Emily's sister Julia is visiting from Boston. As it was a beautiful morning, I thought I'd take her to my favorite neighborhood spot: the T.S. Roberts bird sanctuary. We arrived mid-morning to the tune of whistling cardinals and chattering chickadees. White-breasted nuthatches and red-bellied woodpeckers spiraled around the trees. The recent melt had stopped and ice crusted over the snow. As we walked through the woods I mentioned to Julia to keep an eye out for owls, as this might be a good place to find some in winter. I of course didn't actually think we would see an owl, but a little excitement couldn't hurt.
Five minutes later. Julia: "Is that an owl?"
Perched right above the path was a beautiful great horned owl!
We stared in admiration for some time, and then stooped to look for owl pellets.
Just as I found a good one, we were found by a flock of crows, who quickly figured out that we weren't hanging around this tree by random. They spotted the owl and soon some twenty crows were putting up a huge fuss, taking turns making rather cowardly show-dives at the owl but nowhere near his sharp talons.
We backed away and eventually the crows got bored and left to find more pleasurable (and perhaps less dangerous) trouble elsewhere. Having bothered the owl enough, we continued along the snowy path.
Five minutes later. Julia: "Is that another owl?"
And so it was, another great horned owl, also perched almost directly above the path, and this time without any intervening branches blocking our view. Quixotically, I attempted to take a picture with my little digital camera pointed through one barrel of my binoculars:
We walked a little closer and looked up at her, mesmerized by her penetrating yellow gaze and the massive lethal talons--capable of taking skunks and great blue herons--curled around the perch. She fixed us with her stare, and then blinked, unconcerned.
A man walked along the path coming the other way, seemingly purposefully not looking up to see what we were ogling. I tried to catch his eyes but he avoided eye contact. He turned away from us at a fork in the path without stopping, never once noticing the owl. It is amazing what you can miss when you're not looking. Not wanting to attract the crows again, we left our second owl in peace. Likely the two are a pair, and before long there will be little great horned owls somewhere near the park, coughing up squirrel parts in the dark. The city is considering building a dog park right next to the bird sanctuary. I wonder what these owls think of the idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment