The crows this morning announced that George, the barred owl that hangs out
behind my house had returned and sure enough, about 1:30 this afternoon he
had come out onto his maple branch perch to be admired. I had set a
mousetrap under my sink last night and had chucked the victim this morning
in the close proximity of the compost pile. A couple neighborhood kids
retrieved the mouse and offered him to George, who simply blinked sleepily
at them, apparently not at all interested in this tidbit. A bit later during
a sun break I noticed George was gone, and I started working in my backyard
and found him in a nearby cedar tree. As I was moving boards about in a fit
of homeowneritis I was surprised that George was not a bit disturbed as I
threw boards from one pile into another. I picked up the last board in the
pile and there were 3 Carabid beetles, and some those gray roly-poly bugs as
my kids call them. I had moved about 5 feet away, when a motion caught my
eye and it was George, who had flown down, quite close to me, and was eating
the bugs! This was quite a test of our relationship, and a couple times
George looked at me in case I was an owlivore. I passed the test and did not
move an eyebrow until George had finished his little snack and flown back
into his cedar perch, this time a few branches lower than before.

About 4pm, during another sunbreak, my daughter and her friend had tied a
piece of kite string to the leg of the dead and now wet mouse. The plan was
to drag the mouse on the ground, George would swoop on it and eat it. The
plan worked to almost perfection, the kids drug the mouse, and George came
swooping down and snatched it up. This is where the plan sort of failed. The
kid holding the string got so excited she forgot to let go. The slack went
out of the string and George went BOING, flipping him in an aerial
summersault. He let go of the mouse and landed on a nearby tree, a nifty
gymnastics move. The kids, after untangling the string, did the mouse trick
again, and again George went after the mouse. Only this time he landed on it
and seemed to examine it closely. He then flew up into a snag, trailing the
string behind him. Owl fishing anyone? George managed to clip the string off
the mouse and then eat it, swallowing it head first. At this point there
were 9 kids and me assembled and we all cheered.

The kids are now scouring the neighborhood for something to go owl fishing
with. I tried to convince them to try the annoying little yappy dog down the
street, but they didn't go for it. Some kids just ran past my office window
with a jar full of something, probably bugs. Hope George is still hungry.

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous at msn.com


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