Subject: last words over a deceased owl (was Dead Snowy Owl)
Date: Feb 03 07:58:23 1998
From: "James R Lyles III, Technical Editor, Tacoma, WA "<jrlyles at usgs.gov> - "James R Lyles III, Technical Editor, Tacoma, WA "<jrlyles at usgs.gov>



Yesterday, Christopher Hill quite sensibly suggested
that the dead large owl found outside my downtown Tacoma
office building--an owl that I didn't see before it was
disposed of--was a Barn Owl rather than the Snowy Owl that
witnesses indicated.

Last evening my reply was garbled in transmission. So I
hope you all tweeters will indulge me as I rerun my reply
in a more coherent version.



------- Forwarded from <jrlyles at eskimo.com>-----------------------



Chris--

Thanks for your skeptical note about which owl--a Snowy or,
as you aver more likely, a Barn Owl--breathed its last outside
my office building in downtown Tacoma.

I agree that the security man's identification of the owl is
certainly not conclusive. And I also regret that I could not
locate the compacted corpse of the owl, which had been squashed
into one of a whole bunch of large bundles of cardboard and other
stuff.

Indeed, I supposed, as you do, that the owl might have been a
Barn Owl, though they too would be very unusual around here.
Without identifying the bird illustrations in advance for security
man, I showed him illustrations of the Barn Owl (and Great Horned
Owl) as well as the Snowy Owl. He insisted on the illustration of
the Snowy Owl, even when I drew his attention to the face of the
Barn Owl and asked him to imagine a pale-backed version of the
Barn Owl. But he had handled the dead bird, admired it and its face,
and still said that it was big and all white (not pale), except
for a some dark "speckles" or "sprinkles" here and there. (By
"sprinkles," he may well have meant any kind of dark streaking,
barring, mottling, or whatever.)

In any case, the security man didn't misidentify the bird; he didn't
pin the name Snowy Owl on it. He didn't know what kind of owl it
was, describing it only it as a "big, white owl."

I also talked to the custodial woman who had disposed of the
bird,
but she hadn't inspected it as closely. She just knew that it
was an owl.

So I dunno. That's the best we can do. Our common sense says that
it's likely a Barn Owl, but the witnesses describe a Snowy Owl.

Thanks.

--Jim Lyles, Tacoma
<jrlyles at usgs.gov> or <jrlyles at eskimo.com>


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