FuzzBall and Junior are doing fine, and hunting the Thimbleberry Patch! I had a fun time yesterday afternoon in the fog and light drizzle visiting the juvenile owls. I found the pair rather quickly when one of the first trees I checked had all kinds of white wash underneath it … extremely fresh! After first eating a few thimbleberries, I walked 50 yards away from the white pine, turned and took these photographs. Quite frankly the two young Great Gray Owls did not look happy with the weather. From my vantage point I thought being near Lake Superior was fantastic. 180 miles to the south at my daughter’s house in Plymouth, Minnesota the temperature was 98F and very humid. Hearing this really made me appreciate my 66F with strong winds of the big lake.
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.
