Its an Owl Irruption Year in Northern Minnesota

Traveling up North? Watch the ditches and tree tops for Great Gray Owls.

There’s something to be said for driving the back roads of northern Minnesota in the winter. I recently took a 15 hour vacation to northern Minnesota in search of owls and peace. I found both of these experiences and I must say if you are after either of these owl species now is the time to go. Ok maybe not now, it’s 20 below but soon. Right now it’s a birding mecca up in the boreal forest. Chances are you won’t even have to look hard to find a great gray owl or a rare boreal owl. These raptors attract small crowds and I found a couple of these crowds that lead me to boreal owls. The boreals are tough to find. Rare and small finding them is a process of driving slow enough to scan the roadside ditches for these smallish birds perched on twigs or tucked into a pine. Boreals are rare but I wanted to find the bigger badder boys of the boreal forest, the great gray owl: great grays are more entertaining to watch and easier to find. They’re big and they will perch in the open. Great grays will hunt consistently thru the day and they often hunt roadside ditches offering excellent viewing and photography opportunities.

Boreal Owl

Leaving my house at 6am on a cold winter morning I began the drive up 35W towards Duluth. With the radio on mindless entertainment it was easy to envision spotting my first great gray in quite a few years. I had an idea of where to start looking for them and it would start just outside of Duluth. Driving the back roads towards Two Harbors there is no traffic and I was able to go slow without being an annoyance to fellow drivers. It wasn’t long when I found a group of folks looking at something. I stopped for a moment to see what they saw. I know, I know but this isn’t gawking. Hopping out of my truck I quickly learned of a boreal owl sighting and yep there it was buried in a group of snaggy pines. How these folks found this bird I’ll never know but it was cool to see. Back in the truck I continued driving and sipping my now cold coffee. I got a tip from my friend Po and I went to quickly visit another boreal. This one was eating a vole! I stayed on this owl for a bit then I went on my way. Folks are enamored with boreals.

Continuing on I made my way to some roads known to harbor great gray owls during winter. It was afternoon now and I was getting a bit anxious to find a great gray.

Driving slowly and scanning the tree tops in front of me I spotted a shape low in a ditch. A great gray was perched in a snag about 3 feet off the ground. This wasn’t exactly where I thought I’d find an owl but I’ve been scanning the roadside for decades every time I drive and I’m not surprised. I snapped a couple images of this owl and moved a bit farther down the road. Maybe a mile later another great gray owl, this time perched about 12 feet up in a pine tree. I once again snapped his photo then retreated to my truck to warm up and wait. I watched this great gray hunt a nearby field for nearly an hour and darn near got an opportunity to snap images of it as it flew down to snag a meal. But I had grown bored and was answering a text instead of pointing my lens at the great gray. Damn! The phone now neatly tucked away I went about finding another great gray owl. Hopefully in an area more conducive to photography. While driving my patience wore out and I returned to the area holding the great grays I’d seen earlier. This time I sat until the light was gone. I watched great gray number 2 hunt a field then the ditch. I watched it perch feet from my truck on a sign. Cool to see but not exactly what I was hoping for. I always hope for the best! With dark nearing I started to head back to hwy 61 signalling the end to the actual vacation part of the day. Along the way I saw two other great gray owls.

My day long vacation had produced 8 owls in total as well as some needed peace in the dead of winter. Stopping at Toby’s on the way back I couldn’t believe you could get warm caramel rolls at 6pm! Not a bad vacation day!

Great Gray Owl

Please Share This Post

Boreal Owl Irruption Occurring in Northern Minnesota

Rare Boreal Owl Eats a Rodent Video

I went on an owl hunt earlier this month to find a bird I’d never seen before, the boreal owl. Boreal owls are rare visitors to Minnesota and this year they are not so rare. Boreal owls are Canadian birds and every few years or more a few make a trek to the boreal forests of Minnesota’s north woods. I had both good fortune and solid information of where to start looking for boreal owls and I ran into this boreal owl about 10 feet off the road eating it’s lunch.

Snowy Owls in Minnesota This Winter?

Artic Species Has Potential for an Irruption

It’s generally accepted snowy owls tend to move south in numbers to the USA and in particular Minnesota every 4-5 years. Each year a few snowy owls are seen in Minnesota. The north shore is a noted spot. The area surrounding Duluth may harbor a snowy or three and airports are a common snowy owl wintering area. The last time I experienced many snowy owls was 2014. And I do have documentation of quite a few snowy owl sightings in 2019. This year would mark year 5 and many are predicting a snowy owl eruption in Minnesota. Not only because of past patterns but the conditions for breeding on the tundra this summer were very good and many of the baby owls (owlets) survived. The high owlet survival rate has the young owls looking for food and wintering areas.  The young owls can be detected by a considerable amount of dark feathers. I’m speculating, but with some research, that combining more owlets reached juvenile stage and the lower availability of food (poor lemming counts on the tundra) has many snowys flying south in search of wintering areas with a good supply of rodents. During my reseach I’ve found that snowys are appearing across the northern tier of states already with many seen in November. I’m guessing even more will be spotted in December.

Snowy owls prefer open areas, prarielands vast are best but I’ve seen them near Blaine in an area maybe a 100 hundred acres in size. They like airports because they offer high places to perch, flatlands and rodents. MSP airport has a snowy or two on most years and airports in Northwest Minnesota are also hotspots for snowys. I know snowys have been seen in North Central Minnesota,  Northwest Minnesota and in the Duluth area already and folks are anticpating more will arrive as winter takes it’s hold over Canada.

