Today's Bog trotting yielded . . .

[Steve Foss]

. . . the usual suspects. But Ken and I had a lot of fun rounding them up and debating whether either of us got the elusive "perfect" black-capped chickadee photo. Well, OK, it was LITTLE cold out there, so our debating kept us warm.

The rest were from a Bog trip on Sunday. Gotta love that Bog!

[jonny_redhorse]

All sweet shots Steve!..... I still have yet to get a pic of the NHO(this year anyways).....just not in the right place at the right time

[Dotch]

All I can do about that 1st 'dee is All of them are good but that one is special.

[JayinMN]

Nice ones, I especially like the Boreal on the spruce.

[Dbl]

Really nice stuff Steve, especially the first three.

[finnbay]

Very nice stuff, Steve! As he said, nothing new today. I didn't have any good shots of a boreal, so I was bound and determined to get some:

The perfect chickadee?

And the obligatory redpoll:

[buzzsaw]

I see you guys are dialing in your backgrounds, good for you! It makes a huge positive difference IMHO.

I like all the images with good eye contact, very nicely done.

[Jim Almquist]

Looks like Steve and Ken had a great day in the bog with some great shots and perfect lighting. What no Great Gray Owls or at least a Northern Hawk Owl ?

[Steve Foss]

We found an NHO that Ken shot but didn't locate any GGOs. No big deal. I've got about 250 GGO images from the invasion year of different poses and different backgrounds, all sharp, and nearly that many NHO images.

The Bog being a 150-mile round trip from my house, and me having already made six trips there this winter, I may not be back there much, if at all, the rest of the winter. Now that I'm all "borealed up," that's especially likely. And there are lots of boreal chickadees much closer to home in Ely.

Although I will say I'll miss Ribs2. Having worked hard these last three years when doing bird-on-a-stick photographs to get distant enough backgrounds to make them buttery and soft, it's been a pleasure photographing at a site where doing that is no work at all. And because the background has a variety of vegetation, it's easy to change the angle slightly and develop a different color/pattern cast.

Well, there WAS a little work involved in eliminating all the clutter of branches, but that went pretty quickly for JayinMN and I. I also want to thank Jay for all his work in setting up and maintaining that station.

But now that word has spread to birders from other states and bird photographers from as far away as the Twin Cities and farther, it's probably going to continue to be a bit of a zoo over there at Ribs2. Sunday, I believe there were five people there minimum almost the whole day, and at times there were 10-12. Fun as that was, it's time to take other, more solitary and productive, measures. Shy birds don't like crowds.

[JayinMN]

I can certainly relate to the driving. I am not even close to that far away and I still can easily put a 150 miles on a day down there driving around. The last GGO I got pictures of I drove for 4 hours straight and 126 miles later I finally found one. At least gas is cheap now days. I have a million shots off of ribs2 and need a change of scenery as well. I will continue to keep the feeders filled, but probably won't spend any more full days there either. The north shore has been calling to me lately so I may head that way and see what I can find.

[jonny_redhorse]

Now that I have the images of all 3 of the bogs "rarer" creatures......I'm cutting back my forays down there also....good thing gas was cheap this fall .....but I will check in occasionally on weekends.....I threw another "hunk" of venison on Ribs 1 also......there was a bald eagle being harrassed by 4-5 ravens a hundred yards grom ribs 1 just as I approached this late morning....no pics though ...

[Steve Foss]

Jonny, next task is to start scouring the balsam fir and young jackpine thickets for roosting boreal owls.

[jonny_redhorse]

Oh sure! A boreal owl!.....I think it will be a cold day in "HELLO" before I run into one of those guys...lol! ....I've never seen one....

[Steve Foss]

But they're all around us. Nocturnal, which is why we rarely see them, but they roost in fairly thick evergreen cover. There probably are a handful within five miles of where you and I are sitting as we type these thoughts.

Our mission, should we choose to accept it . . . .

[jonny_redhorse]

Well....I wouldn't bet my next check on finding one,put it that way...lol!....sure would be nice to have an "encounter" with one though......think my chances of a "close encounter of the 3rd kind" would be better ......I did see a UFO once but that's another story another time ....

[JayinMN]

Will Boreal owls roost in tree cavities during the day if they can find them?

[Steve Foss]

All the daytime images I've ever seen of boreals are in pretty thick evergreen cover. Not to say they don't also roost in cavities. I know they nest in cavities, often preferring hollows already excavated by woodpeckers. It could be that the predominance of pics of daytime boreals in evergreens are simply because cavity roosters are hunkered down and out of sight.

[JayinMN]

I have found quite a few Saw-Whets in cavities during the day. They are similar in size and I was curious if Boreals did the same. One of these days I need to build some nest boxes for my property. I put one up at my cabin and it often has Saw Whet owls roosting in it.

[Steve Foss]

Well, boreal and saw-whet owls are two of my big ongoing goals for avian images. Sooner or later it'll happen.