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

[ron_newman]

Photos?

[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.

[misterthorn.livejournal.com]

Last year, a few days after Irene, there was a screech owl in the tree in front of our Cambridge house. In the year since, I've never seen it again, which is too bad. Owls are pretty magnificent; you're very lucky to have seen one!

[i-leonardo.livejournal.com]

> How cool is that?!?

That's VERY cool ! thanks for posting.

[lizzyclean.livejournal.com]

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

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

there seem to be ... MANY of them not terribly far North of the cities... no more than 35 miles.

course, a LITTLE further out, all of 10ish miles perhaps, there are a lot more, and they are bloody loud :)

"the owls are not what they seem"

#

[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.

[somgirl4.livejournal.com]

It's good to hear that the owls are coming back.
I used to hear them every night in the 80's and see them sometimes.
They weren't uncommon here years ago.