Tag Archives: MN North: Grand Marais

Bald Eagle at Breakfast

Year 6

One more photograph from my weekend up the shore at Grand Marais. While having breakfast on Saturday morning, I noticed a dark clump … one of my technical terms … out on the harbor breakwater in the pre-dawn darkness. I figured there was a good chance that a Bald Eagle had spent the night on the rocks. I quickly finished my bowl of Life Cereal and walked over to the harbor. Hiding next to the side of a building, I inched closer waiting for some light to illuminate the scene. This was the result!

It just goes to show … some days the photographic opportunities come to me with very little effort, but then there are mornings like today. It was cold (9F) with a 20 mph wind. Given the sun made a rare appearance I worked the back roads / farms of Duluth north of my home. My hope was I might find an early season Snowy Owl migrating south along the shore (nope), or at least some Rough Legged Hawks down from the Arctic perched in the early morning sun (double nope). Oh well … it’s off to Sax-Zim Bog tomorrow morning. The weather forecast includes our first overnight lows below zero (F), sunny and light winds.

Grand Marais Sunrise Lighthouse Photographic Studies

Year 7

When you are out and about with your camera with the intent of taking landscape photographs, do you find a location and remain stationary? While there are certainly some locations where the interplay of light and the subject demand a preferred location for taking a photo, you are doing yourself a disservice if you do not “move around”!

This morning I was out before sunrise (per norm!) with the intent of photographing the Grand Marais, Minnesota lighthouse. The skies were clearing over Lake Superior, and the dawn was gorgeous. Here are three images I took over the course of ten minutes exactly. I changed locations frequently and the amount of zoom utilized which affected the sky displayed in any one image.  As the saying goes, every picture tells a story … in this case three different stories at essentially the same time.

Photo #1: Grand Marais Lighthouse

Photo #2: Grand Marais Lighthouse

Photo #3: Grand Marais Lighthouse

Birding Off the Grid!

Background, Year 5, ,

Or in a metro area, you should consider using Google Map’s offline feature. In my case, over the past nine days I have birded “The Big Bog” near Upper Red Lake Minnesota, Sax-Zim Bog (NW of Duluth), Cloverland (NW Wisconsin) and finally this morning … deep in the Superior National Forest in northern Minnesota. Now you may be thinking, I live in a metropolitan area, why should I worry about accessing data offline?

The answer is simple, using the offline feature of Google Maps dramatically increases the response time of your maps / navigation. While you may not be off line like me, metropolitan areas can be difficult to navigate whether your birding or just trying to find that new restaurant where you are meeting friends. Your phone will not need to download maps as you move around a region. If you have a restricted data plan, the maps can be downloaded at home while connected to wifi (i.e. no data charge).

Finally, believe it or not the navigation system with audible commands works when offline. Your GPS chip will find your location, and most smartphones will work with the offline data and speak / give directions.

Here are two of my better images found while “birding offline”

Common Merganser Trio (Guess what they were chasing? Love!)

Upland Sandpiper (rare for these parts … found 200 yards west of Cloverland town hall on Wisconsin Hwy #13)

Google Maps Offline Images

Leaving for The Big Bog from my cabin … offline and early in the morning … my phone is hooked up to my car’s display … also works fine w/o being integrated with your car.

Two Google Maps screenshots from my phone … remote and urban … shows my downloaded regions … two of my three children live in the Twin Cities. Regions update automatically.