Owls 13 Owlers 3

The title is how Bobbie explains the outcome of our latest owl venture. We are trailing owls this year. We hope to see 13 different kinds within the Oregon border but we may have to wander just a little ways into the state of Washington. We've already seen a great horned owl (the one made famous in our book Owl Grove) and we had the breathless privilege of seeing a snowy owl on our first trip out and a short eared owl just off I-5 a few weeks ago along with getting a good close up view of our new great niece, Olivia.

The last couple trips out have rendered no new owl sightings but have transformed me into a true amateur birder complete with new binoculars hanging around my neck. Today we quietly clomped around in an old wheat warehouse on an Oregon Century Farm hoping to see a barn owl who left lots of hefty evidence of his presence in the form of big owl pellets and plenty of whitewash which is maybe the folksy bird watchers way of referring to poop. We studied it carefully to try to determine which side of the barn he entered and which side he exited according to the spray patterns of the, um, whitewash. And we used the flashlight to try to spot him up in the rafters. Bobbie even climbed up one of the wooden ladders that led up to one of the shafts to try to spot him. No luck so we had some fun looking at the old farm equipment and some interesting sorts of farm relics in the huge structure which cast all sorts of angles of light patterns in and around the inside of the warehouse. We warmed ourselves up in the car which we angled into just the right position to catch sight of the owl as he left at dusk to hunt but we didn't see him even though we lingered until almost total darkness. We figure he must have a secondary roost somewhere else but we will return within the next few weeks to try to spot him so we can up our score against the winning owls.