Right now I am a “caged tiger”. Birding / Hiking is not possible due to the cold (-10 and strong winds). If I were at home I could drive remote back roads with lots of wind cover, but my present locale is a Twin Cities suburb. There are not many remote dirt roads in a major metropolitan area,  and the winds mean it would be really dumb to drive NW of the Twin Cities to open farmland to look for Snowy Owls and Hawks.  On the very positive side, I may watch four young grandchildren get increasingly excited as Christmas approaches, but I am still that tiger!

A few afternoons ago I visited Duluth’s largest bird feeder, Canal Park. Now that the harbor is frozen, but the canal is still open due to current and the passage of freighters, huge flocks of Goldeneyes. The ducks know that the canal walls are lined with zebra mussels, which means food! Around 3pm in the afternoon on any sunny day the sun streams down the canal giving excellent photography conditions. However, dress warmly. The chill factor when I took these images was -25F. Thankfully in the direction I was facing the wind was behind me, but I then had a long walk back into the wind to return to my car.

Goldeneyes at Canal Park

From a few days yet earlier, I watched this dark morph Rough-Legged Hawk hunt on Hwy #133 just west of the RR Tracks. Unlike most Roughies, this bird does not easily spook the moment I park my car. The hawk actually landed closer to me after I took this photo. It was just time to change hunting perches.