Tag Archives: MN North: Duluth

InBound, OutBound and In Transit!

Year 9,

The birds are moving! For the last five days my yard on the edge of Amity Creek has been a wild place as flocks and flocks of Common Redpolls, Pine Siskins, and Goldfinches descend upon my six bird feeders. Each wave tends to be in the “hundreds of birds” … always coming from the southwest and moving off to the northeast. In addition, my yard is now filled with the songs of robins, and first of year grackles (not quite a pretty). Some of these two bird species will stay local as others move further north.

Yesterday morning I went in search of open water. Check out open water, particularly slack water in streams. These Common Mergansers yesterday were right near the boat launch at the old Interstate Bridge in the Duluth harbor. It will be a while till area lakes go ice free.

Finally the perfect evening of calm winds, clear skies and mild temperatures brought two Snowy Owls out last night in the Duluth area. These owls are a harder find right now as they are taking short trips around the region to strengthen their flight muscles for the return migration north, but there are still a few around. I suspect this bird is a young, non breeding female and not in any hurry to get north to the Arctic. The photo was taken 10 minutes before sundown, and the owl still had not moved an inch 20 minutes after sunset when I left.

Snowy Owls and more …

Year 9,

Yesterday evening was perfect! How else would one describe finding a Snowy Owl just before sunset and then the following occurs:

  1. The landowners invites me onto their land for a closer view of the owl
  2. The sun comes out for the final 30 minutes of daylight
  3. The Snowy Owl poses on a beautiful, natural perch

Before I show the results of yesterday’s photo session, I think many readers of this blog know I support Project Snowstorm. This research effort tags Snowy Owls with solar array powered GPS tracking / communication devices. The banding devices have provided fantastic data in terms of learning more about the year round life and locations of Snowy Owls. Although these devices are up in the Arctic much of the year as Snowy Owls return north for mating and raising owlets, there has been no such comparable effort for another winter  visitor, Northern Hawk Owls. Are Northern Hawk Owls only winter visitors which return north into Canada in late March or early April, or do they just retreat deep into the northern Minnesota bogland to raise families … far from any road (maybe both)?

Enter Hannah Toutonghi, a masters degree candidate at the University of Minnesota. For her research project she has been banding Northern Hawk Owls this winter with similar devices as those used by Project Snowstorm on Snowys. I am happy to be a financial supporter of her efforts. She will present a free webinar on March 17th at 6:30 pm CST about her initial research results and future efforts. The seminar is supported by the Friends of Sax-Zim Bog. Read more via their website (scroll down upon browsing over to Hannah’s webinar), and/or register here (it’s free … I’m attending)

Now back to yesterday’s Snowy Owl experience … and one photograph of a Northern Hawk Owl I watched early this winter.

Snowy  Owl Just Before Sunset Yesterday

Northern Hawk Owl Photographed Earlier this Winter

Sundown Snowy Owl!

Year 9

Sometimes you wonder as sundown approaches and is only ten minutes away whether it is worth waiting, and then something likes this experience happens! Yesterday this Snowy Owl suddenly appeared and perched on this pine tree for about five minutes just before sunset.

I often am not able to see whatever an owl sees in the sky above. This was one of those instances, but I have learned the owl is ALWAYS right. Something was up there!

This take-off was an hunting attack that failed.