This post is a bit different as it shows some of my favorite “hang outs” in northern Minnesota, including the Toomey Williams Forest Road. However, the DNR has now locked the gate at the beginning of the road in the middle of the Pine Island State Forest wilderness. Our recent spell of temperatures above freezing had softened up the ground making the road very rutted. When the weather returns to “the norm” and the ground refreezes the gate will be reopened.

I spent two glorious days (Wednesday and Thursday) this past week in this remote area. I arrived on Toomey Williams long before sunrise. After all, owling requires one to get up long before sunrise. This was my view as I started owling

30 minutes later when the sun was finally making its presence know I took these pictures with my cell phone. My Subaru Outback is my trusty backwoods steed. It now has 216,000 miles on the car, and is going strong. These images also show why I love Toomey Williams … remote, with Boreal forest bog. I saw zero other cars or people during my morning.

More and more cell towers have changed the back country. Occasionally a person will actually have mobile phone coverage. Most of the time I had no signal, but after 35 miles of driving on various forest roads (all dirt … successively more remote), I arrived at Phone Box Corner. In my younger days this box would have had a satellite phone. No more!

Phone Box Corner

And yes, I did see some birds! (Pine Grosbeak, Bald Eagles, Rough-Legged Hawks, Spruce Grouse)

With this post I will finally catch up on photographs. Over the past week seeing all the Owls and Northern Lights had really put me behind in more than just sleep. Thus do to an unexpected gap in our schedule, I am considering a return to Big Falls tomorrow including a one night stay. One might ask, what motivates me to drive three hours when Sax-Zim Bog is only 50 minutes from my doorstep??

• Birds! (winter finches are staying up near the border)
• Minimal snow on the ground. Often by this time of year the back country is impossible to access
• Good weather … no snow, moderate winds and a day each of sun and clouds (I like both as it leads to different birding outings)

Here is the final report from last week’s trip to the Pine Island State Forest (previous post: When Great Gray Owls Outnumber Humans)

Pine Grosbeaks (very few of these birds down by Duluth)

Bald Eagle (they’re everywhere)

Rough-Legged Hawk (the numbers this fall are amazing)

Canada / Gray Jay

With yesterday’s post I showed the route I intended to take through the deep boreal wilderness near Minnesota’s border with Canada. I left my small motel 30 minutes before sunrise, and was rewarded with this view ten minutes before sunup.

Shortly thereafter the clouds took over, and light snow began to fall. I timed my entrance onto the back roads west of Big Falls with perfect timing. The light was just bright enough to bird. With dismay early on in my drive I realized that the bird I had just flushed from a spruce (unseen by me) looked like a Great Gray Owl … disappearing into the heavy woods.

200 hundreds down the road I stopped and exited my car. Within seconds the owl appeared another 100 yards down the road … gliding slowly across the road into the forest on the other side of the boggy meadow. My best view was very obstructed, and after waiting ten minutes and losing sight of the Great Gray Owl, I decided to continue my journey. However two miles down the road I had this conversation with myself:

• Self #1: “Maybe the owl will come back out”
• Self #2: “I don’t understand how the owl moved 300 yards that quickly to reappear on the other side of me. Might there be two owls?”
• Self #3: “Nahhh!”

Anyhow I drove back very slowly (4 mph) and quickly spied an owl.

Great Gray Owl #1 (a juvenile, I think)

Suddenly it launched and swooped down towards the ground. Uff dah!!! There was a second Great Gray Owl on the ground not 50 yards away from me. It had just made a kill, and owl #2 (I assume a juvenile) wanted free food.

Great Gray Owl #2 (an adult, I think)

For the next 90 minutes I watched both owls hunt. It was in an area that I had always thought looked like perfect owl habitat. The light was poor, but the owling was fantastic! My only complaint of the morning was the two owls never landed / perched near each other. Owl #1 often flew right at Owl #2, which then always moved. It was too dark for flight photographs.

Ultimately I decided it would be hard to top this experience, and given the amount of time I had spent owling, it was time to head home. Life is good, but the bucket list drive will have to occur another day! And if that is not enough, while typing out this post shortly after 6 pm (very dark here in northern Minnesota … sunset was at 4:25 pm over 90 minutes ago), my local Great Horned Owls are hooting up a storm in my yard. It actually sounds like Poppa Owl and a youngster begging for food. I guess they don’t want me to get too enamored with the “other owls!” (as a fyi … male and female Great Horned Owls have much different pitched level hoots … kids begging is begging the whole world over. Most people would not even recognize the screeches as a juvenile owl begging)