The Owl and the Pussycat

Great-horned Owls begin their breeding season in the depths of winter. Courting begins in December when you can hear them hooting a lot in the evenings and see them perched out in the open during the day. Nesting begins in January and once that happens, the owls disappear. The female is hidden on the nest which is usually in a large cavity in a tree and the male is hiding out nearby keeping a careful watch on his mate. This continues through February and March. We hike the trails and never see an owl. In late March or April, things change again and we begin to see an adult owl sitting out during the day. She is watching the nest from nearby now because her babies are so big that she doesn't have room to sit with them in the nest.

Dad is also sitting nearby to keep an eye out for trouble.

The babies are big enough to move around and can be seen in the nest cavity most days. Connie and I have been keeping tabs on the family for the past week.

And now for the pussycat. Well, not exactly a cat. More like our dog Peanut acting more like a cat than a dog. While Connie and I were watching the owlets (who were watching us right back), Peanut found a tree to climb.

She was up there so high, it scared me to death. Here she is scrambling back down.

Christmas Bird Count 2019

Another year, another Christmas Bird Count. It always seems like the worst weather too. This year, I did Pennypack Park on Saturday in drizzle and dreary overcast conditions. My territory is pretty boring but at least I found a Great-horned Owl sitting out. Poor thing was harrassed by a group of crows later in the day but didn't budge from his perch.

Great-horned Owl

And caught this Pileated Woodpecker in flight. You can see the white wing panels that make this bird easy to ID in flight.

Pileated Woodpecker

You can see by the photographs that the lighting was TERRIBLE for photographing birds.

On Sunday, I joined Paul Guris' CBC group to cover the Two Mile Unit of Cape May. I have helped with this territory in the past but this year, the weather was really snotty with sideways rain, wind and fog that prevented us from seeing very much. This Cooper's Hawk sat on the railing at the boat dock dripping wet for a long time. Even she didn't want to fly in that weather.

Once I downloaded the photo, I noticed that this hawk has leg bands. I can't read the band information but interesting to find one with "jewelry".

We were the only group in Cape May to spot a Snow Bunting this year which is weird because there are a lot of professional birders that cover this area. I guess we just got lucky. This little guy was gobbling up seeds in the parking lot of the restaurant.

Snow Bunting

I quit around 2:30 and headed home to host the DVOC photo contest judging. There were alot of great submissions this year. The judges had a tough time choosing winners to be announced on Thursday.

Did I Mention the Owls?

One of the main targets for the trip to Utah was Flammulated Owl. These little owls are related to Screech Owls and found out west. Our tour guide, Tim Avery is an expert on these owls and took us to the mountains to find a few on our last night.

But before we got to that, we saw other owls on the trip. We found a few Burrowing Owls out in the fields. This one sat up on a dead stick for us.

The biggest surprise were all of the Barn Owls that we saw. While looking for the Gray Partridge, Tim told us to get out of the van and walk along the road in case there were partridges in the weeds. He figured that they would react to us more than the van. He parked at the end of a farm field while we walked. There was a row of pine trees along the road. When we approached, an owl flew out into the field. Then another owl flew out. And another one, and another one, and another one, and . . . a total of 10 Barn Owls flew out as we walked past. I caught a photo of this one as she flew above our heads.

I spotted this one still roosting in the pine trees. He was nervous but held his ground while we walked past.

Some of the other birders watched the owls perch in another tree. I was glued to the birds in flight. They were just majestic to watch flying over the farm fields as they headed back to the pine trees.

Our guide acted like he didn't know that the owls roosted in those trees. Whether he knew or not, we all had an experience of a lifetime.

The Barn Owl that we all knew about has a nest box in a hay shed on Antelope Island. After spending time watching the phalaropes, we headed to the shed to see the owls. We expected to see the Barn Owl but we didn't expect to see this gal - a Great-horned Owl sitting on the beam.

Her mate was also in the shed. This dumb guy insisted on sitting on a rafter that was too close to the roof. Ridiculous.

Even more ridiculous was that these Great-horned Owls share the shed with a pair of Barn Owls. This is highly unusual since Great-horned Owls usually kill anything that they come close to including other owls. Our guide told us that these 2 species co-exist peacefully presumably because there is enough food for all. You can see the Barn Owl in the box in this photo with his neighbors just a few feet away.

We finally headed out for the Flammulated Owls that evening and found many. We heard about 10 owls, saw 5 and photographed 3 including this one.

I was really happy to see so many owls on the trip including the uncommon Flammulated Owl which was a life bird for me and a few others on the trip.