All posts by richardhoeg@gmail.com

The Power of the Internet … The HU!

Background, Year 6

This post is way off topic, but let’s me expand upon the power of the web. Most of my career at Honeywell was spent leading various web initiatives. In fact, I built some of my company’s first external web sites in the early 1990’s. It is nothing short of amazing how the internet has changed our lives. I was actually using the web well before graphical browsers came on the scene. One needed to know UNIX. Regardless, on to today’s post …

I love folk music, and play the accordion. A favorite evening past time of mine is to explore YouTube watching / listening to folk music from around the world. Last night, this amazing Mongolian Band, The HU, was presented to me by YouTube as something I might enjoy. Oh my … too cool and fantastic. All four musicians play traditional folk instruments at the Mongolian Conservatory where one band member is a professor. National Public Radio recently featured the group in a long article.

The band combines the old and the new. This YouTube video features the band playing their music which incorporates a “heavy metal” sound, but also has them singing in a guttural way known as Mongolian throat singing. All their instruments are traditional. This is a unique and stunning sound.

As a fyi … I do not normally like heavy metal music, but this is something completely different. It is amazing what comes our way via the internet, including this blog. However, if you really want me to find a “bird connection” for this post, browse to YouTube and watch / listen to their video, The Wolf Totem. You will hear an eagle or hawk screaming.

Video of the band playing music below this image …

The HU! (skip to the 60 second mark to reach the music)

90 Minutes With a Great Gray Owl

Year 6

After three days of snow, ice, rain and finally extremely high winds, when I saw that the weather forecast contained calm winds (under 3 mph) and thin clouds I knew this morning was a great one to be Bog bound. The last few days had been horrible if you are a bird which hunts by hearing voles running beneath the snow. Owls had to be very, very hungry.

By sunup (behind the clouds) I arrived at Sax-Zim Bog. Within moments I found my first Great Gray Owl, and then for the next 90 minutes I watched owls hunt till it was finally time for their mid day siesta. I then left the owling grounds and drove over to the Warren Nelson Bog where I took a short hike and saw Boreal Chickadees, a Northern Shrike, and two Black-Backed Woodpeckers. By 10:30 I was on my way home … wow … what a great morning of birding.

Oh yes … did I mention the skies cleared very briefly and I even managed to take a few photographs with a blue sky background. Life is good.

Great Gray Owls at Sax-Zim Bog

Black- Backed Woodpeckers at the Warren Nelson Bog

Northern Shrike at the Warren Nelson Bog

Nordic Skiing in Sax-Zim Bog

Year 6

I like to explore Sax-Zim Bog … often by Nordic skiing.

For a number of years, I have wanted to see Lake Williams, which is north of Lake Nichols. I knew there was a snowmobile trail, and yesterday after the freezing rains quite, I skied into the back country. During the week, snowmobile trails are a great way to get around northern Minnesota. On weekends, I tend to stay off the more popular trails. I did not see a single snowmobile during my mid day ski. From experience I know one can hear the sleds from a long distance away which always allows me to get off the trails before the snowmobiles arrive.

The ski was gorgeous. Although I did not see any owls during my ski, the first 1/2 km was prime owl habitat. At one point I crossed the power line cut. I learned that snowmobile distance signs are very inaccurate. Metal signs stated among other things that it was 2 miles back to Lake Nichols. My Garmin had the distance measured at 2 kilometers. The same sign stated Lake Williams was another 1 mile distant. It was only 1/2 km further through the woods.

Lake Williams is everything you could want in a remote lake. I skied out onto the lake ice and enjoyed the silence. I then turned around and skied back to my car at the Lake Nichols boat launch.

As a fyi … I also had a failed cross-country ski jaunt yesterday. I like to ski into the Bog north of Lake Nichols Road using the small streams in the area just east of hwy #7 where folks search for Great Gray Owls. Wrong move, but I suspected that might be the case. This winter has not yet been cold enough, and when I got downstream of my first beaver dam, I could tell the ice was not thick enough. I turned around and skied back to Nichols Lake Road. The heavy snows and mild temperatures this winter just haven’t formed a thick sheet of ice where mild currents are present (like downstream from a beaver dam).

My ski into Williams Lake was 5.25 kilometers round trip with an elevation change in total of 135 feet … quite easy.

I did take a few bird photographs, but the off and on freezing rain did not inspire me to do much with my camera. However, this image was another Canon SX70 interesting test. While I normally keep digital zoom turned off, and I turned digital zoom on and took this photograph of Snowy a few hundreds yards out in the field. I was not actually at absolute magnification as I wanted the full hay bale and pine tree in the photograph. Thus, I back off the zoom a bit. Digital zoom performed well, but close inspect of the image yields little detail. I guess I prefer to only use optical zoom, and hope my outdoorsman skills can get me closer to my intended subjects. Obviously in a situation like the one presented here, I was as close to the Snowy Owl as possible. I never trespass.