Itasca County and Chippewa National Forest Birding

Welcome to my site! The purpose of this site is to give me a place to record and share my Itasca County and Chippewa National Forest birding observations and to give visiting birders some ideas of where to go and what to do while they are here.

If you have a bird-related event, activity, or training--organized or informal--contact me and I will add it to the Events calendar on this site.

Check out my review of the new Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America by Ted Floyd. 

Four things this site is NOT intended to be:

- Comprehensive. There are so many great places and birds in the area covered that I can’t possibly give them all just coverage.

- A photo site. I don’t photograph birds. If you’d like to see great photos of birds from Itasca County and elsewhere, check out my friend Earl Orf’s site, www.earlorfphotos.com.

- A site dedicated exclusively to rarities. I don’t really know what makes a particular sighting cool to me. Rarity is a factor, but I will also post locations of very common birds because while I list, birding is about much more than listing.

- A betrayal to the well being of birds. I may post general notes of bird surveys I have worked on in Itasca County or the Chippewa National Forest, and consequently I know the locations of some raptor nests. However, I won’t be posting those locations here or otherwise share them.

Other notes about this site:

• I may post GPS coordinates to aid with directions or parking. These coordinates will be in hddd.mm.mmm format and NAD 83 datum.

If you have ideas for content or comments on the content of this site, or you are an Itasca County birder interested in joining our online community to discuss local bird sightings, please contact me (replace "AT" with @)

• I owe thanks to Sean Wormuth, Kim Eckert, Earl Orf, and the individuals who contributed Big Day lists and those who volunteered their contact information below.