This afternoon, our neighbor Beverly Way called Miyoko and me over to Siena Drive, where she had found an EASTERN SCREECH-OWL on the ground. The owl was outwardly unscathed, free of snow despite a dusting on the ground, and facing the late-afternoon sun with closed eyes as if basking. But my hope dimmed with every step closer. I bent and took the owl in my hands. It remained inert, stiff, literally frozen in its final pose of life.
Beverly, her kids, and a couple of other young neighbors joined us in examining the dead owl up close. The bird's feet were all knobby bulges (muscles or tubercles, I'm not sure), covered with pale, pink, finely pebbled skin and tipped with exquisitely curved, deadly sharp half-inch black talons. Each feather of the ear tufts had two completely different halves (vanes) separated by the central shaft - one vane white with black stripes and the other black with little orange rings, a ridiculously stark contrast made somehow all the more astonishingly beautiful by the improbability of the pairing. I had seen before that screech-owl ear tufts are two-toned, white on the inner half and dark on the outer, but never had I thought that one single feather could be so different on each side like that! Mostly, though, I think the lasting impression for all of us was of the whole bird - so much the image of its living self even in death, so immediately present before our eyes and yet gone too, filling us with joy and sorrow all at once. https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/114049026073343451957/albums/529196326235 0115713/6108406609704333906?pid=6108406609704333906 <https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/114049026073343451957/albums/52919632623 50115713/6108406609704333906?pid=6108406609704333906&oid=1140490260733434519 57> &oid=114049026073343451957 https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/114049026073343451957/albums/529196326235 0115713/6108406643766178946?pid=6108406643766178946 <https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/114049026073343451957/albums/52919632623 50115713/6108406643766178946?pid=6108406643766178946&oid=1140490260733434519 57> &oid=114049026073343451957 This discovery, only about 500 feet from our property, may explain the absence since Wednesday of any screech-owl from the box in our yard. The dead owl appears browner in the photos than the one recently in our box, but I think that camera distance, lighting, and feather positions could make the same bird appear very different. Mark Chao PS. I saw the two PEREGRINE FALCONS today at 4:30 on separate ledges on the west side of Bradfield Hall along Tower Road on Cornell's campus. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
