Owl Babies

2016 began with owls. On New Year’s Day, I journeyed north through a light snowstorm to Skagit with a group of friends known as Bird Nerds Birding Club. (I met its founder, Courtney, while volunteering for Seattle Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count. Birding is the best way to make friends!)

Bird Nerds take on the Skagit.

Washington State is home to fifteen species of owl, and I was lucky enough to see three of them this winter and spring. Our first stop: short-eared owls, Asio flammeus.

The dark eye shadow is quite a statement.

She liked to perch on the caution sign.

Look at that dished face for funneling the skitter-sounds of rodents into her short ears.

These owls were a lifer for me. I soon learned to recognize their distinctive flight, long-winged and loping like a butterfly’s.

Sibley's Guide describes their flight as "floppier" and "erratic."

In this neck of the woods, the short-eared owls fly by day, and they convene a following of dedicated photographers. When the owls weren’t nearby, I enjoyed watching scattered huddles of men and women in full camouflage attire, their telephoto lenses propped on sturdy tripods and transported in jogging strollers.

Can you spot the photographers?

A month later, I returned to college in Walla Walla and invited Margo, Lizzie, and Molly Moo Moo to join me for a lap of Bennington Lake. Birders come in two categories – Sitters and Flitters – and this crew of budding ornithologists earned the first title with their patience. After we heard a single hoot, they took up posts off-trail for five, ten, twenty minutes until finally Margo spotted the owl. We stalked closer and watched the resident pair of great-horned owls watch us.

The great-horned owl, Bubo virginianus, is the most widespread owl in America.

Hello yellow eyes.

The baby owls thought. All owls think a lot.

"I think she's gone hunting," said Sarah.

"To get us our food," said Percy.

"I want my mummy!" said Bill.

If you know what’s up, you’ll recognize this conversation between three great-horned owl branchers from the wonderful children’s book, Owl Babies, by Martin Waddell.

Last week, near Bennington Lake, I got to meet Sarah and Percy. Bill was probably snuggling with his Owl Mother somewhere. I was on an excursion with my advisor, Tim, and several professors and classmates on Reading Day. (That’s the day between the last day of classes and the first day of finals, and it’s best spent doing anything but studying.)

An owlet basks in the sun on the parking-lot cliff.

This brancher eyed us from ten feet away.

Two hours later, she was still at her post.

You again?

Get outta here!

It’s been an incredible spring for owls. A few days later, I returned to the same lake with Thomas for a mid-finals birding break. After listening for yellow warblers in the willows, we heard a raspy cough from high within a cottonwood – it was Sarah and Percy, begging for food from their good old ma!

Sarah and Percy in a black cottonwood.

Before our eyes, an adult great-horned owl delivered a writhing gopher snake to one of the owlets.

I’ll let the video speak for itself.

Only a few minutes later, she returned with a second snake, but the first owlet (who I’m certain at this point was Sarah) begged more convincingly and snagged that snake, too. The second owlet, Percy, hunched dejectedly in the rain while Mom took a break.

Sarah polishes off her second snake in ten minutes.

“Geez, Mom, can’t you tell us apart? I’m hungry over here!” whined Percy.

As if that sighting wasn’t enough, on the last day on finals, I received a phone call from my friend Joe.

“Check your texts! I sent you a photo,” Joe instructed. “I found a bird for you to ID!”

The photo showed a puffy western screech owl, Megascops kennicottii, nestled in the knot of an oak.

“She’s right here on my street,” said Joe. “Come see!” Through the phone, I could hear the porpoise-like laugh of the owl.

Could you imagine a better owl hole?

It seems like the owl's coated in bark, or the tree in feathers.

Thomas and I went to find her, and there she was, her ruffled feathers blending with the rough bark. She eyed us with sleepy disinterest.

Maybe she was waiting to deliver a letter… or just hunt a mouse.

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X Marks the Spot: Day Twelve on the Alaska Road Trip

Back on the road, our first stop was the tiny post office of Moose Pass, an itty-bitty town, where I mailed off my paperwork (printed nearly a week earlier in Fairbanks, a hazard of being in rural Alaska) and bought postcard stamps.

Better late than never (sorry Olivia!)

We backtracked past Anchorage and paused at the world’s-slowest-diner, Kava’s Pancake House, for second breakfast. My meal included three massive reindeer sausages; I saved one in a piece of buttered toast for dinner.

A great birding spot, Reflection Lake, materialized within the boundaries of Palmer Hay Flats State Game Refuge. We saw a black-capped chickadee gleaning spiders from twigs, reinforcing our earlier sighting of boreal chickadees.

This black-capped chickadee had less rufous on its sides and more white on its cheeks than did the boreal chickadees of earlier in the week.

Mama ring-necked duck with a big clutch of teenagers.

In the lake, a red-necked grebe and his baby caught fish.

Necky and Stripey.

Goofy and Hatty.

A hermit thrush hopped in the open ahead on the path! (Birders: are we interpreting those rusty tail feathers and spotty chest correctly? Swainson's and gray-cheeked thrushes live here too.)

Hermit thrush exhibit A.

Hermit thrush exhibit B.

Best of all, we finally found our icterid lifer, the rusty blackbird!

A male rusty blackbird is a striking bandit-masked critter!

“That’s our bird-of-the-day!” we cheered, but little did we know what was coming next…

As we climbed the pass between Anchorage and Tok, we ascended back into our beloved boreal forest biome. I thought we had left the stunted black spruce behind, but now, as we retreated into the interior, we were back among them!

“Let’s keep scanning the treetops for northern hawk-owls,” Jane suggested, an activity we had given up days prior. Futile though I expected it to be, I began to scan the trees. A minute later – there was an owl!

Jane pulled a U-turn and photographed the quizzical little owl like crazy. His long, off-center tail and stripes give him a little-kid-in-pajamas look. What a guy.

Long tail, stripey chest, don't care.

Alone atop his very own spruce.

It was a boomer day for raptors. Shortly after the hawk-owl, a real hawk emerged!

Hey, hawks like spruce trees, too!

We think he's a juvenile red-tailed hawk from the stripes on his wings and tail. Thoughts?

We stopped at roadside ponds for waterfowl, meeting several other travelers along the way.

Non-breeding-plumage buffleheads in a roadside pond.

Canvasbacks and an interloping wigeon.

This lone trumpeter swan was one of the few we saw without a mate.

“Excuse me, are you a birder?” asked a woman at a rest stop. “I could tell because of your binocular harness. X marks the spot!” (She was referring to the criss-crossed straps on Jane’s back.)

We checked into the Golden Bear Motel in Tok, and then moseyed out to the lobby for tea and hot water. Two, then three, crusty local dudes told us lore of the 85-degrees-below Tok winters.

“Scientists say if you are running in the nude at that temperature, you’ll die as quickly as if you were runnin’ through fire!” one of them told us. Most of the winter isn’t that bad, they assured us. The air is so still, ten inches of powder can pile up on each telephone wire, and the sun is often shining on the crunchy white snow.

“Sure, it’s dark,” one man conceded.

“Yeah, you watch the sun come up, and hover for a couple hours, and go back down,” another added.

“But the twilight lasts forever!” said the first. “Not like Hawaii. I was there once and when the sun set, BAM, it was night. I was like, what the hell? Where’s the twilight? Nah, Tok’s not so bad.”

We all nodded and sipped our tea.

Tok, Alaska - it ain't so bad.

End of day summary:

• Day of road trip: 12 
• Start: Seward, Alaska, United States 
• Miles traveled: 442 
• Hours driven: 8.5 
• Favorite bird sighting: northern hawk-owl 
• End: Tok, Alaska, United States

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