Last week after a Bible study group, Linda mentioned that Duluth, Minnesota was having an “Owl Irruption.” Irruption (yes, it’s spelled that way) refers to an unusual sudden increase in population of a species. In this case, for whatever reason, large numbers of owls have moved further south than usual. Linda said maybe we birders would like to drive up there and check it out. Her husband, Tom, was certain nobody would be crazy enough to drive all the way to Duluth in January! To his great surprise, four of us said yes! Bernie, his wife Carolyn, Cherryl and I agreed to spend a day driving north, a day hunting owls north of Duluth, and a day driving home. Who’s crazy?

On the first day, we drove from Lincoln to the Minneapolis/St Paul airport. They have an aircraft viewing lot, made so folks can watch jets take off and land. But Snowy Owls like to arrive at dusk, and hunt mice and rabbits that the aircraft scare into motion. It was hard to get pictures in the low light, but we saw a magnificent Snowy Owl pose for us, and give us a nice demonstration of soundless flight.

We enjoyed a wonderful sunset, even if the FedEx building was in the way.

And yes, we got to see a few airplanes too!

We left the airport very excited, because we had arrived at the perfect time to see the Snowy Owls. Maybe this crazy trip would work out! Another couple of hours of driving got us to our hotel in Duluth, where we were very glad to get in warm beds!

The next morning we got going early…

Duluth has scores of beautiful homes, and I could have spent a couple of days just admiring architecture. But we had birds to hunt!

So we headed up further north, to search for Great Gray Owls. We had been told to head for a place called Sax-Zim-Bog. The visitors center there would be a good place to spot our owls. We were also advised just to drive slowly around and look for people stopped on the roadside, aiming big cameras into the woods.

Aha! Here’s an obvious spot!

A gorgeous Great Gray Owl posed for us, unruffled by all the attention.

Later we saw another group looking at a Boreal Owl… they are very hard to spot, and this guy was almost invisible from the road. This was an exciting find!

Later, at Sax-Zim-Bog, we saw lots of beautiful birds attracted to the feeders.

Later in the day, driving slowly through the woods, we came across a Ruffed Grouse. He was walking along the road and I could have run over him! By the time I stopped (in the middle of the road) and got around with the camera, he was behind so much brush I couldn’t get a decent picture. But he’s such a great find I’m including him anyway.

We walked a bit on a nice boardwalk, froze our fingers off, and had a great time! In 24 hours, Cherryl and I added 6 birds to our life list! A great trip indeed.

We also ate very well the whole trip! Linda did a great job of picking out fun places for meals.

This place even had two types of Bread Pudding… regular with whipped cream, and deep fried with ice cream. Who could choose? So we ordered both for the table and all got to sample them. (Deep fried was fun, but the regular still won the comparison.)

On the way home the following day, we again had a great meal in an unusual restaurant. It’s in a small town called “Clear Lake,” interesting because I lived in Clear Lake California as a young kid. A nice way to break up a long drive.

I guess Linda and Tom have a tradition… any new life list bird sighting deserves ice cream. As if we hadn’t had enough deserts, we stopped late in the afternoon and had celebratory ice cream. Yum.