Northern Hawk Owl family
Some days you just get lucky. And today was one of those days. I awoke very early to be up on the Stoney River Forest Road in the Superior National Forest by dawn (Lake County in northern Minnesota)....
View ArticleWide Angle Wildlife
We all naturally gravitate to the longest lens in our kit when shooting wildlife. It’s a natural reaction…But it can be a creativity killer. During this amazing session with a family of Northern Hawk...
View ArticleReturn of an Old Friend
It had been a long time. I hadn’t seen my old friend the Great Gray Owl in nearly six months…until today. I was up in the Sax-Zim Bog knocking around, the old Subaru pushing through four inches of...
View ArticleHappy Hawk Owl
Happiness is a sunny day in the Sax-Zim Bog with a happy Northern Hawk Owl. I say he’s happy because he caught several voles in the brief time I spent with him (her?) and cached every one. There must...
View ArticleTame and Terrified: A Tale of Two Birds
I spent the afternoon up in the Sax-Zim Bog hoping to find some teams participating in our (‘our’ = Friends of Sax-Zim Bog organization) 2011 BRRRRDathon. While I did not find any teams, I did find two...
View ArticleLazy LeConte’s Sparrow?
INDIVIDUAL BIRD PERSONALITIES Individual birds, like humans, have different personalities and tolerances. Today, I met a rare LeConte’s Sparrow who was extremely tolerant of this lumbering, fleece-clad...
View ArticleNW MN part 1—Firetower Flyby & Big Bog Boardwalk
March 21, 2012: Promise me that sometime in the next year or two you’ll go visit the relatively new Big Bog State Recreation Area (SRA) up near Red Lake in northern Minnesota. It’s not as far as you...
View ArticleGray Morning Great Gray
On Memorial day, I got up very early to make a quick trip to the Sax-Zim Bog. It was a gray, misty morning but calm. And the resident birds seemed energized after several days of heavy rain and...
View ArticleHunting with a Great Gray Owl: Shooting with Sparky video
What are the odds? I took a compass bearing to head straight through the center of a large Black Spruce bog last week, hoping (but not really believing) that I’d possibly, just maybe, hear a begging...
View ArticleTop Twenty Images of 2012
2012 is gone and I’ve had a chance to look at all my images from the year and pick my favorites. Time helps clear your vision. Some images I was crazy about right after I took them, are no longer...
View ArticleDream Come True: Witness to a Great Gray Owl nest
Two Great Gray Owlets await mommy or daddy from their lofty nest in a large Tamarack. I had the great fortune of having a good friend who was willing to share the location of a Great Gray Owl nest he...
View ArticleA Superior Day—Pine Marten, Red Crossbills, Black-backed Woodpeckers & More
May 4th, 2015 I spent the day up in the Superior National Forest and Echo Trail, north and east of Ely, Minnesota just south of the Canadian border. It was a beautiful “May the Fourth be With You”...
View ArticleFive Hours in a Fen
I was able to combine business and pleasure yesterday (July 1st)… Well, It was really all business and a complete pleasure! I had heard of a bog near Cable, Wisconsin that held many Calopogon tuberosus...
View ArticleNorthwest Minnesota—Part 2: Norris Camp & Big Bog, June 12-13, 2016
Heading east from Thief Lake WMA I decided to check out Norris Camp, a remote Minnesota DNR station in the Beltrami Island State Forest that I’d heard had a nesting Black-backed Woodpecker. I was...
View ArticleSnowshoe Hare pair…one brown, one white—March 26th; Sax-Zim Bog, Minnesota
Deep in a Black Spruce/Tamarack bog on March 26th I encountered something quite amazing…and entirely new for me—A pair of courting Snowshoe Hares…one already turning brown (though there was about a...
View ArticleVirtually Live 4 Birding/Photography Field Trip to Sax-Zim Bog May 4, 2020
Virtually Live 4 Birding Field Trip to Sax-Zim Bog May 4, 2020 The day starts out promising with sunny skies, calm winds and a very cooperative drake Wood Duck, and then it gets even better with some...
View ArticleHave Spring birds arrived in Sax-Zim Bog? Virtually Live 36 S4E1
Sparky makes two visits (April 21 and April 26) to find out. Highlights include a huge flock of ducks, a late Rough-legged Hawk, 8 species of ducks, Sandhill Cranes. We look for a Canada Jay nest,...
View ArticleHunting Great Gray Owl only feet away! Sax-Zim Bog Virtually Live 39: S4E4
I find some cool things in this episode of Virtually Live from Sax-Zim Bog. Snow Buntings and Pine Siskins have arrived from the north. Then I run across a bizarre sight…A Muskrat is chasing a Wood...
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