"Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?"

Owls have long been regarded as creatures of mystery and are held in awe by people in many cultures. In the contemporary popular imagination they are characterized as birds that possess great wisdom, but just as often they are viewed with fear and suspicion. Navajos, for example, traditionally see them as harbingers of death, or as the consorts of witches or other evil spirits. The fact that owls are creatures of the night and thus rarely seen goes a long way to building the aura of inscrutability that surrounds them. Also, their role as predators--many of them very large and powerful predators!--contributes to their reputation as birds to be reckoned with, and that must be treated with respect.

I love owls. Always have. Never see enough of them. I wish we had owls in our woods, if for no other reason than to keep the chipmunk and gray squirrel population in check. Only once have I heard owls here. One night, or, more precisely, very early one morning, last summer, when I was up late writing and had the windows open, I heard a pair of Barred Owls having a bit of a conversation in the woods down near the river. I daresay that the call of the Barred Owl is the one that is most familiar to the most people; the "who cooks for you?" pattern is easily recognized. And easily imitated. I have, on numerous occasions, had conversations with Barred owls at various spots in Tennessee, Massachusetts, and Kentucky. Sometimes of an evening I venture onto our screen porch here in Maine and try to call one up, so far without success.

But they are certainly around. An acquaintance on the Maine birding e-mail list who lives across the Mousam River, and somewhat upstream from us, has had a Barred Owl around regularly recently, and there are fairly frequent reports of them from around the state.  Barred Owls are generally regarded as the most common large owl in New England, and because they do sometimes hunt during the day, if people have a casual sighting of an owl it's most likely to be of a Barred Owl.

F'rinstance.....my son and daughter-in-law from California visited after Christmas this year. On the afternoon of December 30 we went for a drive around the area.  As we got near Cape Porpoise, just up the coast from Kennebunkport, Veronica suddenly said: "There's an owl!" I turned my head just in time to catch a glimpse of a nice Barred Owl perched low in a tree, right next to the road. I turned the car around and approached it slowly, pulling over to the right side of the road several feet shy of the owl.

My son, Dave, was in the back seat, on the right side of the car, and had his camera in hand. He lowered the window in the car and was able to get numerous nice shots through the open window.

 

The owl seemed unconcerned by our presence so Dave pushed his luck, slowly opened the car door, and got out. This gave him the chance to get some even closer shots, including a great one of the bird's impressive talons.

Woe be unto the mouse or chipmunk unfortunate enough to get in the path of this guy when he's in search of dinner!

Dave continued to creep ever closer and ended up getting a terrific portrait:

Eventually the owl decided he'd reached the limit of his tolerance and took off across the road, disappearing into the trees in the cemetery on the other side. Of course he did so just at a time when Dave was reviewing shots on his camera and was not poised to shoot, so he was not able to get any good photos of the bird in flight. But we were all delighted to have had such a long, clear, close look at this magnificent bird!

Ironically, the previous time I'd gotten what my friend Melissa calls a "walk-away look" at a Barred Owl [i.e., you have the chance to look at a bird as long as you care to and walk away only when you're good and ready] I was also with Dave. That time it was at Radnor Lake State Park, in Nashville, TN, early in January 2009. We were not far from the east parking lot, just beginning our walk around the lake, when we spotted an owl flying in the woods to our right, fairly close to the road. He landed in a tree on a limb overhanging a small creek, and was wonderfully visible from the trail. We stood on the bridge over the creek and Dave took numerous photos of the owl.  As he was shooting away I told him to relish the moment, because he'd never again get such a good look at a Barred Owl, or have a such good photo op with one! Boy was I wrong...happily so!

Tennessee owl.

As always, click on any of the photos to see larger copies of them.

I'll be back with a second post on Barred Owls soon!