Tuesday’s visit to Mooseland did not turn up any moose, but there were an amazing number of Moose tracks on Toomey Williams Forest Road. The bird of the day were the two northern Minnesota grouse species. I finally realized that while scanning the snags and trees for hawks and owls, I really needed to spend more time focusing upon the immediate road in front of me. On three separate occasions I almost ran over grouse … both Spruce and Ruffed. The birds only avoided my car by inches, and I was not driving fast.  However. grouse are not noted for intelligence. Given grouse season has already started it further showed just how remote these roads are … these birds had not been hunted recently or they would have spooked way earlier. I did stop and take some nice images of this Ruffed Grouse. I was standing about ten yards away from the bird.

The raptors were hunting even before sunrise, but I waited till a few minutes after sunup to watch this Broad-Winged Hawk hunt (thus … the yellow light of sunrise). According to Frank Nicoletti from Hawk Ridge they saw over 9,000 Broad0Winged Hawks yesterday. It is amazing what a decent NW wind will cause in terms of migration towards the end of September.