Barred Owl
Barred Owl
By: Pat Coate
Barred owls are found in forests throughout the eastern U.S. They have begun to move into the Pacific Northwest where they are putting pressure on the already beleaguered spotted owl.
Birds of Prey
Broad-winged Hawk
By: Pat Coate
Last Sunday the Canyon Camera Club sponsored its 8th Annual Photographer’s Dream Day at the Mount Morris Dam & Visitor Center. There were tours of and views from the dam and a couple of great seminars on photography in Letchworth State Park presented by Gary & Phyllis Thompson of Image City Photography (Rochester). There were many different subjects to photograph, including antique autos and bikes, and people in costume – a bagpiper, Seneca Indian, Mary Jamison, pioneers.
My favorite subjects to photograph, however, were provided by Ron Walker of Friends with Feathers. Friends with Feathers is an organization whose stated mission is to educate the public about birds of prey. Mr. Walker had on hand a broad-winged hawk, barn owl and barred owl that for various reasons cannot be released. It was fun to see these birds up close and learn more about them. Tidbits of information from the Friends with Feathers website are shown below in quotes.
Daytime Barred Owl [video]
A hunting Barred Owl in the Rain
This evening I went on a dusk birding trip for some Short-eared Owls within our county (with my birdclub friend Mike D.). This has been a fun project that we have been doing for many years and are never successful in finding any owls (of course). We went a little early this time to look for waterfowl (scouting for tomorrows trip) and came across this bird. We discussed this large bird we found and trying to decide if it was a Red-tailed Hawk or Rough-legged Hawk (something didn’t look right). We moved my truck for a better angle, pulled the spotting scope out and noticed this bird had dark eyes. Could this have been a Short-eared Owl?? Naaa just a Barred Owl!! Wait . . . it wasn’t even dusk yet??
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My Irruption Northern Saw-whet Owl Year
First Northern Saw-whet Owl of the Season.
This year the Allegany State Park (Northern Saw-whet Owl) banding station was open for 28 nights and captured 83 different individuals with 90 total NSWO captures. We did not capture the hundreds of owls like the big migration sites but this stations numbers this season was significantly better than my previous three years of banding combined. The last two weeks in November resulted in very bad weather conditions (lake effect, strong winds and rain) which considerably reduced the number of net hours that the station typically operates. (more…)
Mon@rch's Nature Blog 