January 29th, 2011

Went for a cross-country ski at Laurel Creek on Thursday after work with my wife, son, and several GRCA employees.  We finished up at about 6:00.  People were climbing into their cars and I suggested that we try calling for owls.  We went out on to the bridge directly in front of the nature centre and called for a screech owl.  On the first call, a great-horned owl called back.  After a few more calls, a screech owl flew over us, landed in a tree that we couldn’t see, and proceeded to call back.  It seemed fairly morose about the whole thing.  For some reason its heart didn’t seem to be in the calls.  You can hear a more determined screech owl call here:

http://www.owlpages.com/sounds/Megascops-asio-2.mp3

You can see pictures of screech owls here:

http://www.carolinabirdclub.org/gallery/strigiformes.html?s=easo

The screech owl called for about 5 minutes before deciding that the intruder had left.  As we were walking back to the parking lot, someone saw the great-horned owl silouetted against the sky over a field.  We got a pair of binoculars and watched it for about 10 minutes until it flew off.

These owls would be within 300 metres of houses.  People are usually amazed to find that owls live so close to us.  A volunteer at Laurel Creek said recently that she had a great horned owl catching mice in her wood pile, and she lives in Forest Hill.  Gotta make a living wherever you can I guess…