Saturday, February 19, 2011

Nemesis Bird 1 - Great Gray Owl

Hi Everyone:  Not quite sure how we got into mid-February so quickly!  I remember getting off the plane from Mumbai, India on December 1st, then suddenly it was mid-January and I was getting on a plane to Duluth, Minnesota,  ready to face sub-zero temperatures in pursuit of my Nemesis Bird - the Great Gray Owl. If you have been birding for any period of time you have at least one Nemesis Bird, usually a relatively "common" bird but for some reason you are just unable to "get" it. The Great Gray, the largest of our owl species, was "alledged" by my guide, Kim Risen, to be a year-round resident in the Sax-Zimm Bog, about an hour's drive outside of Duluth. Although Kim over 4 prior trips out to Duluth (2 in mid-winter) had put me on many a great bird, all his efforts to locate a Great Gray for me had been in vane.  So much so that I jokenly would tease him that I had a greater chance of seeing Bigfoot! Hopefully my 3rd winter trip would be different. Although Winter birding in Northern Minnesota is really hard core, I was able to convince my friend from Massachusetts, John Mitchell, to join me on this trip. We met in Minneapolis and then flew up to
Duluth where we met up with Kim and headed out for Sax-Zimm.  The next few hours were a repeat of my prior trips, lots of miles covered but no Great Gray Owl, then just before sunset my guide received a phone call from a friend, that had located a Great Gray Owl just a few miles away from our current position.  We raced to location and there sitting up in tree about 50 feet off the road was Great Gray Owl. But it doesn't end there.  What an awesome bird.  Nemesis 1 eliminated!

Great Gray Owl