Hi,

Yesterday (President's Day) , my husband and I were in the Skagit
area birding. Late in the day (4:30 p.m.), we stopped by the Skagit
Bay Estuary Unit off Wylie Road to look for the Great Horned Owls
reported on tweeters. We parked in the new parking lot and looked
around toward the water at first. We asked a photographer there if he
had seen the owls. He said no, but he heard them about 20 minutes ago
and he pointed behind us, on the other side of the parking lot, to a
large clump of trees. We walked over there and waited and waited and
then heard two different owls who seemed to calling to each other. We
searched the trees with our binoculars and could not see them. As
much as we tried, they were not visible to us. So we got in the car,
thinking we would drive over to another road we thought was behind
the clump. As we were leaving the unit, I saw a trail covered with
wood chips that looked like it would get us behind the trees. So we
stopped and got on the trail. Again, we could clearly hear them but
could not see them. But patience prevailed. After about 15-20 minutes
we saw one move, fly from one branch to another. We finally could get
the scope of this one and "see" him. Believe me it was not easy as he
blended in with the branches and dead leaves. And to our surprise,
the owl was perched on the lower trees and not the high ones we were
originally searching. Seeing the owl made a good birding day, a great
day.

Elizabeth O'Herlihey & Phil Wong
Seattle, WA