FuzzBall and Facebook (my new account)

Year 10

Dual authentication appears to have protected my Facebook account, but it also appears my account while not taken over is lost in the virtual never, never world. Thus, I have created a new Facebook account. The image posted below is very similar to my new Facebook profile image AND tells how to contact me if you have questions or concerns. A Facebook search on Rich Hoeg (not Richard) should show me … home town of Duluth.

Northern Lights, Coyotes and Face Plants

Year 10
  1. It has been a hard 24 hours. First and foremost, it you are a “Facebook Friend” of mine, ignore any and all requests until I indicate otherwise in this blog. Although I have two factor authentication, it would appear my account has been compromised.
  2. I did a face plant and hurt myself while trail running yesterday afternoon. Long story short, I had a major heart event which landed me in the Emergency Room. I am okay but scared.
  3. Given I was having trouble sleeping last night, at 3 am I discovered that the skies had finally cleared after constant rain since last Thursday and the Northern Lights numbers were good. I drove to Boulder Lake at 3:30 am and watched the Aurora Borealis. In some of the pics you can see the Big Dipper, and others have some of the Milky Way.
  4. When I was finished watching the Northern Lights at 5:00 am I headed to Sax-Zim Bog … long before sunrise which was essentially 7:00 am this morning. I had some good birding which I will blog about tomorrow, but the star of the night were the Northern Lights and a Coyote which walked to within a few feet of my car loooong before sunrise, obviously blinded by my car’s headlights. I have never watched a Coyote from only a few feet away.

Northern Lights at Boulder Lake (last night)

Wile E. Coyote

I am amazed I even managed to get this photograph to work. It was 45 minutes before sunrise and I had to use every trick in the book to take a picture in the dark, and pray the coyote would pause for a few moments.

 

Amity Creek Floods at The Deeps (videos)

Year 10,

Back in 2012 we had a similar flood, and I lost ten yards at the end of my driveway. Thankfully my house is way elevated above my garage and driveway. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the rains have come to the Duluth area. This morning I walked over to The Deeps (location of today’s images) which is only 200 yards from my yard. This basic location is also where my owls, including FuzzBall, chose to live last winter. Hiking the trail on my side of the creek is now becoming a dangerous experience.

Videos: Amity Creek at the Deeps … Waaay out of its Banks

(still images below videos … see bottom of post for instructions on getting your free PDF copy of my children’s picture book about the Amity Owls: Do You Hoot?)

And a perspective from the Gazebo side of Amity Creek

Images of The Amity Creek Flood

I did NOT walk across this foot bridge. I used 7 Bridges Road to walk well upstream to use another bridge that was still 1 to 2 feet above the creek … crossed Amity … and then hiked down next to the stream.

Did I mention I was crazy enough to go out yesterday during the heavy rains to go birding? The Park Point Recreation Area was full of birds. The strong NE winds off the lake were pushing the bird migration, and the Park Point being at the western end of Lake Superior experienced a fallout of pushed birds … including this Peregrine Falcon which was hunting song birds.

Finally all the storms coming in off the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico had pushed this “pink visitor” to the Duluth Harbor!

  1. New visitors to my blog may not know anyone may download a free PDF copy of my children’s picture book about the Amity Owls. Browse to this page to get your copy.
  2. Join 1,000’s of other folks and subscribe to this blog, 365 Days of Birds. Please notice you will never find an advertisement or pop-up on this blog. I make this effort to blog because I love my hometown and region.