All,

I'm traveling for work (Austin, TX where it was 75 and FOGGY this morning and got up to 92 this afternoon) so I couldn't get to the Arboretum to see the owl. The photos are pretty definitive though - Barred Owl. I lived with Great Grey's at 2 locations in the Sierra Nevada's (Wawona, Yosemite National Park) and Agnew Meadows (Madera County) (I visited them last month) and now see Barred Owls on a weekly basis at my property in Preston. The pics are of a typical (though maybe somewhat pale) Barred.

I can't believe the number of Barred individuals that have been on the move over the past 3 weeks - I've seen at least 5 individuals in a 1/2 mile stretch of the Preston-Snoqualmie trail in a single hour - most sitting wide out in the open in daylight -juvies and adults- they are feeding on a massive number of voles that seem to have had a very good late summer and early fall - the voles literally run across the trail in an almost steady stream at some points. The night time calls indicate that there are even more in the surrounding woods/valley (maybe 2 or 3 families with great survival? speculation is easy, proof not so) and the calls come in all the typical Barred forms (who cooks, hoo wah, screams) that are pretty entertaining when sitting out in the hot tub. I haven't been home in 10 days, so I don't know what the Preston situation is, but given the density of Barreds I saw it is not unlikely that good survival has led to a large number of birds on the move - the arboretum probably looks pretty good to a bird coming from any direction.Rob Conway Preston / Fall City, WAlatitude 47 32' 20" , longitude -121 54' 42" robin_birder at hotmail.com> From: sidles at u.washington.edu> Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:15:55 -0700> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu> Subject: [Tweeters] photos of the "Arboretum Owl"> > > Dear Tweeters> > It turns out that my colleague Joe Garbini took two pictures> of the "Arboretum Owl", which he has sent to me, and which are> available here:> > http://faculty.washington.edu/sidles/QSE_is_in_NP/owl_1.png> http://faculty.washington.edu/sidles/QSE_is_in_NP/owl_2.png> > These photos are unretouched ... I hope they are sufficient> for an identification.> > Just to mention, that original post was *mine*, not Connie's!> > So if this owl is a "mega-bird" ... then the credit is entirely> due to Joe and Jaime Garbini!> > And if should be just an "urban owl", oh well ... as Connie> says "If you don't look, you don't see!", and I hope folks> weren't too inconvenienced.> > Happy birding ... John Sidles> > _______________________________________________> Tweeters mailing list> Tweeters at u.washington.edu> http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters
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