Minnesota: Winter in Sax-Zim Bog

Join the ABA for five days in the Sax-Zim Bog. It is one of the great winter birding destinations in North America, and unlike most of them it does not reward hurrying. You could tear around the place ticking things off, but the birders who do best here are the ones who slow down, which suits us, because this is a camp.

We stay in one place for all four nights, eat together, and give the evenings over to talks and to the kind of conversation that only really happens when a group has its own kitchen. There is a proper plan behind the week, with the birds we want to see, the ground we want to cover, and the sessions we want to run, but we keep it flexible so we can follow the weather, the roads, and whatever has been reported recently. The birds come first, but the genuine group feeling isn’t far behind.

What we are all here for is the boreal forest in winter. Owls hunting the meadow edges in the last of the afternoon light, Canada Jays and Boreal Chickadees a few feet away at a feeder, finches picking grit off the road, wolf tracks in fresh snow on a road nobody else has driven that morning. Early December up there is cold, quiet, and short on daylight, which sounds like a warning but is in fact part of the appeal.

Dates

December 6 – 10, 2027

Number of days and nights

5 days / 4 nights

Start and end point

Starting: December 6, 2027. Duluth International Airport (DLH). Plan to arrive by midday. The group then travels to Alesches’ together around 1 PM.

Finishing: December 10, 2027. Duluth International Airport (DLH). We drop the group off by midday. Plan your onward travel from Duluth no earlier than 2 PM.

Group size

Minimum number of participants: 6

Maximum number of participants: 20

Brief itinerary

Terms and Conditions for ABA Travel and Events

aba.org/terms-conditions

Included

Excluded

Itinerary

Winter in the Bog

The Sax-Zim Bog sits about an hour northwest of Duluth, in St. Louis County, Minnesota, and the name rather undersells it. This is not one bog but a patchwork of black spruce and tamarack peatland, alder swamp, aspen and birch upland, frozen sedge meadow, and old hayfield, some 300 square miles of it, cut through by a grid of quiet gravel roads. Come winter, it is about as dependable as anywhere in the Lower 48 for the birds of the boreal forest.

We are going right at the opening of that season. By the first week of December the Bog is under snow, the sloughs have frozen, the feeder stations are busy, and the northern birds that will define the winter are arriving and settling in. It is also quieter than the January and February peak, which means fewer cars on the roads and a good deal more of the place to ourselves.

There are 300 square miles of Bog, and over five days we work through the main pieces of it rather than repeating one circuit. The black spruce and tamarack peatland at the heart of it is where the Boreal Chickadees, Black-backed Woodpeckers, and crossbills live. The tamarack edges and frozen sedge meadows alongside it are Great Gray country at first and last light. Aspen and birch upland holds the grouse and the commoner woodpeckers, while the open hayfields and farmland out along the western and southern margins are where Northern Hawk Owl, Rough-legged Hawk, Snow Bunting, and the occasional Snowy Owl turn up.

Feeders matter more here in winter than in most places, so we will spend real time at them. They are where Canada Jay, Boreal Chickadee, Pine and Evening Grosbeak, and in some winters a pine marten come within a few metres of you, and where a bitter morning can be turned into a good one without anybody having to get out of the van. The Friends of Sax-Zim Bog Welcome Center is the hub of all this in winter.

On the first and last days we are also within reach of Duluth and the head of Lake Superior, which is a different set of birds again and worth a detour if the weather cooperates.

Which sites we take on which day is settled closer to the camp, or even during camp, once we know what the winter has done and where the birds have settled.

Birder Camp

We will spend five days of birding together, meals together, and long evenings in the lodges with room to spread out, going back over what we saw, what we missed, and what is worth another try tomorrow. We know the ground we want to cover and roughly how each day will run. What we hold loosely is the order, which we settle over dinner the night before, weighing up what has been reported, what the weather and the roads are doing, and what the group still wants to see. A day might open with a slow loop of the bog roads at first light with the owls out hunting, take in a spell at a feeder station to see what comes, and finish with a walk on the boardwalk listening for chickadees and woodpeckers. With only about nine hours of daylight to play with, the day more or less shapes itself: out in the morning, back to the lodges to warm up and eat, out again for the last of the light, then indoors for the evening. 

