With the help of some other folks, I finally found a second Northern Hawk Owl in Sax-Zim Bog on Saturday morning. After the atrocious weather the past few  days … dare I say dreich?! … the day was finally worth heading outside. Putting our weather in perspective, I went through 40 pounds of salt trying to keep rid our walks free of ice buildup from the snow and sleet screaming in off Lake Superior.

While the weather forecast claimed the sun would arrive by mid-morning, Mother Nature said if you really want to photograph the Hawk Owl, you MUST show patience. I arrived in the Bog at 7:30 am, and the sun did not come out till 1:00 pm. However, the long wait was worth cooling my jets. The Northern Hawk Owl performed!

Sax-Zim Bog Northern Hawk Owl Hunting

The owl moved all afternoon between three perches near a small creek

Perch #1

Perch #2

Perch #3

One of the dives for a vole

Vole Capture #1

Vole Capture #2

Back to Hunting on Perch #3

In the final image of the “back to hunting” photos, the full sun had come out. It was taken about 15 minutes later than the other images in the sequence and something had obviously caught the owl’s attention.

I had not been on Admiral and McDavitt Roads since early December. While these are great birding roads, I tend to go elsewhere during the prime winter months and leave these two locations for the Bog’s visitors. However, over the past week I had noticed the number of eBird reports had dropped radically for Sax-Zim Bog, and I know from experience that most tour groups finish their visits to northern Minnesota by the last full week in February.

Jackpot! I spent 90 minutes on these two prime birding roads, and saw nary another person the entire time. I did have to deal with two snow plows but surprisingly even when the monster, loud trucks plowed within 15 yards of the the owl, it did not flush. I felt certain I would get some flights photos, and have about 20 images of two snow plows and an owl which seems to be thinking, what … me worry?!

Anyhow … from this morning!

Admiral Road:

• Barred Owl
• Gray Jays / Canada Jays
• Pine Grosbeaks

Barred Owl … Hunting Movie (video link for email subscribers)

McDavitt Road:

• Evening Grosbeaks

Highway 47: (The flight pic of the NHO is from an earlier birding excursion, but never processed. I have been watching this owl since right after Thanksgiving, and enjoyed two weeks with the bird before it was discovered by “the rest of the birding world”.)

• Northern Hawk Owl

Now is a great time to visit the Bog. The feeders will remained filled for about two weeks, with the Welcome Center still being open. One may now enjoy the solitude, particulary during mid week like today.

The BirdNET-Pi birdsong listening station at the Sax-Zim Bog Welcome Center is now live, and the station ID’s birdsongs 24x7x365. You may easily listen along with the station! The web interface defaults to the most recent 24 hours, but with a tiny bit of effort you may select a custom time period … the prior 7 days, prior 30 days, etc. This listening device is just part of the initial phase of many, many units (some online and available to the public) which which will be deployed across northeastern Minnesota. I am the lead field techie guy for this effort! While cell phones will connect to the stations, I have personally found reasonably fast tablets and desktop computers / laptops work much better.

Here is the direct link to the Welcome Center’s Birdsong Listening Station. However, I recommend you browse to this webpage on my blog which includes links to five additional stations and detailed listening usage instructions including annotated screenshots.

This screenshot is from the other post. The stations are NOT linked below, but are linked via the other post.