Northern Hawk Owl Photos

Photography by Terry Sohl

My Favorite: I started birding in the winter of 1999/2000. When you just start birding and start learning about the incredible variety of birds, you soon learn about some birds that seem to have almost mystical reputations, birds that are on many birders' "Holy Grail" lists. I had a colleague at work who helped get me started in birding, and for him one of those Holy Grail birds was a Great Gray Owl.  In a lifetime of birding, he'd only gotten a glimpse of one. Yet by late November, 2003, we'd been hearing stories about incredible numbers of northern owls moving southward into the Sax-Zim Bog region of Minnesota. It wasn't just Great Gray Owls, as huge numbers of Northern Hawk Owls were also being seen. Excited at the chance to see birds that were rather mythical to even my experienced birding friend, I headed up to the Bog a couple of weeks later.

To be honest I wasn't expecting to find one. However, when I turned off the main highway and headed into the bog area a little after dawn, it only took about 100 yards of driving before I saw my first bird in a tree...a Great Gray Owl! I couldn't believe my luck!  I watched the bird a little bit, and headed on down the road, and found another...and another...and another.  Great Gray Owls, Northern Hawk Owls, in numbers beyond what I could even imagine.  I ended up counting ~35 of BOTH species in just over a day and a half of birding.

My favorite Northern Hawk Owl photo from that trip remains one of my favorite photos of all time. I was driving on Stone Lake Road, with marshy land on both sides, with scattered, dense low shrubs, unlike much of the bog that has taller, thick forests of spruce and other trees. It didn't seem as "owly" of a habitat, but given how many owls were around, I saw both Great Gray and Northern Hawk Owls on this road as well. And because parts of this road go by lower shrubs without taller perches, I lucked upon this Nothern Hawk Owl RIGHT at eye level as I approached in my car. It ended up being the closest I'd been to a wild owl, SO close that at one point I had to back up a little bit to make sure I had the 12-foot minimum focusing distance on my camera lens!

I watched and photographed the same owl for over an hour, with the bird seemingly dismissive of my presence. It could be because he had just fed, as he had a bit of blood on his front. Or, like many of the owls, it could have been their first time they'd ever really dealt with people! Whatever the reason, the trip, and this specific owl, were experiences I'll never forget.

Click here for the species description page for the Northern Hawk Owl

All photos copyrighted!  Click for information on commerical usage, or usage for other personal purposes.

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Please mail any comments/suggestions/additional links for this page to: Terry L. Sohl