape Tours has a policy of NOT overcharging one person to cover another’s POTENTIAL meal choices—which we would have to do if all meals were budgeted into the cost of this tour.
TIPS: All expected gratuities encountered during your tour (restaurant wait staff, luggage porters, bus drivers and local guides) is included in the cost of your tour. However, if you feel your NatureScape Tours leader, local guide or lodge personnel have given you exceptional service, it is perfectly suitable for you to bestow any gratuity you elect. We strongly stress that such tips are completely optional and solely at your discretion.
DATE OF COST QUOTATION: August 1, 2019
We can only quote current costs. Tour planning begins more than a year before the tour runs. While we try to arrive at our best estimates, we can’t predict fluctuation of currency exchange rates, increases in hotel or vehicle rates outside of our negotiated contracts, etc. Therefore, we reserve the right to increase the tour cost when there are justifiable reasons. However, we make a sincere effort to arrive at the closest possible estimate and have even absorbed small increases at times to avoid raising tour costs to participants. Many of our suppliers have gone to surcharges in their contracts with NatureScape Tours as a means to offset the uncertainties inherent in such long distance planning. The two most prevalent are:
FUEL: In today’s volatile oil market, it’s difficult, nay, impossible, to accurately project fuel costs into the distant future. Prices for our tours are based upon fuel rates reasonably expected at the time of your tour’s start. While NatureScape Tours does everything possible to maintain the quoted price of your tour, with a dramatic shift in fuel prices, it may be necessary to charge a fuel surcharge. If such a surcharge is levied, every effort will be made to minimize the cost passed along to you. In almost all cases, these are additional charges being assessed NatureScape Tours by our service suppliers and vendors who have exercised their right, under their contracts with NatureScape Tours, to increase prices caused by substantial changes in their cost of fuel.
EXCHANGE RATES: As with oil, it’s impossible, to accurately project foreign currency exchange rates into the distant future. Prices for our tours are based upon the rate of exchange reasonably expected at the time of your tour’s start. While NatureScape Tours does everything possible to maintain the quoted price of your tour, with a dramatic shift in exchange rates, it may be necessary to charge a surcharge. If such a surcharge is levied, every effort will be made to minimize the cost passed along to you. In almost all cases, these are additional charges being assessed NatureScape Tours by our service suppliers and vendors who have exercised their right, under their contracts with NatureScape Tours, to increase prices caused by substantial changes in foreign currency exchange rates.
PLEASE NOTE: In more than 30 years of running tours, we’ve NEVER had to assess an additional charge or surcharge to a client. We feel strongly that our staff’s careful planning and negotiation will continue our unblemished record.
UNANTICIPATED COSTS: Rarely we have had unexpected costs. Cancellation of a flight or train has required staying in a hotel an extra night, hiring vehicles for extra excursions and other services. At times schedule changes or route changes have been necessary. If such changes are proposed and accepted by participants, it is with the understanding that they accept the obligation to pay any extra unanticipated costs.
On all of our tours, participants are responsible for any extra expenses incurred from deviations to our scheduled tour itinerary which result from events out of our control (additional hotel nights, transfers and transportation by air, water or ground). During Winter in Minnesota this would most likely be a weather or winter storm related event, the result of flight or rail cancellations, labor strikes, acts of God and the like.
TOUR CANCELLATION: Our cancellation policy is generous. We negotiate with each of our service providers and have contracted payment dates directly with them. Accordingly, all payments received by us, less your non-refundable deposit of $495.00, will be returned to you in full if we are notified in writing at least 121 days prior to tour departure date.
Due to contractual obligations with our hotels, trains, bus and van rentals, boat charters and other costs where we have contracted payment dates there are no refunds for cancellations within 120 days prior to tour departure.
Payments made on your behalf to purchase nonrefundable but changeable tickets may result in the loss of that cost should you decide to cancel. In some cases, if you can find a replacement to take your spot on your tour, we can change the name on such tickets at a lower cost than purchasing a new ticket. In these cases, the difference could be refunded to you provided enough notice has been given.
Some participants have lost substantial sums when illness or other circumstances prevented them from taking a tour or forced them to depart a tour early. We can’t offer refunds for unused portions of a tour unless agreed to before the tour. Trip cancellation insurance may reimburse you for your losses if you must leave a tour early for illness or other valid reason.
Therefore, we strongly advise you to buy trip cancellation insurance which may reimburse you the entire unrecovered amount if it becomes necessary for you to cancel, shorten or change your participation on your tour.
UNUSED PORTIONS OF A TOUR: We can’t offer refunds for unused portions of a tour unless agreed to before the tour. If you fail to show up or meet the tour regardless of the reason, we are under no obligation to provide any refund. Trip cancellation insurance may reimburse losses if you must leave a tour early for illness or other valid reason.
COMPLETION OF PAYMENT: Foreign travel agents, hotels, tour and boat operators, etc., require advance payment. We can offer better rates on our tours because of contracted payment dates and your cooperation helps avoid problems with your arrangements. For this tour we require final payment to be received in our office by October 15, 2019.