Category Archives: Background

Northern Nights Near Canada!

Background, Year 9, ,

Today will end my Covid quarantine, and tomorrow assuming I mask up, I will be able to reengage with the world. It will be fantastic to spend time with my wife. We have gotten behind in watching “The Crown”!!

As I have noted in prior posts this week, I am hard at work completing the second edition of Snowy’s Search for Color, and have pushed along on my new book … about Smokey the Great Gray Owl! Thus, it should be apparent that my case of Covid is somewhat mild!

Both of my two books on occasion involve using images of the night sky. Thus, after the hard process of making selections and processing edits, there two scenes will be used in the new book.

Milky Way deep in off the Gunflint Trail (It was so dark this night, that when I walked 25 yards away from my car, it was impossible to see my Subaru Outback! The BWCA is rated as having perfectly dark skies by the International Dark Sky Association)

Northern Lights over the Pagami Creek Wildfire Burn Area (I was 18+ miles from the nearest paved road and within yards of the BWCA. During this entire night of Aurora chasing I never saw another person or vehicle … only heard wolves and owls! The Northern Lights had been much more dramatic earlier in the night, but the contrast between the burn area and the Aurora was awe inspiring). The light painting of the wooden bridge in these images was done with the ever so brief use of a tiny flashlight (about 1 second).

A Different Kind of Flight Problem: Delta Airlines

Background

Sorry to my loyal readers … this is not about birds. Feel free to ignore, but I am trying to make Delta Airlines take notice.

Delta: You may wish to review my Facebook post about poor service from your airline. My post only uses polite language. The basic situation is your airline bumped my wife and me off our already ticketed and reserved Comfort+ seats and flight to a significantly longer routing which includes plane changes. I took action two days ago within a couple of hours of receiving new email confirmations for the flight changes I did not request. After one hour on the phone with your representatives, one passenger service agent explained to me that my original flight from Honolulu to Minneapolis due to an equipment change no longer had Comfort+ service. I believed her (shame on me), but discovered while checking your website yesterday my original flight not only still exists, but has Comfort+ service. Not surprisingly I am annoyed. It appears you may have oversold this flight, and involuntary bumped my wife and me … which is illegal. I would like our original seats back on our original flight. For the moment I have not yet issued a formal complaint with documentation to the Federal Department of Transportation.

A Birder’s Guide to Minnesota

Background, Year 9

Looking for that perfect holiday gift for a birder? You MUST buy the just released “A Birder’s Guide to Minnesota” written by Kim Eckert. I own the first version of this book, and pre-ordered the book’s new release a month ago. While everyone likes to use eBird while planning birding excursions, you really need to learn habitat and use that knowledge to plan your outings. Kim’s book reviews  Minnesota habitat county by county and provides suggestions and maps on where you should focus your birding efforts. The book actually reviews over 1,400 Minnesota birding locations! (as a fyi I receive zero compensation or financial benefit for making this recommendation)

  • Purchase “The Birder’s Guide to Minnesota”

You will be browsing to the web site of Sparky Stensaas. Sparky is the Director of the Friends of Sax-Zim Bog. While you could purchase this book via Amazon, your purchase via Sparky’s web site (The Photo Naturalist) insures more of your money goes to support both birds and the author.

Some notes about Kim Eckert: He turned to a career in birding after moving to Duluth, Minnesota in 1977, where he served as Naturalist at Hawk Ridge Nature Reserve (for a total of 20 years), taught bird identification classes for a decade, and started leading birding tours (including 30 years with Victor Emanuel Nature Tours). In 1986, Kim created the Minnesota Birding Weekends & Weeks program of tours throughout Minnesota and elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada, which is now in its 37th season. Visit Kim’s web site.