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 thunderstorms.
And at 9am I got a wonderful surprise…A Great Gray Owl was hunting voles along McDavitt Road. This probably means that this owl has a nest full of begging beaks somewhere in the vast Black Spruce/Tamarack bog. I was able to get some video and photos as he/she hunted the wet ditch sides. Not very concerned with me, she eventually flew deeper into the bog. I was able to get this photo from the car window by bracing the 400mm lens on the door frame.
I tried to maneuver the car a bit to minimize background clutter and this is the best I could do. I don’t really mind the background branches as much as I thought I would…And I love the lichen-festooned branch the owl is sitting on. Ninety-plus percent of Great Gray photos you see were taken in winter, mainly because that is when they are more visible as they hunt open meadows and roadsides. Summer usually finds them hunting deeper in the bogs. This image has a warmer feel than those.
Also note that my camera was ready to go in the seat next to me when the Great Gray appeared; It was preset to Tv (shutter priority 1/400 second and auto ISO. This way I knew I could shoot handheld and still get a sharp image…And I can live with the noisier image at ISO 1000. If I’d had my camera on aperture priority f5.6, I may have ended up shooting at a slow shutter speed and getting an unsharp and unusable image.
Canon 7D with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens at f5.6 1/400 sec at ISO 1000, handheld but braced on door frame of car.
Elsewhere in the Sax-Zim Bog I had some interesting birds. Though no “wolf whistles” of the Upland Sandpipers were heard, a very surprising Western Meadowlark was singing; Easterns are more common here. In the same field, a lone Sharp-tailed Grouse sat atop a wooden fence post. Nobody told him the party was over three weeks ago! Magpies foraged in hay fields along CR229. Bobolinks had also arrived.
I flushed a group of 6 American Woodcock from a clump of hazel…likely a family group as they nest early and stay together for a while.
In the Black Spruce bogs Connecticut Warblers were found at several locations including a couple males singing on opposite sides of one road. Blue-headed Vireos were at several sites. Winter Wrens and Sedge Wrens were in full song. And Yellow-bellied Flycatchers have returned to their bog breeding forests. Lincoln’s Sparrows sang from the scrubby taiga-like bogs.
June 9, 2012
Sparky Stensaas
thesparkygroup@gmail.com
4 responses to “Gray Morning Great Gray”
Pauline Wahlquist
June 9th, 2012 at 15:36
What a great shot. I am envious. Just to see this would have been awesome.
Sparky Stensaas
June 11th, 2012 at 19:36
Thanks Pauline. You may want to head up to the Sax-Zim Bog this winter…If our calculations are correct, it may be an irruption winter! Vole numbers cycle bust-boom-bust every four years are so…And when their numbers are low in Canada, many move down into NE Minnesota, and especially the Sax-Zim Bog area.
Milt Blomberg (St. Cloud)
June 12th, 2012 at 10:10
Really like this photograph, as you mentioned with the lichens…cannot do it now, but sometime would like to go out in the Sax-Zim with you and/or your friends you meet up with sometime….cannot seem to latch on to the Sharp-tails and Magpies when I have birded the area. Regards, mjblomberg
Sparky Stensaas
June 17th, 2012 at 16:47
Hi Milt, Yes, come on up sometime…This winter may be a Great Gray Owl irruption year…We’ll know by December. The best roads for Magpie are CR229 N or CR133 just east of Meadowlands and Blue Spruce 1-2 miles N of CR133. For Sharp-tails check the area around the big hayfields along CR52/Arkola just east of Stickney, and also CR7 N of CR52. Take care.