On the spur of the moment I drove to Weld County this afternoon with hopes of seeing both Long-eared and Short-eared owls.
On January 18 Pamela Breitsch reported a Long-Eared Owl at Banner Lakes Pond 7 “Very easily found, seen, photographed.” (Ira Sanders found it on February 6.) This sounded easy, like the Peyton Snowy. But think about it--have you ever had an easy time finding a Long-eared Owl? For example I have never seen a Long-eared Owl sitting on a barn ridge, big as a Husky Dog like Peyton Snowy. As it turned out the Long- eared was very hard to find and in my case impossible to see or photograph. I managed to hear its soft hoots, about 20 feet away, but the juniper/Russian olive hedgerow west of Pond 7 was so thick and impenetrable that I could not lay eyes on it, not that my eyes are sharp to begin with. Here is a map where I heard this owl, south end of Pond 7. http://tiny.cc/HIHTi Park on CR 52, trailhead east of Hudson, then walk north. Hunters blasting prairie dogs in this area. On to the Short-eared. A group of five or six of them were reported recent weeks by Pamela Breitsch, Ira Sanders, and Kayleen Niyo on CR 48 south of Lower Latham Reservoir. I met Mark Chavez parked along Cr-48 on the same mission. We agreed that if either of us saw a Short- eared we would flash our headlights. (We noticed several other cars down the road with birders looking for Short-eared, perhaps a bird club outing.) Finally at about 6 pm Mark flashed his headlights, so I drove toward his car. He saw one Short-eared Owl carrying prey, flying very low across the road. Mark’s Young daughter exclaimed to him, “Look, it’s flying right in front of that guy.” Alas, I didn’t see it, had my headlights off. Here’s a map: http://tiny.cc/Siagp Great-horned owls? No luck. But to conclude on a positive note I did photograph a dark-morph Ferruginous Hawk near Lower Latham. I got spoiled by Peyton Snowy; other owls not so easy, at least for me. Good birding and better luck, Tom Wilberding -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds". To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en?hl=en Visit the CFO Website at: www.cfo-link.org
