Tag Archives: MN North: Two Harbors

Scoring the Owl Trifecta: Boreal, Great Gray & Great Horned Owls

Year 12, ,

The Owl Irruption means crazy birding excursions like mine yesterday afternoon are possible. In just over one hour, I saw all three species of these owls: Boreal, Great Gray & Great Horned Owls. I consider myself lucky to live in the Northland where all three of these owls species both live, but also some of their cousins from north of the border will occasionally pay us a visit. Normally owl irruptions end on or about March 1st, which is only 11 days away. Anyhow, yesterday’s terrific trio! Did I mention it was cold? All three owls wanted sun, but also to avoid the fierce Northwest wind. This morning it is -15F to 25F below zero depending upon where you live (real cold air collects at the bottom of hills).

Boreal Owl (sleeping in the sun … it did apparently not move for the next four hours)

Great Gray Owl (trying to get comfortable within its pine needle mattress before a snooze)

Amy! My local Great Horned Owl

The sun is finally peeking out between the trees at 7:20 am. Time to go make my rounds of all three bird feeder stations. My feathered friends should all be hungry after such a cold night.

Arctic Riviera Birding Habitat Walks

Year 12,

Welcome to Arctic Riviera Birding Habitat Walks! This will be a new addition to my blog. At Christmas I acquired a very small drone which will allow me to create birding habitat videos. I will only take videos of habitat, not birds! Drones are known for scaring birds which which would never be my goal. Instead I plan to introduce readers to the habitat at the various locations where I bird in Northeastern Minnesota! Eventually the walks will be added to my Northeastern Minnesota Birding Locations and be available linked via the free PDF download.

I am still learning my DJI NEO; thus I ask your understanding with these first “walks” as I am learning a new technology. My first walk introduces you to Amity Creek and the forest which surrounds my house including a frozen waterfall named THE Deeps. My second walk took place up at Greenwood Lake, and only 1/4 mile from my Greenwood Creek Bird Feeders. While on my second walk I head out onto an ice road, a rather unique kind of road only found in the far north. One may actually drive a car out onto an ice road!

Video Links for email subscribers to my blog:

Of course since this post once again talks about Arctic Riviera Birding, here are some Great Gray Owl photographs I took this morning in Two Harbors … temperature of -12F at dawn. Three unique owls were photographed. Apparently owl #2 did not get the instructions and was just sleeping in the sun!

Owl #1 and Lighthouse #1

Owl #2

Owl #3 and Lighthouse #2 (sea smoke!)

At times the lighthouse featured directly above totally disappeared from view because of the sea smoke!

 

Birding the Arctic Riviera in NE Minnesota

Year 12, ,

I had already planned on using this title, Arctic Riviera, the focus of my next post. After all, the temperature fell to -34F (not windchill) this morning as I headed out long before sunrise. My goal was to find Pine Grosbeaks, which are a MUCH more difficult find this year than Great Gray Owls (go figure). Yes, Pine Grosbeaks are staying up north in Canada due to a banner Boreal forest food crop, while Great Gray Owls have pressed south in almost record numbers (joining our native Great Grays).

At my first Pine Grosbeak stop on a remote dirt road, I put the passenger front window down to listen for these finches. I easily recognize their call, but nada. Upon attempting to raise the window, nothing happened. Remember, the current air temperature was -34F. Repeated attempts to raise the window failed, including the window reprogramming trick I learned years ago for Subarus. In the end the window went up a few inches but then refused to budge further. I suspect my car did not like the severe cold.

Time out … often in this blog I have talked about the need for emergency kits. In addition to extra car keys, I carry extra warm clothes including choppers (warm mittens), a towing cable, a bow saw, jumper cables, and now a self jumping kit. The warm clothes came in handy as I needed to drive the almost 50 miles home at highway speed with the windows open. Even with the heater on it was a chilling experience.

Thus, I talk about birding the Arctic Riviera. Lake Superior’s North Shore / Forest is the riviera for many Boreal and Tundra Birds. Leading me to express how much fun I had yesterday with two difference owls:

  1. I visited the Two Harbors Great Gray Owls and had fun photographing them moments after day break with both the lighthouse and sea smoke in the images! This is a true trifecta of three items into one photograph, and Sea Smoke only forms when the difference between Lake Superior’s surface water (just above 32F and the air temperature … well below zero … is extreme)
  2. Yesterday afternoon I found a new Snowy Owl … its location known only to me! During this owl irruption, it has been difficult to have a “private viewing” with an owl. Eventually I will share the location with a few good birding friends, but for the moment it was just Snowy and me!
  3. Both of these owls are visitors who are enjoying the Arctic Riviera and came from “Up North”.

Rich’s Snowy Owl (I have no idea what the Snowy Owl saw in the final image, but the hunt was on!)

Great Gray Owl, Sea Smoke and a Lighthouse