Sunset Owl

Year 7

This Great Gray Owl would not come out and play yesterday evening. It was waiting till dark to hunt. All the same … it was a great way to celebrate my “return to the Bog”. Winter birding starts now! While our Great Grays are year round residents of the Northland, I have been getting reports of other owls starting to show up in our region (specific reports of Northern Hawk and Snowy Owls). Hopefully this bodes will for a nice movement down from Canada this year (they are allowed across the border!). I hope to also see some non local Great Grays along the North Shore.

My goals for the Pandemic Winter are to receive medical clearance to get back on cross-country skis (no races this winter), and find the hunting spots of various species of owls. Given our new lockdown here in Minnesota, outdoor activities will keep us all sane.

North Shore Reprise!

Year 7,

As you’ve heard me say (write?!) many times, find the food in the winter … find the birds. Exactly 24 hours later I refound my Ruffed Grouse and Red-Tailed Hawk in the same exact trees. The grouse will continue to use the this berry tree till the fruit is gone, and the hawk must have found good hunting. Even with raptors, winter will find them hunting from the same spots as long as prey holds out. The key is birds do not want to use any extra energy during cold winter days.

One interesting observation, unlike songbirds which tend to grab berries and pluck the entire piece of fruit off a tree, grouse pick the fruit off a tree where the stem attaches to the branch. Thus, grouse grab the stem, pluck, and then must flip the fruit into their mouth.

A bonus was finding a cooperative Rough Legged Hawk … in a secret location (LOL!)

There is a neat project that tracks Rough Legged Hawks via GPS devices. This relatively new banding technology really helps us understand birds and their breeding / migration patterns. Our hope is to band some Northern Hawk Owls us at Sax-Zim Bog with this technology this winter.

One bird’s paths over three years … It is amazing how far this hawk ranged through the Arctic.

Birding Rejoined!

Year 7,

Yesterday afternoon I was granted medical clearance to drive and venture forth on my own! While my recovery still includes a long road ahead, it is obvious I am on the correct route. I wasted little time in heading out and having a delightful time. Days are short this time of year, and from a photographer’s vantage point it is the “golden hour” in terms of light all day long. The sun rarely gets to high in the sky.

My wife gave me ground rules for where she said I was allowed to go (doctor withstanding), and I quickly focused upon winter food sources. It was great to take some short hikes and be rewarded with some nice birding results. Enjoy! (I did!).

Found this Red-Tailed Hawk conducting its afternoon hunt. In the second two images I had backed off on the zoom, expecting the hawk to take-off (a correct guess which comes from watching birds habits a long time)

Ruffed Grouse in a Berry Tree (were you perhaps expecting a Partridge in a Pear Tree? Not possible here in northern Minnesota)(in a the second images, a berry is stuck on a grouse’s beak … note the slight difference between the final two images … the photos are identical except for the beak being slightly open which changes the image’s focus point.

Common Redpolls eating Tansy Seed Popsicles (while most of the redpolls I have found are females or immature males, the final two images show a male … thus the “redpoll name”)