Tag Archives: MN South: Mississippi River

Day 060: Great Horned Owl Family Meets a Squirrel

Year 1,

Hey! You! Get Off Of My Cloud!

Somehow this song from the Rolling Stones seems appropriate to today’s photograph of the Great Horned Owl Family. I saw two squirrels running up the oak tree, focused, pressed the shutter into burst mode and hoped! What a birthday present for me … or as my wife told me, Happy Boidday!

Molly and I drove south to the Minneapolis St-Paul area to celebrate our granddaughter’s birthday yesterday, and today I was released from family obligations and had a great time birding and photographing in southern Minnesota. As you can see, I found some bald eagles along the Mississippi River at Colvill Park in Redwind. The eagles were just downstream from a power plant, which meant open water rather than ice. Time to finish up this post and then have a birthday dinner with my family … bbq’d sirloin steak. What a great day!

Owl Family … Meet Mr. Squirrel
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Mom Great Horned Owl at Sunrise
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How many Bald Eagles can you count in this photo? (answer down below)
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Before I reveal the answer, did you count the “immature” bald eagles? The mature eagles with the white heads are easy to spot. Remember to maximize the photo by clicking upon the image. It will make the task easier.

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The correct number of eagles is 11! You will need to be very meticulous and truly maximize the photo with the magnifying glass tool!

Day 022: Winter Misfit Robins

Year 1

My first attempt to find some birds to photograph failed miserably. A long hike in the woods not only yielded no photo opportunities, I did not even see any birds. Something about the extreme cold with 25 to 30 mph winds must have made all the birds bed down deep in the forest.

After a trip back inside to warm up, I realized that one needed to do a better job of thinking like a bird. Find food and water in a wind shelter grove of trees and one should find birds. Saddling up my trusty steed (Subaru Outback) I drove out along the Mississippi River on a small road which I knew had some nice farms plus nice groves of trees. Eureka! I struck paydirt. Birds were all around me in this one grove, including a rare flock of Winter robins that were gorging themselves on some fruit. Given all the worms are under three feet of snow, this was the only meal in town!

Filling up next to a barn
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A busy lunch spot …
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