Subject: Owls & Hawk
Date: Sep 13 19:35:29 2002
From: Hugh Jennings - hughbirder at bigzoo.net


This morning four of us from the E. Lake WA AS did our monthly survey of
Ardmore and Tam O'Shanter Parks in NE Bellevue. At Ardmore Park, about 1/3
of the way in from NE 24th we spotted a Barred Owl that flew into a fir
tree. After changing from tree to tree it finally settled on a branch of a
fir tree, about 8-10 ft from the trunk. Right away a gray squirrel starting
playing a cat and mouse game with the owl. It would venture out on the same
branch to within 4-5' of the owl and then scamper back to the trunk. The
squirrel would go down to the next branch and venture out to just below the
owl. Then it would scamper back to the trunk and go up to the owl branch, go
out on the limb again, scamper back and repeat the process. We watched this
game for over five minutes, wondering if the owl would try to catch the
squirrel. It didn't happen while we were watching and the game was still
going on when we left.

Then at Tam O'Shanter Park, just in from the playground about 200' we heard
a Steller's Jay scolding very vociferously. We watched the area where the
noise came from and finally saw a Cooper's Hawk feeding on some small prey
it had pinned to the branch. We were able to get excellent looks thru the
binoculars for some time. Both sightings were firsts for our survey in these
two parks.

Hugh Jennings
Bellevue, WA
hughbirder at bigzoo.net