Ivory Gull at Canal Park!

Year 3

Only an Ivory Gull could consider Duluth, Minnesota a warm southern vacation spot. The birding world is all excited, including me about this bird. Ivory Gulls normally hang out on Arctic pack ice, and are almost never seen in the continental United States.

Yesterday morning I was down at Canal Park and along with 35 of my best birding buddies, saw and photographed the Ivory Gull!

Ivory Gull
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The visitor from the Arctic pack ice is NOT impressed with the locals ability to land on ice. This Ivory Gull judge gave the local from Duluth a two … kind of reminds you of the East German judges in the Olympics!
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Range Map from WhatBird.Com
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The “Other Bird” Starts Out Year #3!

Year 3

The “other bird” … this was not the bird with which I was hoping to begin the third year of “365 Days of Birds”. The “other bird” is beautiful in its own right, but folks … I wanted to photograph a rare Arctic Phase Great Horned Owl! This owl has a beautiful off white color, and occasionally comes south down to Minnesota in the dead of Winter.

Thus, yesterday I hike for 90 minutes looking for my target bird. Walk 25 yards, stop, turn the head and scan all the trees … repeat … repeat … etc. … success! 30 yards from me on a horizontal oak branch was the rare Arctic Phase Great Horned Owl. I was motionless. Only my head was turning. Eureka … perfect line of sight through the branches and soft sunset light was on the owl. There was never time to raise my camera which was turned off and hanging around my neck. I pleaded in my mind for the owl to not fly, but to no avail. Oh no! Madam owl took a look at me and said sayonara! I have a great picture in my brain of this bird, but no pic in my camera! 🙂

Oh yes, the “other bird”. Fifteen minutes earlier while looking for the owl, I found this pileated woodpecker. Normally a pileated posing for a photo makes me happy!

Happy New Years folks, and welcome to year #3!

The Other Bird … A Pileated Woodpecker
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Snorora Borealis!

Year 2,

What a way to end a photographic year … the Northern Lights on New Year’s Eve! While snow flurries and clouds made for challenging conditions at best, I decided when God gives you apples, make applesauce! Thus, I tried some light painting with my small flashlight and was able to capture “snowflake trails” against the Aurora. I was out at Boulder Lake which is about 25 miles north of Duluth, Minnesota. At one point some timber wolves started howling while I was on location! Pretty cool. Life of the Northwoods photographer!

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