Subject: Hooters on a muted morning
Date: Feb 25 12:41:29 2001
From: mail to:jbroadus at seanet.com - jbroadus at seanet.com


Yesterday in Puyallup started with lots of singing birds, and it was a grey,
muted color sort of day, so Clarice and I decided to forgo driving down to
Nisqually and instead took a walk in the woods behind the Puyallup hatchery.

Nice flock of wigeons as we walked to the hatchery, and two male belted
kingfishers were disputing territory over the hatchery ponds. Several ducks,
no warblers.

There is a couple of years old footbridge over Clark's Creek that gets you into
the watershed for Maplewood Springs. This is a great wooded area with
steep ravines, good early on a foggy morning before the mountain bikes and
dogwalkers show up. Had it to ourselves, and were following an upstream
path when we stopped for "hooooo, hoo, hoo" in the distance. Never heard a
great horned owl in there before, but it kept it up and another owl answered,
much closer. We slowly followed the path and I began thinking that I should
have had the sense to wear muted colors rather than the REI gore-tex that is
designed to attract the ski patrol.

We both stationed ourselves on the path as the closer owl, of course, shut
up. But I was soon able to locate it, low in a big Doug fir, with the help of
some neighborly Steller's jays. Called Clarice over--"look up just to the right
of the jay; can't you see it? Its looking at us, I don't want to point. Just look
at the jay." All that sort of talk seems to make sense when you can only see
one jay through your bins. Of course, Clarice was straining at a different jay.
Finally the Owl muted with a great expelling, and flew off. Shortly thereafter,
the same very helpful jays showed us the other owl, which likewise got tired
of the racket.

As we descended the steep little canyons to the upper springs area and
across the two owls started calling to each other again. Nice sound, must be
that time of year. Climbed past a number of old growth Doug firs to the top,
just in time for the first noisy dogwalkers. We make the acquaintance of a lot
of guard dogs in our business, so I usually don't pay them much attention--I
have always had the confidence to bluff them. But when your on soft ground,
pushing uphill, and your face comes to the crest and is five inches from the
face of a pit bull terrier, and there's another one beside it and a particularly
ugly mongrel there too-- well I didn't exactly mute myself but I did backpedal
a little. We told the dogwalking threesome that if they tried being quieter they
might hear the owls.

Left the watershed and watched a flock of shovelers circling in a pond, then
went down a walking path through a subdivision to an abandoned property
that will be a park one day, and met a nice adult male Coop. He stretched,
muted for us, and took off for a hunt in the woods. Down through the park,
past a redtail, and back to the hatchery and home. Still a grey day, but the
owls were worth the stroll.
Jerry Broadus, PLS
Geometrix Surveying, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Puyallup, WA. 98371