Tag Archives: MN North: Amity

Finding this year’s nest!

I am working hard at triangulating this year’s GHO Nest. Up here, Amy and Les the Second normally nest by mid February. My sound listening device can listen “live” for me and play the audio feed also in real time while I sit on the couch, in front of the fire, and enjoy a glass of wine. Last year I either had to open a window to hear the owls (it’s 12F outside right now), or bundle up and be outside! This is much nicer!!!

Oh yes … saw three Snowy Owls at the Superior Airport late this afternoon. Pics coming! Also drove up to Greenwood at sunrise this morning. Hiked the snowmobile trail to swap SD cards for my trailcams. Never any snowmobile traffic during the week. Appears to be five unique individual moose hanging out near my feeders, plus a few wolves, fox, and a Canada Lynx. The hour prior to sunset is a common time for the mammals to be active. Friday and Saturday evenings are poor times as that is when the snowmobiles tend to be on the trail. No snowshoes are necessary. Trail well packed. Stop and listen. I see lots of Black-Backed Woodpeckers.

A Day for the Owls!

After a day and a half of fierce winds gusting of 45 mph, this morning dawned bright and calm (albeit cold at -9F). My comment is make certain you have a good weather app, and an app which is configurable to show you the hour by hour forecast as provided by the US Weather Service. I tend to focus upon cloud cover percentages, and wind speeds (basic and top gusts).

Thus, I knew the morning would be good in terms of finding my Northern Hawk Owl. After the poor weather it should be hungry (hunting was difficult) and willing to use perches out in the open (calm winds warmed by the sun). I met with success!

When the clouds started to roll in late this morning I headed home. However, my great day of birding was not over. Taking a break from the computer I walked out to our living room to read a book, but I became very distracted. A Barred Owl was only 25 years away from our window hunting squirrels underneath my feeders! Enjoy!


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My weather app, available for iPhone or Android is named Weawow.

That Owl Guy now has License Plates! (NHO!)

The Northern Hawk Owl has been my signature bird ever since I started/created my 365 blog/website 12 years ago. It has been on my web site’s banner since day #1. This past Sunday right after church, I attached my new license plates. HawkOwl!

During year #1, before social media exploded, I found a Northern Hawk Owl a bit north of Duluth. For a week I watched the owl by myself. Shortly thereafter while volunteering at Sax-Zim Bog, I happened to mention to some other staff that I had found this cool bird. Oh wow, did everyone want to know where and see the NHO! Quite frankly I had no idea at the time how rare a bird I had found. You’ll now know it’s me when you see this vehicle on the back roads of Minnesota. If it’s in winter, I may be looking for a Northern Hawk Owl!



Learn more about the Northern Hawk Owl (link goes to Cornell)