Another snowstorm is starting in the Northland. The forecast has us getting blasted with 4 to 8 inches of snow, but more importantly 30+ mph winds off Lake Superior. Earlier this morning my youngest son, Erik, drove me over to Sax-Zim Bog. I thought it would be perfect weather for finding owls … dark, overcast and zippo winds. The owls thought otherwise. However after this storm ends in two days the birds WILL be hungry.

Upon getting home I had a new device to try in my fight against Blepharospasm, prescription swim googles. I did not go swimming, but took a short hike which is something my eyesight has prevented me from safely doing. While I only hiked for 1.5 miles, the goggles created a moisture chamber which allowed me average vision (good vision in my book). The birds rewarded my hike, both down near Brighton Beach and once I returned home.

Pileated Woodpecker as the snow just is getting started. From a photography vantage point you are looking at my top three images … out of 91 that I took in a little over one minute. If you do not use burst mode on a camera these photographs should be a vote in favor of that mode. While I had tons of blurry photographs, I had some nice pics which were in focus with a low ISO (high quality). In addition, the slow shutter speeds (1/15th of a second) allowed me to show the snow as streaming by the bird. In sunny conditions I might have a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second to freeze action.

Mallards on Ice! All the water except Lake Superior have been frozen for over a month. Every winter hundreds of mallards jam into a small area every night where a stream provides some open water as it comes out from under a highway right next to the big lake (warmed by being underground). Our local raptors tend to learn about this duck bonanza as the winter progresses.