Fun With Owls

This weekend was packed with major birding events. It started on Friday night with a Warbler Workshop followed by a field trip to Belleplain State Park on Saturday and another field trip on Sunday to Tinicum. I'll tell you all about that in the next post. This post is all about what happened after the big weekend when I was supposed to be casually visiting my friends in Elkins Park. I borrowed a sump pump from Tim so that I could drain and clean the pond - which I did in between all of the bird events.

I stopped over to Tim and Amy's around 6 PM. I was telling them about how we saw a Great Horned Owl nest on our field trip. Amy said that she had never seen an owl. Now, I know that they have owls in their neighborhood because I've heard them hooting. Just then, we heard a bunch of crows going crazy. I boldly said - you wanna see an owl? We walked to the end of the street in the direction of the crows and there is was - an adult Great Horned Owl being harassed.  Man, I looked like a genius! Luckily, Barbara's scope was in the back of the car, so I set it up on the sidewalk so that Amy could get a good look at the owl.

Then I remembered that I had the iPhone adaptor, so we took some video to show to Evelyn (HH) who was preparing dinner for the gang. Click on the video to play it.

You can imagine that 3 people with a spotting scope on the sidewalk in Elkins Park PA would draw some attention. It did. We showed about a dozen people the owl as they walked past with dogs and kids. People stopped their car to ask us what we were doing.  It was fun to show the kids an owl. But it got even more fun when we found the nest hole with a fluffy baby owl sitting in it!

The baby was a crowd-pleaser for sure. The neighborhood kids couldn't get enough of the owlet. The dads couldn't get enough of the scope with the iPhone attachment. Here is a photo of both.

Enthusiastic Owl Watchers - Elkins Park PA

The baby never did take his first flight while we were there. He wanted to. He should be out of the nest today. I'm going back to check on them and will keep you posted. Thanks again to Barbara for allowing me to keep the scope in my car. This would have never been a success without it.