I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who shared good information on where to find the owls in Aitkin County!
My husband and I made the pilgrimage yesterday from Otsego, and came home giddy! We saw a total of 16 Great Gray Owls and and three Northern Hawk Owls. (There was also the Great Horned Owl that had my heart thumping until I realized it was a decoy!!) If I have time I'll try to reconstruct our route and send it. I do want to mention that our second NHO was "visited" by a noisy shrike who alternately perched in the owl's tree and swooped over the owl, finally giving up and leaving. The owl seemed fairly uninterested in the shrike's actions. Because of distance and inexperience with this bird, I'm unsure if the shrike was a Northern or Loggerhead. The mask seemed fairly thin and I've seen other references to Northerns in these lists; am I fairly safe in assuming that the bird I saw was a Northern Shrike? We also saw some ravens in some trees along Hwy 65 s. of 210, and spotted a pair of rough-legged hawks along 169 on the trip up. Expenses: $ 20.00 Lunch plus tip at Hawkeye's Coffee House in Aitkin (good soup and sanwiches) $ 31.00 gas $ 2.00 snacks $110.57 bottle of wine (no, we didn't consume it,just brought it home!), cheese, salsa, snacks, and various gifts at the coffee house and Minnestalgia (McGregor; hey, it's never too early to do a little Christmas shopping!) $163.57 Total What a glorious day we had! Thanks again, everyone. Best, Kim Wilcox Kimerly J. Wilcox, Ph.D. Senior Instructional Multimedia Consultant Digital Media Center University of Minnesota Room 212 Walter Library 117 Pleasant Street SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 612-624-3528 fax 612-625-9302 Visit the DMC Web site: http://dmc.umn.edu
