Tag Archives: MN North: Sax-Zim Bog

Hoot Hikes and Hawk Owls!

Year 10,

Strange title? Yes, but very appropriate. The last 48 hours have seen …

  • 5 Hoot Hikes in the Dark of Night
  • Birding with the Iowa Guys (loved finally meeting Don & Stan)
    • Unsuccessful attempts to find the Bohemians
    • Watching the Northern Hawk Owl (44F and sunny in early February???)
    • Checking out new habitat in northern Minnesota (fantastic!)
    • Return to watch the Hawk Owl no more than 4 minutes before sundown

My most reliable “hoot” seems to start at 6:10 am and lasts for 30 minutes. Sunrise is at 7:20 am. My morning routine has been to get up around 5:15 am, have a bowl of cereal in front on the fireplace, pull on my thermal layers of clothes and then head out into the darkness. We have had record snow already this winter and I live on the edge of the forest next to a stream / ravine / hill. The combination with the cold does not make for easy hiking.

The end result is I am dead tired, but I have learned where all the packed down deer paths in the deep snow. These paths have helped me stumble around less in the woods while “homing in” / triangulating the hoot of my local Great Horned Owls. My neighborhood owls will nest soon, and I think I have narrowed down my nest search area enough that it’s time to look during the daytime.

Okay … flashing back to yesterday … it was fun to spend time with the Northern Hawk Owl during the early afternoon, and then once more right at sunset. Man alive are Northern Hawk Owls EXTREMELY difficult to photograph in flight. Unlike almost every other raptor which telegraphs that the bird is about to take off, Northern Hawk Owls tell you nothing … and they are very, very fast. . I should say I am really happy with the blurry wings as it demonstrates motion and speed, but I would be telling a BIG fib. I was just happy to capture the owl in the frame (near Sax Road and Hwy 7 yesterday afternoon, but do NOT try and cross the small DEEP stream next to the road to get closer to the owl … there is open water in many places and thin ice everywhere else).

Northern Hawk Owl

And a moment or two before sunset

This Bald Eagle was hanging out near some roadkill

Meet Smokey, the Great Gray Owlet!

Background, Year 10,

Smokey, the Great Gray Owl chick is looking for a rainbow, and the first draft of his children’s picture book story is now completed (written and photographed). I took these images many moons ago on a damp, foggy summer day in Sax-Zim Bog. It was one of my most special times birding. Only one other time in my life have I ever found two Great Gray Owlets. Thankfully I kept the original image files from straight out of my camera, which allowed me to rework the photos for my upcoming new book. My skill at photo editing is now much more refined than when I first met Smokey (Smokey is the Great Gray Owlet on the right of the image)

In the second image, Smokey is begging for food … like most toddlers! The chick’s parent was sitting in a tree about 50 yards distant, and totally ignoring the screech.

A video of the two owlets (video link for email subscribers)

And my first bird photographs of 2023 … year 10 of this journey! I have seen this Snowy Owl a number of times including when these images were taken yesterday afternoon. This morning I searched for Snowy for 35 minutes before sunrise, hoping for a sunrise image. Not! My first images of 2023 were almost of Snow Buntings. I found a flock of over 200 birds, and waited and hoped they would fly towards me. Once again, not!

Goldeneyes Use Duluth’s Biggest Bird Feeder!

Year 9,

Right now I am a “caged tiger”. Birding / Hiking is not possible due to the cold (-10 and strong winds). If I were at home I could drive remote back roads with lots of wind cover, but my present locale is a Twin Cities suburb. There are not many remote dirt roads in a major metropolitan area,  and the winds mean it would be really dumb to drive NW of the Twin Cities to open farmland to look for Snowy Owls and Hawks.  On the very positive side, I may watch four young grandchildren get increasingly excited as Christmas approaches, but I am still that tiger!

A few afternoons ago I visited Duluth’s largest bird feeder, Canal Park. Now that the harbor is frozen, but the canal is still open due to current and the passage of freighters, huge flocks of Goldeneyes. The ducks know that the canal walls are lined with zebra mussels, which means food! Around 3pm in the afternoon on any sunny day the sun streams down the canal giving excellent photography conditions. However, dress warmly. The chill factor when I took these images was -25F. Thankfully in the direction I was facing the wind was behind me, but I then had a long walk back into the wind to return to my car.

Goldeneyes at Canal Park

From a few days yet earlier, I watched this dark morph Rough-Legged Hawk hunt on Hwy #133 just west of the RR Tracks. Unlike most Roughies, this bird does not easily spook the moment I park my car. The hawk actually landed closer to me after I took this photo. It was just time to change hunting perches.