Tag Archives: Birds

My first Owl

Birds,

The first owl I ever saw was in Southern California. (You do have them, Storyteller…)

My not-yet-husband had a summer job at the RAND Corp. and we got to stay in various homes of RAND employees while they were on vacation. We stayed in two Santa Monica homes — one was a condo and the other was huge and we stayed in a lovely home in the Santa Monica Mountains. Allegedly Peter Fonda was our neighbor but we never saw him.

When we were living in the house in the mountains we invited the owner of the condo to have dinner with us. As we sat on the patio, looking down at the sparkling coastline of LA a huge owl swooped down within inches of the table. I don’t know what kind it was — it was dark and we were too stunned to do anything but sit there with our mouths hanging open.

But it was memorable. Funny how some bird encounters are so memorable, while others are less so. Or maybe not funny at all.

Owl Story

Birds,

A recent post on Birdchick’s blog about people mistaking a fake owl for the real thing reminded me of the time it happened to me.

I was 8 months pregnant with Clare and sound asleep one night. Suddenly, my husband, who’d been out taking a walk in the neighborhood rushed into the bedroom and woke me up to tell me an owl was perched on a neighbor’s fence.

I got up, got semi-dressed and waddled up the street and down the neighbor’s driveway only to see it was a fake owl.

It took a while to convince Dean, but when he could almost touch it, he believed me.

I was not kind about it — although I should have been. After all — he thought he had something special to show me.

Not much later, we did see a Great Eared Owl in a tree in a yard behind our house. So, it could have been the real thing. But it wasn’t.

New Yard Bird

Birds,

So the other day I heard the blue jays making their jay noises. I hear them sometimes, but not enough to consider it normal, so I often check on what’s going on when they start their calling. Not long ago they alerted me to an interesting standoff between a  hawk and a couple of doves. This time, however, all I noticed were the jays in the tree. I turned to go inside when I saw a small bird in the branch closest to me. I stood still, barely breathing, and it turned full circle to let me see it’s yellow undersides, dark gray back and black necklace. I also took note of its white eyering. We stared at each other for a while, then it flew off to the other side of the yard. I flew into the house and found my Sibley’s Guide. I knew it was a warbler because of the shape and beak. I looked at the prothonotary warbler first, because I thought that is what it was, but the prothonotary warbler doesn’t have the black necklace. After browsing the guide for a while I decided I’d had a Canada warbler in my yard — although the back seemed too dull for the breeding male and even the female. They are migrating now, so I think I saw a Canada Warbler, but if you have other suggestions, let me know.