Elizabeth,

I was up there a couple of weeks ago and probably go back tomorrow. I
located at least one of the Great Horned Owls about 1:00 pm (see my post
from Feb 3). It was sitting on the second branch up, on the left, in the
left pine of the two in the group of alders about 4 feet from the trunk. The
then unoccupied nest is to the left in the background. As you correctly
stated, it is across from the new parking lot, on the left side when heading
towards the boat ramp. There is a small track leading towards the pines. To
my knowledge, this is at least the third year that this nest is occupied.

Good Birding!

Hans Feddern
Twin Lakes/Federal Way
thefedderns at gmail.com

On Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Elizabeth O'Herlihey <dylanoher at aol.com>wrote:

> 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
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>
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