Earlier blog post to the contrary, it appears as if the winter of 2012-13 is the year of the Boreal Owl in the Quetico-Superior region. In the last week, there have been several sightings of the owls all along the Minnesota North Shore of Lake Superior. Several Boreal Owls have been seen in Two Harbors, Split Rock, Gooseberry Falls, Grand Marais and one was even spotted within the city limits of Duluth. Several birders, some from as far away as California, Oklahoma and Colorado, have flocked to the area to see or photograph the birds (personal communication, Jim Lind). The unpleasant part of these invasions or irruptions, as they are sometimes called, is that the birds are usually food-stressed (starving in some cases). Driven by hunger, but to a land likely too strange for them to survive, it is one of the amazing spectacles of nature.
