Tag Archives: Iowa

Birds / Owlets in the Rain

Year 11,

The weather has been ugly. In addition to the rain, winds have been gusting to just shy of 50 mph in Duluth. This is not weather that Great Horned Owlets love (or me). I took this image of the Amity Owlets early yesterday morning just before leaving for a small cabin on the Mississippi River just north of Dubuque, Iowa.

Great Horned Owlets in the Rain (Day 17 .. 27 days old)

However, the wet weather followed me south. I found many migrating birds hanging out near Dubuque … perhaps their northward migration stalled out at the John Deere Dike Park to await better conditions. It was still wet and windy as I watched a small flock of Great Egrets this morning.

However, we did have some nice sunny warmer weather during the past five days, and of course I also visited the Great Horned Owl nest on those days! The nest is getting real crowded as the owlets grow!

Great Horned Owlets + Mom (Day 14 .. 24 days old)

Great Horned Owlets + Mom (Day 15 .. 25 days old)

One item you may note, birding and photography in the rain and other bad weather often yields interesting images … both the egrets and owls. Don’t always wait for the perfect day to practice your craft!

Highway Birding – Part 2

Year 8

On the road again,
Just can’t wait to get on the road again,
The life I love is making music with my friends … Willie Nelson (video)

Yup, Molly and I are heading back north to Duluth, and just like nine days ago it was time for “Highway Birding“. In my earlier post I commented on how I use Google Maps to find good habitat. Correctly so in the comments Roy had talked about using eBird. If you travel to more populated or popular birding locations, eBird is an excellent source of finding out quickly known good birding spots. However, if you’re like me your travels may bring you to locations not well documented via eBird, like Osceola, Iowa. Thus, I returned to my pond with wetlands again as we stayed in the same town last night heading back north.

Last week the migrants at the pond were Spotted Sandpipers and Catbirds. Yesterday evening it was Baltimore Orioles! After a very white winter, I enjoyed all the flashes of orange from many Orioles.

And one more scene from the Ozarks … a cascading stream down to the Buffalo River. Molly and I should never have found this beautiful location, but when I sent us off on the wrong trail for our hike, this beautiful mountain glen appeared shortly (video link for email subscribers).

Highway Birding

Year 8

Molly and I have reached the Ozark Mountains. While I hate the concrete deserts of our highway system, with a little research after a long day in the car, birding is quite possible. We were spending our night in transit in Osceola, Iowa which is a location where I have never been. Upon checking in at the motel I quickly got on the internet and pulled up Google Maps. A review yielded a nearby town park with a pond. Zooming in using satellite view showed me hoped for wetlands. Here are screenshots from my research.

The pond was fantastic with a huge number of migrating Catbirds and Spotted Sandpipers. While these birds are not able to use Google Maps, they know the locations of the water and food sources on their migration routes.

We did reach our small cabin on the top of a very large hill in the Ozarks. When a line of thunderstorms came through last night at midnight, I was ready!