2025 started out extra special. After listening to Les and Amy hoot during the pre-dawn dark hours of the morning I left with a friend to go birding. As you may know, the Northern Hawk Owl is my blog’s signature bird. Oh my, did the New Year have a treat in store for me. Not only did the owl put on a hunting show for us, the forecast clouds disappeared for a brief time and blue skies / sun made an appearance.

I will lead with this video. While watching the video it should be obvious that not only was I amazingly close to the owl, but it could care less about me. I ever approached the Northern Hawk Owl, but it decided that the dead white bird near where I was standing was a great hunting platform. It flew own and landed next to me! 2025 will be a fantastic birding year if this owl is any indication! (video link for blog email subscribers)

Here are two photographs I took this morning while the Northern Hawk Owl was hunting. I spent over two hours watching the owl, and it was still hunting when I left because the 12F temperature and brisk wind was chilling me … at least for me if not the owl.

This will be a two part blog post. I have only edited a couple of all the images I took this morning. Happy New Year!