Since the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) that took place in mid-December 2024, a Northern Hawk Owl (Surnia ulula) [“NHOW” is the 4-letter banding code for the species] has been inhabiting a location about a half hour from my house. My friend who told me about the bird was one of the people who originally had found the bird during the CBC. He lives much closer to its location and, shortly thereafter, he reported that there were actually two NHOWs in the same vicinity. That report of two NHOWs was received with extremely high skepticism by many in the birding community because of how rarely these birds are seen in this region of the world. As a point of reference on that fact, a well respected bird researcher in the area, who has been doing bird research throughout the region since the 1970s, told me that in the entirety of his time working, he had only known of three hawk owls documented to have entered the region during the past 50 years.
This rarity of occurrence is due to the Northern Hawk Owl only migrating to this area of Michigan during large irruptions of birds (an “irruption” is a phenomena where food availability declines and forces birds to migrate temporarily out of their normal range and habitat). Even when irruptions of raptors occurs, the large expanse of Lake Superior often prevents birds migrating to Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula - instead making their way around the lake to more accessible areas of habitat in northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, and the eastern portion of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The Keweenaw is just a really long way for them to go by that route.
This winter has seemingly been a really big “irruption year” for arctic and sub-arctic raptors in North America. There have been reports of many Short-eared Owls, Great Gray Owls, Northern Goshawks, and Snowy Owls throughout the Great Lakes region. In the Keweenaw, specifically, we have seen multiple individuals of Snowy Owls, Boreal Owls, and (now) Northern Hawk Owls.
The skepticism over there being two NHOWs observed in one location continues among the birding community in Michigan (to which I have now reached a point of flat-out telling anyone who questions the observation of these two different birds that they are being arrogant and rude birders. This is because such a response by them tells me they think that either 1) I am incapable of discerning and counting multiple individuals of a rare species or 2) that no one is as good of a birder as they are and an observation of this type isn’t so until they see it for themselves.)
I’ve actually been quite amazed by the level of resistance to believe the reports by myself and others…even with photographic evidence. As an example of such disbelief of two birds, I was able to produce 4 separate pictures of the two birds (who were both simultaneously visible from a single location…but not able to be positioned into a single photo) sequenced in such a way that it showed they were different individuals. What I did to accomplish this was alternate between the birds for each shot - taking a picture of the 1st bird, then the 2nd, then the 1st again, and then the 2nd again with mere seconds between each picture. This sequence showed how the two birds were in distinctly different trees - even if the trees were close together (which they were not), a single bird wouldn’t move back and forth between exact branches that many times (and remain in the same position) over the course of 30 seconds. This sequence of pictures convinced some people of the existence of two birds. Yet, others still responded with “I won’t believe it until I see a single picture with both birds.”
See what I mean by rude and arrogant?
Well…now the plot thickens. Yesterday, I had one of the owls land in the trees above my truck and spontaneously begin singing…and I got a recording of it. If you are not familiar with birds, this type of behavior means that at least one of those birds might be trying to establishing a breeding territory…and that would be a really big deal because the only record of NHOWs attempting to breed in Michigan is a single instance on Isle Royale (which is much more realistic than the Keweenaw due to Isle Royale’s proximity to the understood normal range of this species).
Take a listen…ithe NHOWs song is the “bouncing notes” that occur after about 4 seconds. There is a second (arguably better) bout that occurs about 50 seconds after the first bout. The other really loud birds filling in the background are Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) and Bohemian Waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus)that were calling.
Of course, it takes a male and a female to make a breeding pair. So, just because one bird is singing doesn’t mean it will find a mate. The other individual might be the same sex, for instance. For this species, both sexes sing - so, we can’t even really tell if this singing individual is male or female.
There’s a whole lot of excitement about this development between myself and the two other people with whom I have shared the recording (both of them not skeptical of there being two owls). In recognizing the potential dangers of this information spreading to the greater birding community of Michigan too quickly, I am not releasing any of this information until after we know more about these two birds and the breeding period for this species has passed (or well after the birds have moved on from the location).
[Side Note: Although the date for this post is accurate for when this all occurred, I have actually delayed it’s publishing it to my website and back-dated the post to fall in line with my desire to not release information too quickly.]