I got a chance to spend some time today with Jeff and Pete. Pete knows the location of several different species of owl and today he showed us four different species including this Northern Saw-whet Owl, which was a life bird for me today!
The other owls were Great Horned, Long-eared and Barred Owl. The Northern Saw-whet, Long-eared and Barred are all rare in Illinois! We had an all-day birding session today netting 51 species, which is pretty good at this time of year. Some of the highlights (aside from the owls) were Tufted Titmouse, Canvasback, Marsh Wren and Golden-crowned Kinglet.
We saw two Barred Owls just after sunset. We saw both flying (separately) and also heard them calling to eachother - a great way to finish the day. I love the expression on the face of the Northern Saw-whet Owl. It seems to be asking "what are you doing down there?". Fortunately this bird allows fairly close approach but as a rule you should never approach wild owls as they may be disturbed enough to leave the area. Today was a great start to the count in 2007!
Northern Saw-whet Owl
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4 comments:
My favorite of all Owls! Congrats on your lifer and looks like you had a wonderful day!
Mathew,
Great pic of a very cute Owl! We have a different shot of one as the background on a different computer. Fancy seeing all those owls in one day!! I think I'm doing really well when I can locate one owl here in Tassie - though there has been a Masked Owl roosting in much the same spot at Truganini REserve for the last couple of months, so have been able to give a few people directions of where to find it. It roosts - unperturbed by the passing foot-traffic - very close to a busy walking track. Mind you, not as close as the Grey Fantail which is nesting right next to the track, so passers-by almost bump their heads on the nest!
Hope 2007 brings you lots of good birding.
Tonight at about 9 pm my dog started barking at seemingly nothing. I then heard what sounded like a bird hitting my front window. I looked outside and only saw something dark flutter away. Five minutes later the same sound. I opened the door to find a saw whet owl perched 12 feet away in a little tree by my front door. He stayed for 15 minutes and even allowed me to take a blurry photo with my camera in one hand and a flashlight in the other. I decided to close all the curtains so he didn't run into the window again. Could not figure out why he did that; except that I have parakeets in a cage in my living room and maybe he saw inside thinking it might be a good dinner. About two years ago another saw whet (same one?) sat on the hood of our car about five feet from the front door on a cold night. I thought he was probably trying to warm himself. Again, he let me take photos and seemed not too scared of humans.
little saw-whet owl sitting on top of a rocker on our porch. Stayed about 1/2 hour. Very colod night. I feed the birds and this was about 7:00 at night. I think mice come out to eat the bird seed at night so maybe that was why he was here. This was tuesday 2/8/11 in Roanoke Ill.
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