Hey folks, you need to visit my buddy’s Paul’s blog and subscribe. I met and worked with Paul during my decades at Honeywell. He is a smart engineer who has rigged up cool live cameras on three different nests … Wood Ducks, Mergansers and this year Cardinals. Paul blogs about his birds, and will know in advance when “drop day” is coming for the Wood Ducks so you may watch it live. I took this screenshot using Paul’s camera just a few moments ago.
Browse to BirdsGV.com
The “other bird” … this was not the bird with which I was hoping to begin the third year of “365 Days of Birds”. The “other bird” is beautiful in its own right, but folks … I wanted to photograph a rare Arctic Phase Great Horned Owl! This owl has a beautiful off white color, and occasionally comes south down to Minnesota in the dead of Winter.
Thus, yesterday I hike for 90 minutes looking for my target bird. Walk 25 yards, stop, turn the head and scan all the trees … repeat … repeat … etc. … success! 30 yards from me on a horizontal oak branch was the rare Arctic Phase Great Horned Owl. I was motionless. Only my head was turning. Eureka … perfect line of sight through the branches and soft sunset light was on the owl. There was never time to raise my camera which was turned off and hanging around my neck. I pleaded in my mind for the owl to not fly, but to no avail. Oh no! Madam owl took a look at me and said sayonara! I have a great picture in my brain of this bird, but no pic in my camera! 🙂
Oh yes, the “other bird”. Fifteen minutes earlier while looking for the owl, I found this pileated woodpecker. Normally a pileated posing for a photo makes me happy!
Happy New Years folks, and welcome to year #3!
The Other Bird … A Pileated Woodpecker
The stars aligned in suburban Minneapolis yesterday evening. I watched, photographed, and videoed a lifer, a Yellow-Crowned Night Heron. Normally this beautiful bird hangs out in the southeastern part of the United States, and normally you would find me in the forests of northern Minnesota, but last night while working my way south to my son’s wedding in Iowa, I was lucky! HUGE thanks are owed to Laura S. who allowed me to bird in her back yard.
Hope you enjoy the image, and video. Make certain to watch the video in HD. Given it was after sunset when I ended up only 10 yards from the bird, viewing in high resolution helps!
If you’re new to my blog, you might also enjoy a 36 second time lapse video I took of the Northern Lights about three weeks ago. It was a special night on a remote Lake in northern Minnesota. Link to my Aurora Borealis video.
Yellow-Crowned Night Heron
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Bird Nerds Watching the Yellow-Crowned Night Heron
(I’m the guy in blue up against the tree)
