This is a situation that I was not involved with, but I thought a number of
people would find it interesting. Some time during the second week of October,
I think, Jim Acton of Spokane was called out to the Davenport area to check
out some snapshots of an owl that had crashed into a farmhouse window.
Apparently the collision occurred in the very early morning and the owl sat stunned
for about a half hour, posing for pictures. Then it regained its senses and
took off. Although it was hard to believe, the people who took the shots said
it looked like a Boreal Owl.

The pictures showed that it was indeed a Boreal Owl. One or more have been
sent off to bird records people. I haven't seen one. The house is south of US
2 between Davenport and Reardan, an area many birders know from cruising for
Snowy Owls and other good winter birds. It is open wheat country, 15 miles or
so from the Columbia and Spokane Rivers and the mountains on the other side.
Boreal Owl habitat is 60 miles or so to the north. In the Northwest, an
individual showing up so far from its home habitat is not completely unprecedented
but very very rare.

Mark Houston
Spokane