Today is the Summer Solstice! While I will not be at Stonehenge to welcome the celestial event, here in northern Minnesota today is still cause for celebration. First I will take everyone on a tour of my yard … wildlife and bird friendly in particular. Over the next few weeks the flowers will explode in color! (video link for email subscribers)

Hoeg H’Arbor!

Summer weather means it’s time to visit grassland birds. Yesterday I arrived at Sax-Zim Bog at 5:45 am. While I did not find any juvenile Great Gray Owls, I enjoyed watching grassland birds just south of the Bog near the Meadowlands.

Killdeer

Eastern Kingbird

This morning I was hiking in my forest by 5:30 am. I did find one of my owls, but it was not willing to pose for a photograph. When I arrived home from my hike, I took the video shown earlier in this post … then it was on to the Wisconsin Grasslands along Wisconsin Hwy #13 near Cloverland. A good time was had by all!

The many personalities of a Bobolink

A Wilson Snipe checks over its territory near some ponds.

Make sure you get our and enjoy the grassland birds. They are the last to migrate north, and the first to leave us to head south. It’s all to brief a visit.

Yes, Kermit lives!

Now I will admit, I don’t normally photograph frogs, and my web site is definitely not 365 Days of Frogs, but sometimes one just has to take unexpected paths. For 10 minutes this morning I knelt next to a small pond and took photographs of Kermit. I had left the house at 4:15 am with my camera, and at 8 am I decided to stop by a pond … enjoy the bird song and have a late breakfast snack (late if you have been up since 4 am). Some motion on a log caught my eye. I reached for my binoculars and realized a large Bullfrog had climbed out of the water to enjoy the morning sun. Oh well … I thought. Breakfast can wait a bit longer! Incidentally, it was 33F at 5:30 am on Admiral Road this morning.

Getting up at 4 am to head to the Bog was tough. I was out after sunset last night photographing the Strawberry Full Moon as it rose over Lake Superior. The end result was I did not have much sleep last night. (as a fyi … this night sky image was taken with my Sony A6300, not my Canon SX70)

I also found a few birds at the Bog … this Gray Jay (Canada Jay) and Killdeer Chick (the mosquitoes were horrible).

Ignoring you local owls! Yup, this morning at 5:15 am right from my own driveway I could hear one of my Great Horned Owl juveniles begging for food. It was tempting to go check out my triplets, but I was dedicated if I was  going to reach Sax-Zim Bog early (I live 35 miles from the Bog), I needed to ignore my local friends!

I was rewarded when I found this Great Gray Owl at 6:30 am. I watched the owl hunt for ten minutes. I assume it has owlets near by which are getting large, and have HUGE appetites. I suspect it takes a whole lot of voles to feed these hungry mouths. Late May and June tend to be a great time to go look for owls if you are willing to get up before sunrise. The owls will hunt past daybreak because of their chick’s.

It was  great morning in the Bog. From a very close vantage point, I saw a Timber Wolf, a male Northern Harrier and an American Bittern. I saw lots of other wildlife, but these were “the treats”.

Great Gray Owl Hunting