Who’s Home?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the risk of confirming that we have serious soft spots for the owls that call our (their?!) forests home, we want to report the results of our first evening of monitoring in this new year.  Though we knew that we were on the early end of the season when owls begin mating and calling, we headed out into the frosty dark last night to listen for what we might hear.  Stars stood out amazingly sharply, accompanied by a sliver of the new moon as our boots swished through the ice crisped grass of the meadow.  At the sixth stop, when we called, hairs stood up on the back of my neck as a pair of saw whet owls returned our calls – sharp, clear and near.  When we chose to end our back and forth “conversation” and continued on through the deep dark along our monitoring route, that day and these times felt somehow different.

To learn more about the saw whet owl, visit this site:

http://owls-perch.blogspot.com/2012/11/owl-of-week-saw-whet-owl.html