Yes! It’s family movie time for the Great Gray Owl family … at least junior the owlet and poppa. Early this week I looked at the advanced weather forecast and noted that there would  be two days during the middle of this week when hunting would be extremely difficult for owls that hunt primarily by hearing sounds.  For a change the forecast was in fact correct. Night #1 was extremely windy with gusts as high as 40 mph, and the following night saw successive waves of thunderstorms. The end result meant the owlets / great gray juveniles would be very hungry. Parent owls would need to hunt well past sunrise to feed their young after several days of limited food.

This is in fact what did occur. Winds were still very windy at 6:30 am two morning ago when I found Poppa Great Gray Owl. He would not begin to hunt for over an hour. See the first video where he is hanging on to some dead branches for dear life.

Poppa Owl at 6:30 am (not hunting yet)(video link for email subscribers)

Poppa then flew down into a relatively protected area amongst some spruce trees. He still did not hunt, but at least he was out of the main wind and could preen his feathers. (video link for email subscribers)

The light at this point was horrible. On my drive to my birding location I actually experienced pouring rain. Light was very bad, but I was happy the rain had at least stopped and I could actually photograph Poppa Owl, but flight shots were impossible. At this point our great hunter crossed a remote dirt road and disappeared. I had now been joined by a friend and we both believed Poppa Owl was likely hunting in the bog habitat. This meant “saddling up” in heavy clothes and bushwhacking into the bog. Surprisingly (and thankfully) we discovered the following:

• Unlike this spring, the dry conditions this summer made for no bugs!
• The bog was not wet in the slightest. We never got our boots wet.
• After 80 yards of thick undergrowth, the forest floor opened up to reveal no undergrowth … just moss and easy walking.
• 400 yards in from the road … the sun came out and we found junior!

Junior …. the Great Gray Owlet (video link for email subscribers)

And some images of the juvenile Great Gray Owlet … I took over 1,000 photographs during the 3 hours I spent with the owl family. Please understand this is an EXTREMELY rare sighting. I have only seem Great Gray Owlets one other time in my life. Most people have never seen this kind of juvenile owl … did I also mention there were no bugs back in the bog??!! Life was good.

I may be young, but I’m already lethal! Talons!

Some general poses for the camera guy (*i.e. me … Rich)

Stretch! Morning  Aerobics!

More Great Gray Owlet Talon Photos

Okay … stopping for now … but there will be a part 2 in this series of posts … coming soon to a blog near you! ………. Junior eats a Mole or Poppa Brings Breakfast!

Before a few days ago, I had never heard a Great Gray Owl hooting. Yesterday evening Poppa GGO put on a “hoot fest” for me … a few times you can even hear its owlets in the video begging for food in the background. It was truly a special time yesterday evening for me all by myself on a remote road in northern Minnesota. Wait, I did have company … four owls! I overexposed the video a bit such that the owl is not just a shadow!

Great Gray Owl Hoot Fest (video link for blog subscribers)

Magical moments in the Northwoods are defined by spending an entire hour with this Great Gray Owl by myself on a remote dirt road in northern Minnesota, not once but twice in the last 24 hours … both last night before sunset (the hootfest) and then again this morning just after sunrise.

Poppa Great Gray Owl (Yesterday Evening just before Sunset)

Poppa Great Gray Owl (Shortly After Dawn this Morning)

Just chilling out!

Time to escape the sun and hide!

You may ask how I am able to tell this is the same owl and poppa:

1. I found the owl within yards of the exact same location yesterday evening and this morning
2. Momma Great Horned Owl has a squawk she uses to communicate right now
3. The Owlets / Juveniles screech
4. Thus, the “hooter” is Poppa! (I listened to online recordings to confirm)

I did not plan to be gone for 7 hours when I left home shortly after 5 am yesterday morning, but when I was treated to a magical morning of birding …

Upon leaving the house I was presented with heavy fog upon climbing away from Lake Superior. Although I could not see much, only a few hundred yards, the fog ended up being a blessing in disguise. The dark, calm conditions were perfect for some Great Gray Owls I have been tracking since late Winter. The darkness meant the owls were still talking to each other when I arrived on location, and better yet in addition to all the hooting, there were now distinctive screeches coming from two different directions … owlets / juveniles!

I had almost given up hope of discovering a Great Gray Owl family. Mid August seemed way to late in the summer for younger juveniles, but just like my own local Great Horned Owls, raising families is running way late this year. Having had snow on the ground well into May in the deep forest, and lakes which did not go ice free till the middle of May obviously delayed nesting for many bird species.

Here are the four member of the Great Gray Owl family. You may ask how I am able to uniquely identify each member of the family. Each owl had a distinctive call, and was located in a slightly different direction from the other family members. The fog made photography difficult, but I am NOT complaining.

Juvenile Great Gray Owl #1 (owlet)

Juvenile Great Gray Owl #2 (owlet)

Screeching … the Movie (owlet)
(video link for email subscribers)

Momma Great Great Owl

Foreground: Mom — Background: Juvenile

Poppa Great Gray Owl

Eventually the fog burned off after a few hours, and I turned my focus to one of my local Osprey families. Over the past five days I have watched the two juvenile ospreys very closely. It is obvious they are ready to make their first flights, but are scared to make the first jump.

Thus, what is a Poppa Osprey supposed to do when your youngsters just refuse to take their first flight?? For this Dad it meant land with a fish, but take off very quickly w/o letting either of its two juveniles have a bite to eat. The parent osprey made this trip four times, never leaving the fish! Momma Osprey is to the far right, and the “two chicks” are in the middle.

Poppa Osprey Arrives … and Leaves Again Quickly
(video link for email subscribers)

Images of the happy osprey family