Can anyone answer Paige's question? Please respond to list and to her.

Jane Stewart
Sequim, WA
mailto: mccomb at olympus.net

Subject:
Owls in love



At twilight, we saw two Barred owls in love. We were finishing a
walk.

A shadow silently crossed the Trillium dell -- aha, from an old
maple -- and landed on a parallel branch in another old maple.

"It's our owl!" said my mother. We stared upward 60 feet,
straining to see. It hunkered but did not settle. Looked around.

After a long pause -- perhaps 5 minutes -- another shadow landed
beside it. Almost as big. They inched together. They rubbed
cheeks and necks. They did it repeatedly, with arcs and curves
that translate as great fondness.

While they were doing this, robins -- I thought them teenaged
robins, but I could be wrong -- kept dive-bombing them from the
higher canopy of the maple, glancing off the owls' heads and
backs, screaming robin warnings. The owls flinched but did not
separate. The drama appeared to be on permanent recycle when we
went into the house after another 10 minutes or so.

Can anyone tell us about barred owls, or the mating habits of
owls? They have only begun to appear on Chilliwack Mountain,
where we live. We first heard their characteristic call two years
ago. For months now in the darkness, even in sluicing rain,
sometimes even in the snow, we'd been hearing a single owl-call
repeatedly. It might not always have been the same owl, but if
not, they have perfect pitch. The call used to be hoo-hoo,
hoo-HOOOOwaaaa, dropping hollowly at the end like a banshee down
a well. -- -/......, -- -/...... A couple of months ago the dying
fall disappeared, producing a more chipper, classical owl
transcript: hoo-hoo, hoo-HOOOO, -- -/ .

Paige Woodward
pwoodwar at dowco.com
On top of Chilliwack Mountain in southwestern British Columbia,
Canada
Wet Zone 6


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