Month: January 2025

Out-of-state Owling (in Minnesota)

Lynn E. BarberLeave a comment

I am at the end of the second day of a 3-day trip to Sax-Zim Bog, a mega birding hot spot a bit less than an hour out of Duluth. I went there last year in early February and had planned to join this year’s Wausau Bird Club trip there which begins tomorrow, but their schedule wasn’t quite right for me.

Although I enjoy wandering the roads here to see what birds are around, my real goal is owls, and in particular, this year I mainly wanted to see a Boreal Owl. A few days ago, they had apparently been numerous east of the Bog, but reports had dwindled. My only previous Boreal Owl sightings were in Alaska when we lived there. My second most wanted bird for this trip was Great Gray Owl, which I saw last year here, but just cannot get enough of.

While there were a few Great Gray Owl reports in the Bog yesterday, I did not see one, and there were no Boreal Owl reports there yesterday. It all changed today. In addition to a very cooperative sleeping and then hunting Great Gray Owl that someone else found and reported and which I visited three times from late morning to late afternoon, there also was a Boreal Owl sleeping and then waking less than a mile from the Great Gray. On my way back to my motel, I found another Great Gray Owl on my own. LIFE IS GOOD!!!!

The first six photos are of the huge (over 26 inches long) Great Gray Owl that I just could not resist.

The three photos below are of the very tiny (under 10 inches long) Boreal Owl.

Just Black Ducks

Lynn E. BarberLeave a comment

Sometimes my birding and my rhyming get mixed up with each other. Yesterday I went to a neighborhood in Wausau where a winter-open creek (Bos Creek) appears from somewhere. All I know is that each winter since we moved back here in 2021, Mallards have congregated there along with a few American Black Ducks. Yesterday’s goal was to add a Black Duck to my year list, which I did, even though I had to stand outside for a minute or so in the 1-degree weather to do it, peering down at the creek, and trying to pore through the nearly 100, or maybe more, Mallards to find one. It turns out that there were at least two of them, so similar and so different from, a female Mallard.

I added American Black Duck to my year list and went on to other birding and then to chores. But in the middle of the night (early this morning), I awoke, thinking of the Black Ducks and then thinking of the old children’s song, “Little White Duck” (there are a bunch of You Tube versions of it online if you are not familiar with it). I couldn’t get the new words that came to me out of my mind. So I got up, and wrote it down. Here is my oh-so-creative “new” song:

There’s some little Black Ducks, sitting in the water, some little Black Ducks, doing what they outer.

They swim with the Mallards at little Bos Creek. Each so black with a bright yellow beak.

There’s some little Black Ducks, sitting in the water. Quack. Quack. Quack.

What to do with a New Year?

Lynn E. BarberLeave a comment

For me the answer is usually, “Go birding,” which is what I did this morning. Before I got out of bed, I had rather hoped to hear the Great Horned Owls that I have heard the last couple of early mornings (around 3:30-4:30) to begin the new year, but all was silent. I got up, cared for our dog (feed, take out), fed the birds, and drove south from Wausau to the Buena Vista Grasslands. This is usually about a 45 minute drive, but the roads were covered with new snow so it took a bit over an hour to get there.

When I arrived, it was still totally dark, except the new snow cover, while only an inch or so deep, made it possible to see vague outlines of protruding grasses. I drove to a site where I had seen a Short-eared Owl at 7:12 am on December 3rd. Today, at 6:54 I first saw a dark blob that seemed to be moving, and I turned off the car. Very soon, I could see an owl with beautifully patterned wings, confirming that my first bird of the year was a Short-eared Owl. Then I was even more delighted to see that there were two of them, doing slow gentle pirouettes, dives and close-to-the-surface skims together over the field. After about 15 minutes they just disappeared, presumably diving down into an area of taller grasses for their daytime rest, although I could not find them there when I drove along the road in the daylight.

It was a wonderful way to begin the new year!