Tag Archives: Birding Know How

Birding 365!

Year 10

It’s hard to believe this first day of February finds me ten years into providing my web service for the birding community. In addition, you will find nary an advertisement on this site. My knowledge, good or bad, is a gift to you. Regardless, 10 years is a long time and I realized additional organizational work was required to make using 365 Days of Birds easier. Thank you for your over 500k of page views over the years.

This post reviews my web site’s services section by section …

Tags: Extensively reworked. Every tag that is a birding location now has a state or country aspect therein. On a PC, the tags appear in the right column and by hovering over an individual tag with your mouse you may discover the number of entries w/o clicking. In addition there are special tags such as: Bicycle Birding, Birding Know How, Northern Lights, etc. While browsing this web site via a mobile device, the tags will appear in various locations depending upon your screen size.

Main Menu: Easily find really important stuff. Whether on a mobile device or PC this menu appears on every web page or blog post. The entries are: Home, About / Contact Rich Hoeg, Amity Owls, Mn Birding Locations, Northern Lights, Photo Albums, Subscribe

  • Home: Always takes you back to the root page or home.
  • About / Contact Rich Hoeg: The subject of this section should be obvious!
  • Amity Owls: I am a children’s book author, and I give away PDF downloads of my books. Follow this link to learn more about my local owl family and their book.
  • Mn Birding Locations: I have my favorite birding spots in Northeastern Minnesota. This web pages has descriptions of those locations and Google Maps links.
  • Northern Lights: Northern Minnesota is one the best locations to watch the Aurora Borealis in the Continental 48. Learn more about this super sight!
  • Photo Albums: My photo albums!
  • Subscribe: This link will allow you to subscribe to my blog posts via email or RSS.

Search Engine: I built a custom search engine using Google for this site. Search for content or images. Location varies based upon the mobile device or PC which you utilize for browsing. Will always be in a margin area, not embedded in a page or post content.

Archive: Ten years is a long time … and a lot of posts and pages. Pull up any month over the past ten years. If you are visiting the Northland this can be helpful as it will tell you what I was birding during that point of the year. I use this section myself, often pulling up months from multiple years (three Octobers for instance) to remind myself what good birding is coming up on the calendar.

Remember Snoopy’s Happy Dance? This Common Loon is happy with 365 Days of Birds! I hope you find the site / service valuable.

Learn more about this web site and its content: 365DaysOfBirds.com

Where are the Snowy Owls?

Background, Year 10

Project Snowstorm just published an article today which indicates this winter is the worst winter ever for Snowy Owl eBird sightings for which there is good data (since 2004). Sightings across North America are essentially a flat line (see below). Thus, I should be very happy to have seen two different Snowy Owls, multiple times. The article is definitely worth a read. Apparently not only are sightings way down this winter, but breeding success (or even attempts) in the Arctic was almost non existent last summer.With that note, I head off to Hawaii for 2+ weeks … our first ever visit to the island state. Molly and I have a small remote guest house up in the hills / forest on the big island of Hawaii.

This graphic was created by Project Snowstorm.

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.