All posts by richardhoeg@gmail.com

Awaiting Owlets

My Great Horned Owlets will arrive in this world any day now. In fact, one of the chicks may have already hatched. Once per day I hike over to the nesting area and check on my owl family. At night, the male serenades our home with his song.

I took this photograph yesterday morning while Mom was sitting in a different position than normal. Upon maximizing the image you will notice what I believe is the Great Horned Owl’s tale which leads me to speculate she might be covering up her young. As noted, I have never seen her sitting in this manner.  Our air temperatures are still only reaching the mid 30’s Fahrenheit during the afternoon. A newly hatched owlet would not get much time out from under its mom.


My morning actually started with a trip to the harbor. However, do not hold in your mind a picture of an industrial area. While there definitely are wharves, bridges and ships in the Duluth harbor, the St. Louis river estuary has lots of wilderness. I found this Bald Eagle in the exact same tree where I photographed the immature Bald Eagle two mornings ago.


In fact, here is that photo I took a couple of days back. It is likely this eagle is 3 to 4 years old and will soon finally get its classic white head and tail.


Finally, my apologies to any of you who experienced difficulties using my web site yesterday. I experienced difficulties which are now solved. My thanks to Bruce and Arlene, two of my readers who contacted me during the outage. Their emails alerted me to the problem and I was able to bring the site back up quickly.

Boats, Not Birds. Breaking Ice!

I went out birding today. While looking for Bald Eagles on the harbor ice, I became distracted. After all, what little boy does not love boats? Particularly boats which break ice?! Yup, the United States Coast Guard Cutter Alder was hard at work breaking ice in the harbor. This year’s shipping season will open within two weeks. I walked out upon the old Interstate Bridge which was built in 1897 and enjoyed the spectacle.

USCG Cutter Alder (In the second image you are able to see Duluth’s ski hill, Spirit Mountain in the background. In the third image the Alder steams past the Paul Tregurtha, a 1,000 foot ore boat / laker)

Video of the Alder breaking ice (video link for email subscribers)

Crooked Crossbills!

Two weeks ago I posted about my excursion up to the Superior National Forest where I saw Red Crossbills and Spruce Grouse. Today in Sax-Zim Bog I saw the other Crossbill which visits our region when a bumper pine cone crop exists, the White Winged Crossbill. These birds with the hooked beaks are uniquely adapted to breaking open pine cones. Other birds need not apply! The White-Winged Crossbill is my favorite of the two (Cornell eBird link). Here are a few images I took this morning while this gorgeous male was “gritting up”. Notice how it has to turn its head sideways to pick up grit sand. While its beak works well for pine cones, gritting up is a bit more difficult.

White-Winged Crossbills (I found one lone male and he allowed me to get real close! When you have an opportunity like this, get very low to the ground. First, you are less likely to scare the bird. Second, an image at the same level is better than one looking down from on high)

Canada / Gray Jays are always a favorite when I visit the Bog.