I went outside to shoot pictures, but alas...I haven't really got any sort of telephoto lens. When I walked closer to the trees, my owlish friend got cheesed off and ducked through the branches towards the trunk, the disobliging sod. He came back to the sunlight when I came back inside. Dang it. I shot some other pictures through the window, using my camera's mega-zoom feature which is terrific for taking pictures of alien spacecraft and bigfoot.
Or a Barred Owl
A Boreal Owl
A Red Squirrel
The markings are the same, after all, and you saw the picture - how do I know a giant red squirrel isn't equally upsetting to the Blue Jays, Cardinals, and even Mourning Doves as an owl is?
What do you think? None of the pictures that I blatantly stole borrowed from http://www.owlpages.com/index.php look like my blurry blob-in-a-tree, do they? The squirrel picture, also stolen borrowed from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_squirrel (please don't come hunt me down or send the law-doggies after me for theft borrowing these...please??) looks more like what's in my tree, except for the size. It is maybe a foot or two high, and I really don't want to think about a squirrel that size...oh, dear...what sort of nuts would I feed it???
I sent my really bad pictures of the owly critter to my dad and stepmum vie e-mail in hopes they can garner more information from them and help me identify our new friend. I'm not much of a birder, myself, but I do like to know who's (hah!) in the neighborhood. I think they were tickled that I called them to ask, truth be told...we don't talk often because they're not usually on this planet in the country - they're off leading ornithological (try typing that word in a hurry!) and natural history tours through Central America, or birding on other continents or communing with the mother ship participating in bird counts. So it was neat to not only find them at home, but to have a chance to talk to them about something that interests them. It was worth the long distance fees for making a call from Georgia to Martha's Vineyard at peak time. We don't really need to eat next month, do we?
Meanwhile, our hooty pal is still hanging onto that branch. Dad said it would probably take off around dusk, and maybe I'll get a better look at it. It's in the shade now, sun setting and all, and it's still so windy that he goes for quite a ride every few minutes. Umm...do owls get motion sickness? Hey, maybe it'll cough up an owl pellet, and I can get Mike Rowe to come clean it up! Bonus!!
2 comments:
That, my friend, is an Eastern Screech Owl.
Regards, Deane.
I haven't read all of your posts after this one yet (I'm behind), but seriously, do go look under the tree for owl pellets. If he feels safe there he may stay, or make it one of his places, and then you'll find owl pellets. We used to have college kids come collect them from our barns to study.
I think owls are smarter than people. To date not ONE owl has come to our bathroom collecting people pellets to study.
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