From Birds of North America (BNA) account of northern saw-whet owls: “Owl response rates lower on nights with wind speeds above Beaufort 2 than nights with wind speeds of Beaufort 0-2 (Stedman 2001)…Clark and Anderson (Clark and Anderson 1997) found that Saw-whet Owls were more vocal when cloud cover was between 50 and 75%…Owl populations […]

This is my daydreaming list that’s as big as possible: some of these breeding confirmations won’t happen, but some could very well be confirmed with some legwork. If there was prime habitat for these species in my block, I’d love to confirm breeding for… common loon Virginia rail sora yellow rail Wilson’s snipe American woodcock […]

Since I currently live in the resident range of northern goshawks, it’s hard to know if the ones we see in the winter live here year-round. That probably bears on when the sky dances start. In any case, Feb.- early Apr. seems to be the season, with perhaps an emphasis on Mar.-early Apr.

I went on a wild finch chase today, and the early morning fog produced those odd-looking light pillars from the artificial lighting (e.g. street lights, buildings). Unfortunately, the finch never showed! Yet, I redeemed the day by crossing something off my bucket list: ice fishing! I went to the Otter on the Water, which is […]

This morning, I woke up to a bright pillar below the sun!

This afternoon, the sun passed through a thin veil of clouds, creating a 22 degree halo! On the right side was a sun dog. Later in the afternoon, there was a tangent arc at the top of the halo.

I drove around after work before dark to kick off the weekend on the paper birch-lined roads. Today, within the vicinity of the township, I saw a bobcat. Ordinarily, I’d have more of a story to tell, but the current unofficial policy is to keep fur-bearer location private. So, I’ll have to broadly say it was […]

I had the good fortune of having a weasel species run across the road in front of my car, in the city of Duluth! It made it safely to an undeveloped lot, where hopefully it found plenty of food and shelter.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-2MLFX3PCV/

Sadly…this one was a wild goose chase! It was still fun birding with my mom, though, in my short trip home. 🙂