Looking for snowys requires a vehicle, and open areas. They are most often spotted on perches near these open areas. They’re white. Probably the only white birds out there in winter and the mere fact of their color makes them easy to spot when perched. Sometimes they will be on the ground too. This makes it tough if there’s snow on the ground but so far this winter is basically void of snow so a white spot in a farm field or grassland is very likely a snowy owl. These owls also hunt during the day and it’s a darn good bet if you spot a white bird flying over a field during winter it’s a snowy. It’s typical that a snowy will stay in it’s Minnesota wintering area until the food runs out. This is potentially the entire winter. So if you find one you may get the same chance I did a few years ago. I had 3 snowy owls that were working wintering areas. In this case 2 of them were metro birds and one was a bit outstate, about an hour from my home. I observed these owls for over a month and I was able to pattern their hunting habits. This lead me to put myself in a place to photograph them. Sometimes a lot closer than you’d imagine.  Snowys are hungry and they have little fear of humans when on the hunt. Escaping perceived threats is simple, they fly. Plus most of the time I’m in my truck. The truck is a pseudo blind and it’s warm!

It takes some luck and persistence to find and photograph snowy owls. Luck can be honed in a bit with the use of the Web. It’s generally frowned upon to give exact snowy locations but there are many sites that will give you areas to check. If you want to find a snowy owl I’d head north and west and drive the county roads. But sometimes you may stumble into a snowy by accident as I did a few years back when a snowy flew over Lexington Ave in Blaine right in front of me. If you’re lucky and persistent you may get a chance to photograph these majestic owls.

Snowy Owls in Minnesota

Please Share This Post

Short Eared Owls a Minnesota Birders Quest

The ever elusive short-eared owl had been spotted not far from my home.

Being a bird aficionado since forever I was notified of a short eared owl 20 minutes from my home. It took me a few weeks to go and find this bird. I’m not sure why because I hadn’t seen a short eared owl in over a decade and this species was definitely on my photography radar.

And so it began on October 26, 2024 a bird quest that I didn’t necessarily see coming. Driving to the area I was thinking if I could just see some shorties that would be great and any decent images were a bonus. Upon my arrival at about 4pm. I saw a short eared owl meandering over a field of grass. Within minutes I saw another one. Now I’d not been to this place before and since I love exploration of new nature spots I took a hike to the highest ground I could find. I figured I could get the lay of the land and watch for short eared owls from that high vantage point. Up on the hill I could see a short eared working a field quite a distance away. I was, as always, hoping it would fly over to my postion and look me in the eye at 50 feet. Of course this wasn’t to be but I continued to observe the happenings from that hill. From the hill there were other hills to the south. Remembering back to my school days I told myself these hills were eskers or were they drumlins? I figured that out with a quick visit to Google. These hills are indeed eskers as I viewed them. In any case the first photography opportunity came to me as a pair of owls came from behind me and flew directly overhead. Over the next 2 hours I viewed a few short eared owls in the distance and my opportunity to photograph them was practically none. But a flame had been lit.

On October 27, I again made the drive to “the owl spot”. This time I planted myself in the field where the owls had spent most of their time the day before. On the 27th the owls preferred the eskers as their hunting grounds. A few did hunt over the field and I snapped a couple of long range shots for grins.

Over the next few weeks I found myself at the “owl spot” about 9 times. Each time I had the luxury of going earlier. I did this with full knowledge that short eared owls prefer to hunt just before dusk. The owls just emerge from the tall grasslands almost like a magic trick 45 minutes before the sun goes down. But this is not always the case. During most of my treks to the “owl spot” the sky was a bit gloomy with only a peak of sunlight here and there and owls were active as soon as I arrived. Active, but not necessarily active near me. Being a bit impatient as a general means I began hiking the numerous trails each day hoping at some point an owl would fly right in front of me in the right light. My strategy was to hike a bit and hold in a spot for 10-15 minutes than make a move. I did this consistently over the course of 2 weeks. This strategy proved to be successful at some points and not so much at others. Often an area I left minutes before had owls right where I wanted them. But I wasn’t there.

The short eared owls move aggressively searching for voles and mice and they might move a mile in just a couple of minutes. I knew holding a spot might work but my need to move around was ever present and it was rewarded a few times. In fact I hiked that land over 30 miles in a single week. Such was my pursuit. I had a few fine images of these beasts but just as in fishing I had to better my previous best efforts. This continues to be a challenge that will once again undertake today. In fact I’m not going to rest until I get the images I hope to snap. But it’s not just about the photography. Many of the images are fresh in my mind, the deer in the field, the rough legged hawks, the young man carrying his bow and the majesty that is an open grassland, mostly wild, offering up tremendous views and an almost supernatural feeling of exuberance.

Over the course of two weeks I met other people on a similar quest for owls and nature experiences. Many carrying cameras with long lenses others just out for a stroll unknowingly in short eared owl habitat. I had days with zero clicks of the shutter on my camera. On a few days I had 600-700  shots to work thru. On one particular day I actually walked to my truck with the knowledge that I had clicked some worthy images…at least B level. But what I always walked to my truck with was an appreciation for nature and gratitude that I had spent a few hours in the almost wild grasslands of Minnesota.

Short Eared Owls

Please Share This Post