Back Cast

Three-plus decades ago, I was contacted by federal wildlife officials about doing a story on a pair of adult bald eagles nesting along the Missouri River in McLean County.

If you’re interested, they said, don’t count on getting close enough to get good photos because of the concern over disturbing the birds.

And nowhere in the story could I print where the eagles were nesting but was allowed to name the big river the pair was nesting along that flows out of Garrison Dam and winds its way to South Dakota.

Fair enough.

Back then, bald eagles were still years away from being taken off the endangered species list and it was uncommon for verified reports of nesting pairs in the state, so I understood the caution.

Thirty or so years removed from that day we tiptoed over and around deadfalls in the Missouri River bottoms, I still understand the importance of the moment, knowing we were witnessing something through binoculars that, for the time, was significant.

While I’m not immersed in North Dakota’s birding community, I’ve hung around these folks on the occasional Christmas Bird Count and hiked across the prairie in warmer months looking and listening for birds that would go unnoticed by most but would stop these people in their tracks.

I thought about this group of enthusiastic birders when I received some photos in December from Lisa Buchweitz of a great gray owl she took somewhere in Pembina County.

According to Sandra Johnson, Game and Fish Department conservation biologist and earnest birder, the great gray owl, pictured on the cover of this issue of North Dakota OUTDOORS, is the rarest owl you can see in North Dakota.

“This is a super rare find in the state … we maybe hear of one observation a year, if it’s reported,” Johnson said.

The great gray owl is one of those birds that, if word got out on its location, birders would flock to the area in search of this forest species so uncommon to North Dakota.

“A bunch of people tromping through the forest looking for this owl will not help the bird in its search for food,” Johnson said.

These big owls, scientists tell us, need to eat regularly because of their size, which means finding and killing up to seven vole-sized mammals per day in winter.

The Langdon photographer spotted the owl while she was watching some whitetail does.

The sun had set, Lisa said, when she caught movement and was able to photograph the owl in the low light.

“I was just creeping along … I always tell people they’re missing a lot because they’re moving too fast,” she said.

I’m guessing Lisa employed the same tactic last year when she captured a gorgeous image of a bobcat sitting on its haunches in the snow, which was named the overall winner of the Department’s 2023 Watchable Wildlife Photo Contest.

Since it’s hard to argue with her success, I’m going to take it down a gear in 2025 to hopefully see what I’ve been missing.