We are coming up on my favorite time of the year to be out in the woods … September and October. The fall colors will be gorgeous with moderate to warm air temperatures and very few bugs. Who could ask for me?! Add migrating birds into the equation and the formula for an enjoyable outing is wunderbar!
Over the weekend I spent time on Toomey Williams Forest Road in Pine Island State Forest (west of Big Falls, Minnesota). This road is one of the most impressive drives through Boreal Forest Bog Habitat in Minnesota. Except during grouse hunting season I have never seen another car on this road … Bull Moose Yes … Cars No! Sax-Zim Bog pales by comparison.
All of my favorite drives / birding outings are documented on the Minnesota Birding Locations page of this blog. Tomorrow I plan to be up on Stony River Forest Road. Here is a map which shows my bog drives.
One of my favorite times this weekend was watching a Red-Tailed Hawk hunt for over 30 minutes shortly after sunrise on Toomey Williams. I am lucky that Pine Island State Forest and Toomey Williams is only an hour from my cabin.
When is a vole, not a vole (the most common prey for Great Gray Owls), when it is a “mole”! In the second of my two posts (see part 1) about spending a morning last Thursday with the Great Gray Owlet, it had difficulty with the larger mole. While to us humans it may not seem like a mole is much larger than a vole, for the juvenile owl the slightly larger size presented an eating / swallowing problem! I actually hiked out of the forest after this feeding at 9:30 am. My friend stayed later and saw another feeding around high noon. Thus, yes … after a couple days of bad weather Great Gray Owls will hunt well into the daylight when there are hungry young to be feed. As I knew the weather over the two prior nights had made effective hunting almost impossible, this was my reason for searching for the owls on that particular day.
Unfortunately the handoff from Poppa Owl to its owlet took place behind the tree trunk, but at least I had adjusted my aperture to increase the field of view in focus. This was important when Poppa Great Gray Owl landed directly above me in a Black Spruce, but then disappeared behind some other trees. I could hear Poppa hooting but not see him. When junior suddenly turned and started begging, I knew something was about to happen and I pressed the shutter down, and kept it down. Shortly thereafter Poppa Owl photo bombed my picture!
Poppa Great Great Gray Owl about to deliver food … junior looks on.
Great Gray Owlet / Juvenile Eating a Mole
Attempting the BIG Swallow 1 (video link 1 for email subscribers)
Attempting the BIG Swallow 2 (video link 2 for email subscribers)
And some still images of the mole eating process …
Breakfast was now over and junior moved to a different perch, where apparently he sat motionless for over three hours till next meal arrived.
The weather forecast is poor for this afternoon and night but getting better in the early daylight hours tomorrow, which means I will try to find the owl family again shortly after sunrise. It will be lucky to find the owl family, but last week week neither owlet seemed inclined to move very far. However, when you are hiking in bog country it is hard to see much of anything over 20 yards away.
Yes! It’s family movie time for the Great Gray Owl family … at least junior the owlet and poppa. Early this week I looked at the advanced weather forecast and noted that there would be two days during the middle of this week when hunting would be extremely difficult for owls that hunt primarily by hearing sounds. For a change the forecast was in fact correct. Night #1 was extremely windy with gusts as high as 40 mph, and the following night saw successive waves of thunderstorms. The end result meant the owlets / great gray juveniles would be very hungry. Parent owls would need to hunt well past sunrise to feed their young after several days of limited food.
This is in fact what did occur. Winds were still very windy at 6:30 am two morning ago when I found Poppa Great Gray Owl. He would not begin to hunt for over an hour. See the first video where he is hanging on to some dead branches for dear life.
Poppa Owl at 6:30 am (not hunting yet)(video link for email subscribers)
Poppa then flew down into a relatively protected area amongst some spruce trees. He still did not hunt, but at least he was out of the main wind and could preen his feathers. (video link for email subscribers)
The light at this point was horrible. On my drive to my birding location I actually experienced pouring rain. Light was very bad, but I was happy the rain had at least stopped and I could actually photograph Poppa Owl, but flight shots were impossible. At this point our great hunter crossed a remote dirt road and disappeared. I had now been joined by a friend and we both believed Poppa Owl was likely hunting in the bog habitat. This meant “saddling up” in heavy clothes and bushwhacking into the bog. Surprisingly (and thankfully) we discovered the following:
Unlike this spring, the dry conditions this summer made for no bugs!
The bog was not wet in the slightest. We never got our boots wet.
After 80 yards of thick undergrowth, the forest floor opened up to reveal no undergrowth … just moss and easy walking.
400 yards in from the road … the sun came out and we found junior!
Junior …. the Great Gray Owlet (video link for email subscribers)
And some images of the juvenile Great Gray Owlet … I took over 1,000 photographs during the 3 hours I spent with the owl family. Please understand this is an EXTREMELY rare sighting. I have only seem Great Gray Owlets one other time in my life. Most people have never seen this kind of juvenile owl … did I also mention there were no bugs back in the bog??!! Life was good.
I may be young, but I’m already lethal! Talons!
Some general poses for the camera guy (*i.e. me … Rich)
Stretch! Morning Aerobics!
More Great Gray Owlet Talon Photos
Okay … stopping for now … but there will be a part 2 in this series of posts … coming soon to a blog near you! ………. Junior eats a Mole or Poppa Brings Breakfast!
