Tweets,

We had a bit of luck with the Great Gray Owl, Sunday about 11:30am at
Bridle Trails Park. It was very tame and we enjoyed watching it by
ourselves for about 45 minutes. It was perched about 15 high near a
narrow muddy trail deep in the SW part of the forest. It was hunting at
midday which I would think is unusual.

It was a wonderful experience for us! Such a large and spectacular bird.
We had tried numerous time to see the one in the Skagit last year with no
luck.

As we were leaving we spotted another birding couple and showed them it's
location.

Here's a description, written by my 'spice' Janet Wilson, of how she
found it.

Dan Victor, Seattle, WA <dvictor at u.washington.edu>
Web = http://weber.u.washington.edu/~dvictor/dan.html

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Janet Wilson

The wind was so strong that the tops of the cedars were swaying back and
forth 5 to 10 feet. It managed to muffle the monotous roar of the
adjacent highway. As my husband and I walked up the muddy trail beaten
down by horse hoofs we thought to ourselves, hhmmm ... strong winds, 480
acres of mostly dense second growth forest and 28 miles of trails, the
chance of finding the Great Gray Owl was like looking for a needle in a
haystack.

But we proceeded on thinking it was just nice to be outside anyway. We
made a few turns on the trail and I asked my husband which way he wanted
to turn. He said, Go with your powers, you choose . I noticed he kept
looking at the muddy trail so I chided him for not looking around the
forest enough, that how would we ever find the owl if he didn't look
around. Being less patient than my husband I proceeded ahead as I usually
do. I feigned looking at something through my binoculars and motioned to
my husband to come catch up. He didn't bite, he was used to these false
gestures on my part so he just smiled and we both laughed when he caught
up to me.

With every intersection we came upon my husband said to go with my
intuition as to which direction to take. A horseman rode by commenting
that we looked liked we were looking for the Great Gray. We confirmed
that we were. He relayed to us that he hadn t seen it yet, but that he
had in the past. We almost turned around when we came upon a gigantic
puddle in the high tension right-of-way but we slogged through it. At the
next interection we met the horseman again who said he hadn't seen it
further up. I asked my husband again which way to go, he said let's turn
here since the horseman hadn't seen it where he had riden.

Immediately after we took a new route there was another little path. Once
again I queried my husband as to whether he had any preference where to
go. He said again he trusted my powers. With head glued to the ground
and climbing over a small fallen log, my inner voice said, what powers!,
my mother had died a year ago and at the time I hadn't had any feelings
that she was dying as my sister had, so how could I possibly connect with
an owl. Yet, I remembered I had had a dream where in the dream I was
positive that owls were our ancestors, being above life and seeing all. So
that perhaps if the owl was related to ancestors and to my mother in some
way that wouldn't it be wonderful if we d see it. I kept saying to
myself, Oh how I'd wish we could find it.

After stepping over the fallen log I raised up my head and an owl's eyes
were staring straight at me. It was so close it really spooked me, truly
shocked me. My husband was very close to me, right behind me. I stopped
in my tracks, turned my head ever so slowly to whisper to him, THERE IT
IS! I had cried wolf so many times that he thought I was joking once
again. My lips mouthed to him I'M NOT JOKING! He looked at me once again
with an expresssion of yeah, sure. He played along and said where. I
said a little to our left. He looked up and his eyes became as wide open
as the owl's when with amazement he saw it only 25 feet away!