Subject: [Tweeters] Great Gray Owls at Okanogan Co. Snow park - a bit of
Date: Apr 3 08:09:26 2008
From: Ron McCluskey - rmcclsky at mindspring.com


Last Saturday, as Khanh so well described, we had a great day of birding. Unfortunately, because of work I was not able to join him on Sunday.

One of the highlights of the day was meeting Gary Weisz (sp?) who obviously was a birder, but also was involved in grooming the trail at the snow park just outside Havillah. He told us of some of the history of the Great Gray Owls there.

As he told it, there used to be a large dead tree with a large fork at the right height for them to make a nest. They had nested there for years and that is one reason that it was such a reliable spot for people to find them.

However, some years ago, it fell over. So, it has been quite a while since it has been a good spot for them.

When Khanh and I were there in March, we definitely had a response to a Barred Owl call. This last time, we heard many individual hoots that had the muffled quality and the right tone for Great Grays, but they were not put together in a pattern that made for a positive ID.

That being said, we can only hope that they have found another good nesting tree and this will again be a reliable spot to find them.

I'll try to get more pics up later today.

Best wishes,
Ron McCluskey
Cheney, WA
rmcclsky at mindspring dot com
http://canondigitalslrs.com