Again, if observing any owl that may be feeding, please stay as far back as possible and try to be silent. Boreal Owls are known to hunt an area actively about 50 feet in all directions, so if you stay back 75 feet or more, you likely would not be impeding its chances of feeding. They may look as if they are resting, yet according to Steve Wilson, Wildlife Specialist with the MN DNR, if these bird are out in the open during the day, they are likely starving and have to hunt during the day to survive. You must be very quiet, for any sound in the range of rustling movements of voles is likely to interfere with the owls prey detection. Bring a scope and help others to see it that way, from a distance, maybe these birds can survive both the winter and us.=20
Mark Alt=20 MOU President [email protected] C/O J. F. Bell Museum of Natural History University of Minnesota 10 Church Street SE Minneapolis, MN 55455-0104 MOU.mn.org -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steve and Sherry Watson Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 3:54 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [mou] yellow-billed loon Hello all, As you probably all know myself along with several others were not able to re-locate the loon yesterday. The harlequins were both still their and we had wonderful views of a roosting boreal owl in the vicinity but didn't see the loon, even around 2:00 or 3:00 P.M. after Superior calmed almost glass still we weren't able to locate it. I suppose since it had been around since Tuesday that it could very well still be around and it could have moved a little way's up or down the shore and could have been way out on the horizon beyond vision. The boreal owl was roosting on the far end of the trail. If you hike the trail over to where you can view Burlington bay off a little bluff you can see the trail continues down along the bay towards the town of Two Harbors. At this spot there is another trail intersecting this heading back towards the lighthouse, the boreal owl was roosting about 30 yards from the section of the trail off the little bluff viewing Burlington Bay. It was in a cedar tree just off the trail on the left side on about the only wide open branch available. It was fun watching it trying to sleep as it began snowing as the snow would pile up on top of its head like a hat and every so often it would have to shake it off. That was about the only really exciting part for the day and made driving all the way down to look for the loon worth it even though we didn't see the loon. Good birding to all, Josh Watson Grand Marais=20 --=20 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.9 - Release Date: 1/6/05 =20 _______________________________________________ mou-net mailing list [email protected] http://cbs.umn.edu/mailman/listinfo/mou-net
