“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” Jawaharial Nehru
Great gray owl in flight. — Wikimedia photo, Arne List.
Feeding my Wanderlust
I’ve had wanderlust in my soul since reading “I Married Adventure” by Osa Johnson when I was 10 years old. Going on an African Safari in 2007, and finally seeing the wildlife she so vividly describes in her book, was the fulfillment of a life-long dream, as was traveling the United States from border-to-border and coast-to-coast for nine years in a small RV.
North America’s largest owl, the great gray owl in Ontario, Canada. — Wikimedia photo
While my traveling days are not over, they are currently put on hold because of age and lack of deep pockets. I compensate by reading travel blogs and books. I also read a lot about birds, as birding is a late-blooming passion that addicted me at exactly the right time in my life.
Both birding and my wanderlust came together when I picked up Neil Hayward’s book Lost Among the Birds: Accidentally Finding Myself in One Very Big Year. The passage I was reading this morning was Neil’s account of chasing a Connecticut warbler in Sax Zim Bog. The name stopped me cold, tickling and delighting my wanderlust the same as hearing the names of places like Timbuctoo, Shangri-La and Zanzibar.
So of course I had to find my atlas, and then explore the Internet to learn more about the bog. The exotic sounding place is about 300 square miles of not just bog, but also aspen uplands, rivers, lakes, meadows, farms and a couple of towns in Northern Minnesota. Neil, doused liberally with mosquito repellant, visited a quite boggy patch of Sax Zim to successfully find his target bird, allowing me to follow him along in my armchair without getting bitten.
My bonus for taking the journey with Neil, followed by my online research, was to discover a You Tube video of a great gray owl sighting in Sax Zim Bog. It was so beautiful I almost cried. Sadly this bird is not on my life list of over 700 birds. But who knows what the future may hold?
Bean Pat: Great gray owl sighting at Sax Zim Bog http://tinyurl.com/gopkqt7 I hope this video thrills you as much as it did me.
Pat Bean's blog 
Loved this, my dear.
Thanks Len
Great post and photo!
Thanks from me for the kind words about the post, and from Wikimedia for the photo.
Great photos!
What a spectacular photo! And what a great name – Sax Zim Bog does sound exotic! We have a great grey owl at our place outside Calgary, and we’ve named him Rodney. We glimpse him frequently, and sometimes his hooting wakes us (pleasantly) in the middle of the night if he’s perched above our RV. They’re amazing birds!
Thanks Diane. I’m envious. I want so much to see a great gray owl. But I do have great horned owls living in my apartment complex, and I hear them almost daily.