Camps are built around community, so there is plenty of room for the fun and the frivolous, but we also want everyone going home knowing more about the land and the birds than when they arrived. We will get into owl research and conservation in the northern forest: what is known about Great Gray Owl and Hawk-Owl movements, how anyone worked that out in the first place, and where the conservation picture stands now. We will also get the opportunity to learn about the Bog itself, how a peatland on this scale forms, why boreal species pile into it, and the land protection work going on across the greater Bog area.

Owls, finches, and more

Owls are the reason most people come. Great Gray is the one everybody wants, hunting roadside edges and meadow margins at dawn and dusk and, when it turns properly cold, right through the middle of the day. Northern Hawk Owl is the other great prize, usually picked up at the very top of a spruce with a view out over open ground, while Barred Owl is regular enough that we would be unlucky to miss one. Snowy Owl is likelier out in the open farmland west of the Bog, or around the Duluth harbour and airport, than in the Bog proper. And Boreal Owl would be the icing on the cake: some winters it is there, most winters it is not.

The Bog’s real reputation, though, rests on the birds that live there year round. Canada Jay and Boreal Chickadee come in to the feeder stations, often close enough to make binoculars redundant. Black-backed Woodpecker works burned and beetle-killed spruce, and American Three-toed is scarcer and harder but worth the effort. Ruffed Grouse feed in the roadside aspen at first and last light, Sharp-tailed Grouse use the open country around the edges, and Spruce Grouse turns up now and then as a bonus rather than something to count on. Add Northern Shrike, Common Raven, American Goshawk, Rough-legged Hawk, the odd Golden Eagle, and Black-billed Magpie along the western margin.

Then there are the winter finches, which are the wildcard and always will be. In a good year the feeders and the roadside gravel hold Pine and Evening Grosbeak, Redpoll, White-winged and Red Crossbill, and Pine Siskin, with Bohemian Waxwing in the fruit trees and Snow Bunting swirling up off the open fields. It all hangs on cone and berry crops hundreds of miles further north, though, and early December is the start of the season rather than the middle of it, so we go in without promises and take what the winter has brought us.

And then there are the mammals, which nobody signs up for and everybody ends up talking about. Gray wolf, or at the very least wolf tracks, along with moose, pine marten at the feeders in some winters, fisher, river otter on open water, snowshoe hare, and red fox.

Focus

Difficulty & physical strain

Comfort

Pace and ease of birding

Gentle. Most of the birding happens from the van or on short walks of a few hundred metres over packed snow, boardwalk, or plowed track, with no long hikes and nothing remotely technical. The demanding part is not the walking, it is the cold, so come prepared with plenty of warm layers.

Cold

December up here is properly cold. Daytime highs usually sit around the mid-twenties Fahrenheit (about minus four Celsius) and overnight lows drop to near or below zero Fahrenheit (about minus Celcius), and a cold snap can take it a good deal lower again. With the right clothing all of that is entirely manageable; without it, it is miserable, so please take the packing list seriously. The essentials are a layered insulated system with a windproof outer shell, insulated boots rated well below freezing, a hat that covers your ears, mittens over glove liners, and hand and toe warmers, which are worth every cent.

Light

Sunrise is around 7:30 am and sunset around 4:30 pm, which gives us roughly nine hours to work with. That sounds tight, but owls are often active well into the middle of a cold day, so it constrains us less than you might expect.

Roads and vehicles

The Bog is a grid of gravel and dirt roads. The main routes are plowed, though conditions vary a lot, and some of the minor roads are not cleared at all. We travel in a passenger van and stay off anything unplowed if there is the slightest doubt. At least the country is flat, which helps.

Connectivity and services

Cell coverage in the Bog is patchy, and in places non-existent, so do not count on being reachable during the day. Alesches’ has WiFi.

Health and accessibility

You should be comfortable walking short distances on snow and ice and spending long stretches outdoors in freezing conditions. If you have a condition that is affected by cold, by exertion, or by being a long way from medical care, do get in touch before you book and we will talk through whether the camp suits you and what we can adjust.

Insurance

Comprehensive travel and medical insurance is strongly recommended for everyone joining us.

Entry Requirements

The camp takes place entirely within the United States. If you are traveling from outside the U.S., confirm entry requirements with your consular services well in advance.