Category Archives: Year 8

Northeast Minnesota Spring Birding Migration

Year 8,

Although it was 14F at sunrise this morning, there are starting to be signs of spring migration. With that thought in mind, both for myself, and everyone else I compiled a spreadsheet of bird sightings / locations using seven years of my data from the months of April and May. You may download your PDF copies (no cost) immediately below the sample rows. The migration PDF’s have active web links to the appropriate blog post and Google Maps location. Each document has 160 sightings.

Sample Content (first ten rows sorted by date)

Date Bird Species Location
2-Apr Fox Sparrow Amity
6-Apr Common Magpie Sax-Zim Bog
6-Apr Hooded Merganser Sax-Zim Bog
6-Apr Trumpeter Swans Sax-Zim Bog
6-Apr Western Meadowlark Sax-Zim Bog
9-Apr Trumpeter Swans MacQuarrie Wetlands
9-Apr Snow Bunting Sand Lake Pine Forest
9-Apr Spruce Grouse Sand Lake Pine Forest
12-Apr Rough-Legged Hawk Sax-Zim Bog
12-Apr Snow Bunting Sax-Zim Bog

With that thought I visited some of my spring haunts this morning. Birds were scarce, but I did find a Red-Tailed Hawk couple establishing their territory, and a Ring-Billed Gull standing on the ice. Once we get a few warm days a few area ponds will start of have some open water (attracting early season ducks). Oh yes, I checked on my owl family this morning. The youngsters were well covered up by Mom given the cold weather.

Owlets!

Year 8
I’m a God Poppa to my owls again!!!
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For the third year in a row I have found the Lester / Amity Great Horned Owl nest, and yesterday evening I was convinced I saw downy tail feathers. With today’s warmer weather I did a return hike and jackpot … one of the owlets was out enjoying what all Duluthians are enjoying … warmth and sun.
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I don’t normally “mark up” photographs, but the owlet is pretty easy to miss otherwise. I suspect the first owlet may have been born on my birthday last week. The youngsters spend about 7 days under the mom before venturing outside.
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The female has been on the nest non-stop since February 15th. She does all the incubating and fledging. The male does all the hunting at this point. The Mom still has about a 2-3 weeks to go before she will leave the nest for the first time … when both parents will need to hunt in order to feed the hungry family. to hunt to feed a hungry family.
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This year’s nest is so very hard to see, but once the owlets start walking on the branches, I should get some decent views.

Yesterday evening … tail feathers that look “downy”

Return visit this morning!

Snowstorm Owl

Year 8
This post is dedicated to “all the Moms” out there. We are experiencing a late season snowstorm up here in NE Minnesota. I still decided to hike over and visit my local Great Horned Owls. I was hoping to photograph a “drenched male”, but he decided the perch he is on over 90% of the time is horrible in this weather. He had retreated somewhere to a more protected location. Mom, however, has no choice but to stay on the nest.
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All the dots on the image are snowflakes. The owlets may have been born, but no way they would be out in this weather.