I have a small, 4 foot diameter garden pond. At 6;30 I was standing in my
view window, staring vacantly at the pond when a large movement came into
view. It was the Barred Owl that I had seen earlier (The one the crows were
all excited about from an earlier post) and it had swooped down, done a
nifty sort of pull up just before hitting the water move, and extended a
talon. It then landed at the edge of the pond, and as it reached its head
down to its talons I realized that it had snagged and was eating one of the
pacific chorus frogs from the pond. (formerly tree frog). How it had seen
the frog in the rainy, gathering gloom was quite an accomplishment. It was
an amazing view, seeing this huge owl perched right outside my window on the
ground. Some kids from the neighborhood stopped on the road and were looking
at it so I walked outside and we all stood, maybe 30 feet from the owl,
talking and pointing and the owl jumped up on a landscaping log and started
rubbing its beak on the log. A while later it flew up into the lower branch
on the tree in my front yard. By this time there was a crowd of 12 neighbors
all excitedly checking out the owl. Then, as one of the kids went walking up
the road, the owl came down and swooped about two feet from the kid, before
pulling up into the next tree. The kid had a white marking on the shoulders
of his dark shirt which I think is what caused the owl to check it out. What
was amusing is that all of us watching sort of screamed, thinking the owl
was going after the kid, and he turned around and never saw, heard or felt a
thing. The kid didn't believe us, even though the owl was now perched over
his head. So the kid continued walking and the owl stooped on him again!
This time the kid was looking and he ducked as the owl dropped down. This
time the owl flew back to its original perch, and then gave the Who, who,
who cooks for you, call, which sounded suspiciously like laughter. It was
quite the owl show, and lots of my neighbors got to see it, and several
even told me how glad they were that we have a pet policy that keeps cats
indoors. I mean, heck, if an owl goes after a kid, a cat is nothing......

Rob Sandelin
Sky Valley Environments <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous at msn.com


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