With all our horrible weather recently up here in northern Minnesota, including last night, I figured it might make for some hungry owls. Thus, when I looked at the weather radar this morning and realized the wet stuff would be ending soon, I hopped in the car and drove to the Bog. Within 45 minutes as I entered Sax-Zim the drizzle was ending, and better yet … winds were dead calm. In my mind, this meant hungry owls could finally hunt in low light and calm winds without getting wet.
Within a few minutes I found this Great Gray Owl (GGO) hunting. The GGO let me watch it for about 15 minutes. This owl must be a year round bird, as I found it hunting within feet of where I saw a GGO this past June. In this image the owl is about to fly to another perch about 20 yards distant. Given the extremely dark conditions, a flight photo was out of the question, but I was just happy to watch the hunt.
The rest of the Bog was also birdy. Whereas last week I saw very little when I visited, today was a different story. The Rough-Legged Hawks have just arrived in numbers, and I saw ten over the course of two hours. In the fields near Byrns Greenhouse I saw a flock of well over 400 snow buntings, and these three snow geese (two blue morphs). Other raptors included three bald eagles and one red-tailed hawk. Ravens have also now arrived in the Bog in large numbers. While the Bog has year round ravens, I lost track of the number of these birds I saw this morning which would have to indicate some are new arrivals from “up north”.
Snow Geese in the Byrns Greenhouse Fields
