Category Archives: Year 10

Owl Quest 2023!

Year 10,

While birders from across America travel to Minnesota and Sax-Zim Bog to see our Great Gray Owls and other winter birds, where do I go owling / winter birding? The answer is included within this post, and my readers will discover over the next few days whether Owl Quest 2023 is a BOOM or a BUST. I have done significant research, both via eBird reports, books on habitat (Birder’s Guide to Southeastern Manitoba … out of print but purchased used via Amazon), and questions to various birders.

I have personal knowledge of the areas within the United States, but the Manitoba regions are new for me. For the past week I have watched the weather forecast and am thrilled to start my expedition late this afternoon after a winter storm clears the area. My hope is when I start serious birding early tomorrow morning I will encounter very hungry birds after two days of ugly weather limited the ability to eat.

Tonight I will stay in Bemidji … travelling there when roads allow. My second night is in Steinbach, Manitoba. My Maps … I will be looking for Snowy Owls just north of the border (and south of Winnipeg) … then on to birding Great Gray Owls in the Marchand, Manitoba and Lost River State Forest (Roseau), Minnesota regions. I also have very specific GPS Google Maps points.

The Hygge Hoot! (or Superb Owl Sunday)

Year 10, ,

Hygge: a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture … definition from the Oxford Google Languages Dictionary). Given I am a Danish-American with cousins still living in the “old country”, I would expand upon this definition and state Hygge is enhanced by the outdoors.

Anyhow, Molly and I spent much of the weekend up in Cook County which is the region in Minnesota’s North Shore bordering Canada. We were working upon an article about Cook County’s Hygge Festival for a leading regional magazine. Molly writes while I take photographs. I hope you enjoy a few of my photographs and how I ended my day … long after sundown during the dark of night with a “Hoot Hike”. By the time I came home I truly had a sense of peacefulness. My local owl even hooted for over 80 minutes while I hiked in the darkness “following the hygge hoot”!

Hygge

Sunrise

Frozen Cascading Waterfall (Cross River)

Gunflint Trail Red Fox Hunting

Grand Marais Lighthouse and Frozen Shoreline

Hoot Night Hike Stats and Map (i.e. following the hoot)

 

Hoot Hikes and Hawk Owls!

Year 10,

Strange title? Yes, but very appropriate. The last 48 hours have seen …

  • 5 Hoot Hikes in the Dark of Night
  • Birding with the Iowa Guys (loved finally meeting Don & Stan)
    • Unsuccessful attempts to find the Bohemians
    • Watching the Northern Hawk Owl (44F and sunny in early February???)
    • Checking out new habitat in northern Minnesota (fantastic!)
    • Return to watch the Hawk Owl no more than 4 minutes before sundown

My most reliable “hoot” seems to start at 6:10 am and lasts for 30 minutes. Sunrise is at 7:20 am. My morning routine has been to get up around 5:15 am, have a bowl of cereal in front on the fireplace, pull on my thermal layers of clothes and then head out into the darkness. We have had record snow already this winter and I live on the edge of the forest next to a stream / ravine / hill. The combination with the cold does not make for easy hiking.

The end result is I am dead tired, but I have learned where all the packed down deer paths in the deep snow. These paths have helped me stumble around less in the woods while “homing in” / triangulating the hoot of my local Great Horned Owls. My neighborhood owls will nest soon, and I think I have narrowed down my nest search area enough that it’s time to look during the daytime.

Okay … flashing back to yesterday … it was fun to spend time with the Northern Hawk Owl during the early afternoon, and then once more right at sunset. Man alive are Northern Hawk Owls EXTREMELY difficult to photograph in flight. Unlike almost every other raptor which telegraphs that the bird is about to take off, Northern Hawk Owls tell you nothing … and they are very, very fast. . I should say I am really happy with the blurry wings as it demonstrates motion and speed, but I would be telling a BIG fib. I was just happy to capture the owl in the frame (near Sax Road and Hwy 7 yesterday afternoon, but do NOT try and cross the small DEEP stream next to the road to get closer to the owl … there is open water in many places and thin ice everywhere else).

Northern Hawk Owl

And a moment or two before sunset

This Bald Eagle was hanging out near some roadkill