[mou] St. Louis County Owls today

[Chris Fagyal]

Today, Sunday, I went up to Sax-Zim for a gorgeous morning, with no 
wind, nice sunshine, and lots of owls.

Shortly after arriving I encountered my first Northern Hawk-Owl, on Hwy 
52, 2.4 miles east of Hwy 7, about 1.4mi east of cty rd 755 (Peary Rd).  
Also close to this location was a Rough-legged Hawk.  Both were very 
close to the road (on trees right adjacent to the edge of the road).  
Both of these sitings were around 7:45-8am  Before these sitings, I 
drove up Hwy53 a few miles past Cotton and found two Northern 
Hawk-Owls.  One was at MileMarker 43.9 (.9 miles north of MM43), and the 
second was at MM44.5.  These were around 7:30am

Driving up Hwy 7 I encounted 2 cars stopped looking at a Great-Grey Owl 
off in the distance.  I saw it was a Great-Grey, but it flew before I 
got a decent look.  This was at 5.5miles north of Hwy52.  This was 
around 8:10-8:15am or so.

Driving down Admiral Rd I found two Northern Hawk-Owls.  One was 4mile 
south of Zim Rd (Cty 27) and the other was 4.9mi S of Cty27.  The second 
one was being harassed by 2 Black-billed Magpies.  Driving back north I 
just missed getting good views at a Great-Grey which just flew 
(according to the 4 people that got great views) and disappeared deep 
into the woods.  This was about 3.5 miles south of Cty27.

Driving south on McDavitt from Cty27 another Northern Hawk-Owl was 
spotted in the distance on the western side of the road 3.1mile south of 
Cty27.

After this I decided to head home as I wanted to catch the afternoon 
football games, so around 12:30pm I started heading back.  The last 
truly interesting sighting of the day was 4 Ruffed Grouse that flew over 
I169 just south of Milaca.

Other birds seen in the bog include Gray Jays, Hairy Woodpeckers, Blue 
Jays, Rough-legged Hawks, 1 Red-tailed Hawk along Hwy53 near MM46, and 
several Bald Eagles (1 on Hwy53 around MM45 and 1 on Admiral Rd about 
5.5miles south of Cty27.

Chris