Hello Tweets,

I went for a day hike somewhere in the eastern half of the Olympics yesterday. It was a fabulous fall day. We were above the lowland clouds and it was partially sunny until about 1:00 when light gray clouds rolled in. The colors of the various huckleberry's, mountain ash, and white rhododendrons glowed through forest openings and across the higher peaks in the subalpine. On the way up we found several prime lion's manes that we marked the locations of to collect on the way down (umm, dinner tonight!). Just when we thought that the day couldn't get any better (though we still held out hope for finding a few boletes or cauliflowers!) we had stopped to inspect a mushroom when we flushed a spotted owl that had been sitting on a branch nearby. Rather than flushing farther away, it flew in closer to us a couple of times until it was about 25 feet from us. We were in very mature western hemlock forest around 3700' with some of the largest hemlocks I've ever seen. We sat and watched it for about 15 minutes, or rather it watched us, before we headed on up the mountain. A few hours later on the way down, it was still perched on the same branch so I stopped again to take some pictures, and after a couple of minutes it flew into a branch right beside the trail and about 10 feet from my face! We sat and watched the bird for another 10 minutes before having to head back down due to diminishing light.

This was the first time that I didn't have DSLR with me but luckily at the last minute, I decided to stop by a friend's house to borrow a P&S and was able to get a few pics. I apologize in advance that I won't say where this bird is to be found. I was going to go back today to get soem better pictures but the weather finally broke. I will contact the appropraiate landowner on Monday to share the sighting. There are a few more photos of the bird in the same gallery, some have had the eye's manipulated in PS to rid red eye.

http://www.pbase.com/rodg/image/68599231

Rod Gilbert, Olympia
roderickgilbert at comcast.net