Sunday. three couples including Molly and me drove northwest from Duluth to watch the Canadian Pacific’s Holiday Train arrive in Plummer, Minnesota. The train arrived at the frozen prairie town after sunset, in the dark. Shortly thereafter the door of a special boxcar folds down and a Christmas concert ensues in support of the local food bank. Within an hour of arriving the train moves to the next small town. Thanks Canadian Pacific (CPKCR)!

This is the third time we have travelled and watched on of CPKCR’s Holiday Trains. While one train works its way across the northern United States, another train crosses Canada.  We had fun a few years ago up in Schreiber and Nipigon, Ontario. Most of the small towns have corresponding events which support their local food banks.

From Plummer, Minnesota … the 2024 Holiday Train!

The Train Arriving in Plummer (video link for email subscribers)

Short Excerpt from the Concert (video link for email subscribers)

Actually, this is the third time in 9 days … thus the word “reprise” may not be correct as I think it means repeat for a second time. Anyhow I drove north of Duluth yesterday morning. I felt the combination of heavy rains overnight combined with dry conditions and light winds after sunrise might make Great Grays hunt during the day. In addition, parent owls are feeding their juveniles less and less, and given the youngsters are lousy hunters, hunting after daybreak becomes more common.

When my friend and I found the owl it looked drenched, and for the first 45 minutes of our visit, the owl was just trying to dry off. Eventually it flew over to a tree only 10 yards from where I was standing. The key attribute of this tree was it was more open to the breeze. You could tell the Great Gray Owlet really just wanted to get dry.

Anyhow … from yesterday (video link for email subscribers)

Sleeping then Preening

I have NO IDEA at what the owl was looking!

Take-Off (landed right next to me … only 10 yards away!)

Occasionally there are fantastic days in life, and over the past two days I experienced some great times after significant life challenges. After all … how else might one term days that start with polkas at 6 am (the Fun Time Polka Party plays Saturday mornings at 6 am on KDAL Duluth), a body which finally is not in too much pain (my surgery and recovery were more extensive/longer than expected),  and ended with finding  three unique Great Gray Owls (I could hear their owlets begging in the forest, but could never find the juveniles).

As a fyi, I love polkas and Slavic ethnic music. I even play the accordion and when my children were young, we had a family band named the “von Hoegs”. Here is a photo from an earlier era in our family history. Our motto was: “We play for free, and you get what you pay for!” Seriously, we had fun playing at nursing homes, friend’s parties and church events.

The von Hoegs! (left to right … Karen, me, Erik, Molly, and Carl)

Now back to the real theme of this post … Great Gray Owls hunting.

One might note that the weather has been horrible the last two mornings … heavy fog and drizzle to start each day, but these conditions were actually magic in terms of my finding Great Gray Owls. During each night we experienced heavy rains in northern Minnesota, but when the precipitation finally let up each morning (continuing drizzle combined with heavy fog and light winds) the owls were hungry which meant the adults hunted after sunrise.

Anyhow … here are photographs of 3 unique Great Gray Owls. Photographic conditions varied from just plain bad to super lousy (fog and drizzle). However, I found two the owls by hiking, not by sitting in my car and slowly driving backroads.

Great Gray Owl #1 (Observe in the 3rd image in this series just how wet is the owl. All three owls let me stand amazingly close, but I was extremely quiet and rarely moved)

Great Gray Owl #2 (In the second to last image of this series, note how the owl is shaking water droplets off its head. It had just dove into very tall grass after a vole, and thus is quite wet. You may need to maximize the image to see the droplets)

Great Gray Owl #3 (Both days I walked away from the owls and left them after watching the birds for over 90+ minutes. The owl’s mannerisms had me convinced they were done hunting, and who wants to stand in the fog and drizzle to watch owls sleep??!)

It is no mistake that all of my images have pine trees in the foreground and background. I definitely have photos against just a drab white sky. However, even in the worst of photographic conditions there are ways to make images more beautiful and interesting … assuming the wildlife is cooperative!