At 10:40 AM 11/18/98 -0800, Christopher Hill wrote:

>While I'm as surprised as anybody, and I know very little about Spotted
>Owls, only what I've read, but this appearance *does* fit a pattern with
>the most similar owl, barred. Barreds are also definite woodland owls,
>and non migratory. But the one time barreds do descend to open valleys
>and cities from the wooded hills is in the winter. I remember reports of
>one in downtown Portland a couple winters ago, for instance.

There were a couple of incidents. One was a fall bird in the Park Blocks
across from the central library building. Friends frantically left
messages on my answering machine telling me to get down there, as the
library let Audubon folks into a space on the third floor where you could
photograph and look at the thing from about 20 feet away. I got home
at dusk, headed down - and it had boogied.

As I expected the spotted owl to do last night! As did Chris and apparently
most others of us who consider ourselves to know something of birds but
should know better, eh? :) 'Ole spotty 1, birders 0 but it does give more
folks the chance to see it.

The other incident that comes to mind was a barred owl that hung out all
winter in one of our wooded parks. I never actually saw this bird, only
its roost site and sign, as it was seen at this one known favorite spot
about every third day or so, it seemed.

We have no way of knowing if it survived all winter and moved on, or
if it didn't make it, but perhaps it's a reasonable guess that if it
weren't finding food it would've kept moving?

This is far removed from a downtown highway with blaring stereos and
streetlights, though! I can't imagine that bird thinks it's going
to turn downtown Everett into a successful winter territory!

>I don't know - at first look, it seemed smaller than I expected, based on
>my experience with barred owls, so I thought the odds favored it being a
>male. But I don't really have a clue what sex it is.

Remember that spotteds are a bit smaller than barreds...




- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
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