2 March 2025

My goal for last week’s birding trip to Minnesota was to see a Life Bird great gray owl (Strix nebulosa), and there he is at Sax-Zim Bog! He was our First Bird of the day on Wednesday 26 February.

In the photo below our guide Frank Nicoletti is telling me about the features of this bird. For instance, the brown primaries indicate it’s immature.

I was especially fascinated by the ridge of feathers between the owl’s eyes which directs sound to each ear independently.

On our way back to the car I noticed very large canine footprints. A gray wolf (Canis lupus) had walked the road before we got there.

At the Sax-Zim Bog Welcome Center we paused for a group photo: Lisa and Chad Walker and me.

Lisa and Chad had heard barred owls (Strix varia) hooting on their property but had never seen one. We found their Life Bird roosting by the road.

And we found three snowy owls, surprisingly, at the refinery in Superior, Wisconsin. Lisa spotted the first one on the roof near the center of this photo.

Moving closer, can you see his silhouette in the center of this photo? He’s on the roof above the red life preserver.

Best seen in my digiscoped photo.

All told we saw 32 species including: common goldeneyes, a ruffed grouse in a tree, 3 snowy owls, 3 great gray owls, barred owl, northern shrike, Canada jay, black-billed magpies, evening grosbeaks, redpolls, red crossbills and pine siskins.

Since I happened to visit Minnesota during a warm spell when it was above freezing every day, we didn’t see any boreal owls. They had no reason to be out sunning in the open.

And today we’re back in the deep freeze in Pittsburgh with 17°F.

25 February 2025

After a month of excitement over Schenley Park’s great horned owls nest, I’m switching gears this week to find the owls I missed in Minnesota eleven years ago.

Back in 2014 I attended the Sax-Zim Bog birding festival during one of the coldest winters of the century. I had a wonderful time full of new experiences and Life Birds but I never saw my target bird, the great gray owl, so I’m going back this week with Frank Nicoletti as my guide to find one.

From the top of their heads to the tip of their tails great gray owls (Strix nebulosa) are the world’s largest owl by length with a wingspan up to 5 feet long.

Although it appears to be more massive than other owls of the northern forest, its actual body mass is at least 15% smaller than the more common Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus), with which it shares habitat. Thus its plumage makes up much of the bulk of the bird, allowing it to withstand the bitter cold of northern winters.

— Birds of the World: Great Gray Owl — emphasis added

This cross section of a taxidermied model at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen shows how small the bird’s body really is.

To give you an idea of their size, here’s a video from the Owl Research Institute of banding an adult male great gray owl and his chicks in (probably) northern Montana in 2020. Note that the male is smaller than his mate.

Perhaps I’ll only see one from a distance but you can tell by its length that this is a great gray!

p.s. I checked my Life List again and discovered I’ve never seen a boreal owl (Aegolius funereus). Fingers crossed for both.