After three days of snow, ice, rain and finally extremely high winds, when I saw that the weather forecast contained calm winds (under 3 mph) and thin clouds I knew this morning was a great one to be Bog bound. The last few days had been horrible if you are a bird which hunts by hearing voles running beneath the snow. Owls had to be very, very hungry.
By sunup (behind the clouds) I arrived at Sax-Zim Bog. Within moments I found my first Great Gray Owl, and then for the next 90 minutes I watched owls hunt till it was finally time for their mid day siesta. I then left the owling grounds and drove over to the Warren Nelson Bog where I took a short hike and saw Boreal Chickadees, a Northern Shrike, and two Black-Backed Woodpeckers. By 10:30 I was on my way home … wow … what a great morning of birding.
Oh yes … did I mention the skies cleared very briefly and I even managed to take a few photographs with a blue sky background. Life is good.
Great Gray Owls at Sax-Zim Bog
Black- Backed Woodpeckers at the Warren Nelson Bog
Northern Shrike at the Warren Nelson Bog
I am anxiously awaiting any further thoughts and comparisons you have regarding the new Cannon SX70. Did you use the SX70 on this January 10th outing? If so, it would be helpful if you indicated the camera and settings for each photo from your journeys (at least for awhile). Great photos and narratives. Thanks.
D.Z.: All the images for this post were taken with my new SX70 in rather low light conditions. I was pleased with how the camera performed, and compared with my old SX60 amazed that even at sunrise I was able to set the ISO at 100 and the camera was able take good pphotographs with nice shutter speeds. If you would like the EXIF data on any photograph, the easiest way is to look at images via my Flickr account. While I will occasionally post reviews, and the camera settings … this blog is more focused upon the outdoors and birding. Most of my readers are not so interested in the technical side of what I do with my cameras.
Here is the link to my Flickr account … https://www.flickr.com/photos/northstarnerd/
Has there ever been a year when the great gray owls are abundant during the last week of December? And do the northern hawk owls leave when they come?
Last winter … 2017/2018, we were seeing both Great Gray Owls and Northern Hawk Owls in the Bog by Thanksgiving. In my opinion, two items came together last winter which resulted in seeing lots of GGO’s starting in the late fall. First, our GGO’s are resident birds and I believe the summer prior they were very successful at breeding. This resulted in a large number of juvenile birds (first year) which were lousy hunters. Thus, they hunted well past day break even before the winter snows came. Second, deep snows push the owls to hunt the roadsides where snow depths are often less than deep in the Bog where winds can not reach as easily.
This past summer I do not believe our local birds were very successful at raising young. I spent a reasonable amount of time up in the Bog in May and early June and never heard or saw a single fledged owlette. I did see adults. In addition, this winter we did not get deep heavy snow untill the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Thus, the combination of later deep snow, and fewer juveniles meant fewer GGO’s hunting the roads early this winter.
Northern Hawk Owls normally do not nest in Sax-Zim Bog. While there have been scattered instances of NHO’s nesting in northern Minnesota, it is rare. Most of our NHO winter visitors likely come south from just up in Canada. With respect to your question whether NHO’s leave when GGO’s starting hunting in the same area … no, but they will have conflicts.
Will next December be good? (your other question) Who knows at this point. Next summer’s breeding success or failure plus the weather starting next winter will affect that equation.
Thanks, this past holiday I spent a week searching for gray owls in riding mountain Manitoba but never found one. Sax zim bog seems to be a better place to photograph them, I’ll make plans to go next year.