During this morning’s break between yesterday’s blizzard and today’s winter storm I found this Snowy Owl resting on the snowy tundra near Duluth! I hope to get a cross-country ski in before the next burst of snow and wind starts in a few hours. The official grooming report is the trails are “ungroomed” because our local roads are too snow covered and dangerous to get the Pisten Bully over to the Lester / Amity Trails.

Overnight the U.S. Weather Service upgraded our winter storm to a blizzard. All I know is the snow is coming down hard, and it’s windy outside. Blizzard birding means putting on all one’s winter gear and heading outside … shoveling the snow off the platform bird feeder (already 1/2 foot of new white stuff), and filling all the feeders. Throughout this entire process all my own birds were singing and havering with inches at time of my head … the chickadees and nuthatches were the most fearless and often landed in my bird feeders as I was filling them full. The juncos, purple finches, cardinals and goldfinches preferred to wait at a comfortable distance of 4 to 8 feet distant, but they were in the feeders the moment I retreated. Never fear the woodpeckers were also waiting. Within 15 seconds my male pileated woodpecker appeared.

Yesterday afternoon I did get out before the snows hit. The high winds were already present which encouraged raptors to stay down low to conserve energy (i.e avoid the worst gusts).

Rough Legged Hawk (hunting a frozen pond next to an industrial greenhouse … industrial greenhouses with fields and ponds near them are great birding spots in the winter)

Bald Eagles on Ice (The Frito Bandido Bird is an immature female)

Color in the Feeder Christmas Morning (purple finch and rare Tufted Puffin makes a visit)

This puffin was a present from my youngest son and his wife … visiting from Seattle. While I was elsewhere in the house the puffin apparently flew onto my feeders, and is indicative of their present (taking me Tufted Puffin birding by boat this summer in the Pacific Northwest).

For you readers in the Florida region, watch out! I will be invading the Fort Myers area for a short vacation in the near future.

Over the last 24 hours since about 4 pm yesterday afternoon, I have seen four unique Snowy Owls! I know they are different owls due to the distances and colors of the each bird’s plumage. I ended my Snowy Christmas around 10 am this morning with a super white male … a truly “White Christmas Owl”!

Snowy Owl #1

Snowy Owl #2

Snowy Owl #3

I did not photograph Snowy #4. It was far, far away.

For those of you who like to follow these owls, make certain you subscribe to Project Snowstorms’ blog posts. They are one of the top owl research organizations in North America. I particularly enjoyed reading about “Fond du Lac” (a named Snowy). This owl nested north of Hudson’s Bay, but migrated down Hudson’s Bay, ultimately to Isle Royale and across Lake Superior to the Upper Peninsula. It is still migrating further south.