Owling

Spoiler alert: we did not find an owl.

This past weekend we went owling. To a local well known secret place.*

There is a certain mythology about keeping the locations of owl roosts secret. A couple of years ago I tried to find any actual evidence or research to back this. It seems common sense, but as someone who's studied physics, (see: relativity, quantum mechanics), I've a certain skepticism about arguments from common sense. And I found no such evidence.

But I digress ...

Patty and I met several friends and headed off into the woods.

As I've written before, when looking for owls one looks for whitewash (poop) and pellets (puke). And we found both.

Poop

Puke

But there was no owl above in the tree. There were no owls anywhere to be found.

What we did find were deer stands.

Half a dozen such stands in the area we searched. I do not recall these stands being here before. Perhaps they are taken down after hunting season? And Perhaps the owls don't like the company of hunters?

We also found evidence of woodpeckers.

But we saw no woodpeckers either. We did hear a Red-bellied Woodpecker or two though. So there was that.

After traipsing about in the woods for a couple of hours we split up and headed our respective ways. Patty, I, and our friend Bernie headed to a spot where Screech Owl has been roosting. But we saw no owl there. And then we headed to a local diner for a surprisingly large and yummy breakfast (I had the Jersey Devil omelet).

A nice but somewhat disappointing morning.

Then we went home and worked to get owls to come visit us.

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* I once joined my friend Steve Kacir on a trip to Peace Valley Park, for among other birds, owls. A location he dubbed a "A well known, secret place.", a phrase which has stuck with me. And one that points out a bit of the hypocrisy of 'not revealing owl locations'.