Barred Owls

[rachel02144.livejournal.com]

At 7 pm on Halloween, we saw a pair of Barred Owls on Elm Street.  How cool is that?!?  We figure they got blown into the city by the hurricane.  Has anyone else seen them?

Comments

[lizzyclean.livejournal.com]

Lucky!!! What part of Elm St? I am a diehard birder and have never seen an owl in the wild. I'd love to go quietly lurk/walk in the general area and hope for a sighting.
It's not uncommon for barred owls to chill in the suburbs where there are a lot of trees (like Somerville) but they're darn hard to spot. What an awesome treat!

[rachel02144.livejournal.com]

They flew down Beech St into a tree at the corner of Elm. We walked underneath it and they looked down at us and hooted! We checked again about 30 minutes later, but they were gone.

[lizzyclean.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That's so cool that they hooted at you. :)

[siderea]

A friend posted (under lock) that she saw northern saw-whet owl at Fanueil Hall on Sunday.

[kelkyag]

I am only sure that it was an owl; northern saw-whet is a best guess by two non-birders. (First guess was screech owl, but they have ear tufts, and this one didn't.) This picture from Mass Audubon seemed like a pretty good match for the owl we saw, from memory, for color and face structure.