I noticed that the BWCA is at the southern edge of the northern hawk owl resident range. Does anyone see the owl in the BWCA in the summer? During my trip in 2016 I scanned the tops of broken off trees in the blowdown and burn areas figuring these would be good perches. Never did see any, but will continue looking on my 2018 trip.

We have a pair of Northern Hawk Owls in Rochester(SE Minnesota). My wife and I walk our dog along a wooded section behind a local high school and kept hearing this crazy screaming( for lack of a better word) noise every evening. It sound almost like a person or something and it was freaking my wife out. Knowing little about birds and not having actually seen the culprit, up to this point, I was thinking Screech Owl. So early in the summer I got online and after doing some searching of owl sounds, I hit a perfect match. Northern Hawk Owl, though their range doesn't show they come down this far. Since then we have seen them perched atop of flag poles, field goal posts, bleachers, and tree tops, and always at dusk. There are now three of them squawking at each other. Nature is so cool, we jokingly consider them our good friends.

Wow! Patients pays off! Thank you for responding. If they are that far south in summer I reckon they may be resident in the BWCA as well. I was there for another 10 day solo July 16-25. I spent a lot of time scanning burn areas with standing dead trees. No luck this year, but I will continue looking on my trips.

If I see Margie around in a couple of weeks, I’ll ask her if she knows how many may be in the area. I do know there was two nesting pairs found in Minnesota during a biological survey. One was in the Sax Zim area and the other in the around Isabella-Perent Lake. (South central BWCAW)