October 30th, 2013

Yesterday at the end of the day I went over to Laurel Creek to drop some things off for Laura. When I got out of the car the Chickadees were going nuts, accompanied by a White-breasted Nuthatch and an American Goldfinch. Former outdoor educator, Fraser Gibson, was coming out of the building and I pointed to the direction of the sounds. As we walked towards the cedars he asked me what I thought it was – I said probably a Northern Saw-Whet Owl. We started looking in the dense trees, firstly low, then higher up, and sure enough, looking down at us was a saw-whet. I went in to get the Laurel folks and he went to get his spotting scope. We had wonderful views through the scope. It was also a ‘lifer’ for Fraser, which made it that much more fun to look at it with him. Laura went and grabbed her camera and took the photos below.

Northern Saw-Whet Owls are a very tiny owl, measuring only about 7or 8 inches in height. They are a very cute bird with their big yellow eyes and long ‘eyelashes’. They are also migratory. This one, like many of his/her friends, was surely flying to its more southerly retreat. Many bird observatories monitor their migration with banding efforts.

This one was a little too fluffy to be able to see if it was banded, but it was a nice sighting to share. It is always worth checking out the areas where chickadees are behaving oddly… you just never know : )