Tag Archives: MN North: Greenwood Creek Bog

Great Gray Owl Irruption Winter 2024/2025

Year 12, ,

By the 1st of December I will likely know whether a smaller owl irruption will follow last winter’s great event. Bird statistics show that it is not unusual for a smaller irruption to follow a big event (like last winter).

Last November, I was actually one of the first individuals who realized that a magical winter of owls was in the offing.  Given all the hikes that I take up in the Greenwood Boreal Forest Bog Region, I knew the number of owls I was seeing was most unusual. I kept my mouth shut about sightings with the exception of a few very trusted friends. Eventually the owls would move down to more populated and birded areas near Lake Superior, and we wanted to enjoy the experience before the word got out across America’s birding community (and it did).

Yes, last winter was special. For the first time ever I had a “Great Gray Owl” yard bird, and the owls were easily found within ten minutes to twenty minutes of my house from the latter part of December through mid February. I have a HUGE number of images of last year’s irruption. This is a small subset of photos which I am thinking of entering in a contest.

Great Gray Owl Irruption … The Hunt

I learned from a friend who is a scientist with the Superior National Forest, that during the owl irruption almost nary a bird was a first year owl, a juvenile. Apparently Great Gray Owl reproduction had been good over the past few years, but now their primary prey, the forest vole, was in short supply. Although Great Gray Owls are not a bird which normally migrates, the lack of food forced the owls to move south. We also have native Great Gray Owls which live year round in northern Minnesota, including Greenwood.

Gray Gray Owl Irruption … Hunting During an Intense Snowstorm

This was one of the more crazy birding adventures I ever took. I was sitting at home on Groundhog’s Day, and Punxsutawney Phil definitely was NOT seeing its shadow in northeastern Minnesota. Instead we had almost blizzard like conditions with HUGE winds off Lake Superior. Who would go birding during such kind of weather? Me! Only 8 miles from my house on the Two Harbors Expressway, during the middle of the storm, I found many owls hunting from sign posts. Only starvation would make an owl hunt during the day AND a horrible snow storm.

Great Gray Owl Irruption … Two Harbors Lighthouse Scenes

For almost one month up to four Great Gray Owls would hunt at the Two Harbors waterfront. Eventually the word got out, and later in the day the crowds would get crazy. If I decided to visit Two Harbors (20 minutes from my home), I would normally arrive about 40 minutes before sunrise, and leave shortly after sunup. In this way I felt I captured the most dramatic light from pre-dawn to the 20 minutes post sunrise. Most people arrived a bit after sunrise or later. Thus, my experiences were mainly crowd free!

Return to Greenwood!

Year 12

While Ireland was fun, there is no place like home! As I compose this post, Amy is hooting nonstop outside my office window. It’s 6:15 am, and I have learned she now hoots most pre-dawn days about an hour before sunrise.

As noted in my blog post title, yesterday was my “Return to Greenwood”. It had been 2.5 weeks since my last hike into the boreal forest at Greenwood to swap out trailcam simm cards and learn what wildlife is “hanging out”. Oh my, while the number of moose videos are crazy cool (some provided below with up to 4 moose in a single video clip … bulls and cows. My trailcams also captured on camera:

  • Bear
  • Canada Lynx
  • Red fox
  • Timber wolves (including my white wolf!)

Here are some promised Moose Videos. One highlight is that I now have sound enabled, which means I am also bringing you the sounds of the forest!

In the first two videos … listen to the cow moose which is just off camera. In the second clip it is obvious her sounds and scent attracted a large bull moose within two hours. In the final three videos you will see four moose, including the bull moose. I believe these are the same four moose in all five videos.

  • Video Link 1 for blog email subscribers (cow moose sounds)
  • Video Link 2 for blog email subscribers (bull moose appears two hours later)
  • Video Link 3 for blog email subscribers (entire moose family … four moose)
  • Video Link 4 for blog email subscribers (entire moose family … four moose)
  • Video Link 5 for blog email subscribers (entire moose family … four moose)

Just in case you thought this blog had become 365 Days of Moose, here are some spruce grouse photographs I took near Greenwood yesterday morning. I had the definite impression this male was aware a female grouse was near by, but it took me almost ten minutes to find her.

Moose Madness at Greenwood

Year 12

Yesterday was a “work day” deep in the Greenwood Boreal Forest Bog. I wanted to set up and drop off my BirdNET-Pi birdsong listening device, and tweak locations/settings of my four trailcams. Given it had been two weeks since I had hiked into this wilderness area, I also swapped out simm cards. Oh my … make sure you watch the two videos of Poppa Moose! He has now moved into the area which is not surprising given all the females and the impending rut.  I have seen 8 moose in person over the summer but Poppa is much bigger than the males I have seen. One cool aside, I met the US Forest Service Ranger / Biologist with responsibility for this region. Given his research priorities and my personal focuses upon Greenwood, this is a nice meetup!

One fun aspect of the morning was having this Broad-Winged Hawk hunt near me for about 15 minutes while I was hiking into the bog. I have watched this family of hawks since late spring. Note the amount of color in the leaves already. Fall is well underway and this hawk will migrate south real soon.