March 28, 2024
FIELDS POND AUDUBON NOTEBOOK

Where are the owls when you need them?

March is the month that owls are the most active and vociferous in this part of Maine.

A saw-whet owl visited the Orono back yard of Audubon naturalist Holly Twining, her husband Travis Baker and their son Zane. The diminutive owl flew in, landed on their woodpile and looked around.

Travis saw the owl first, ran upstairs to grab the camera, ran downstairs and took a picture. Then he alerted the rest of the family. Excitement reigned.

Zane, not yet 2, pointed with his little finger and said, “Oww! Oww!” The owl flew even closer, perching in a tree less than a foot from the kitchen window. As night fell, Zane said, “Night, night, Oww.”

The previous day, at the Fields Pond Audubon Center, Holly had taught a group of preschool children about the saw-whet owl. Seeing the real thing fly in, and delight the whole family, was a wonderful gift from nature.

The same day, and again the next day, a barred owl hooted from the forest at the center.

A few days later, a snowy owl was reported in Corinna. And a rare ghost from the north, the great gray owl, was reported in Exeter.

Expert birders Jerry Smith and John Wyatt went looking for both. They had an enjoyable time snowshoeing in Exeter fields. The people who reported the great gray owl also photographed it, and saw it pounce on a red squirrel, which got away. For Smith and Wyatt, the great gray owl got away, too.

They then went to Corinna, where Aloyse Larrabee showed them the farm where she had seen and photographed the snowy owl. She showed them the photo of the owl perched on a stack of pallets.

“We saw the pallets,” said the philosophical John Wyatt. “And that was pretty much our Day of No Owls.”

And expert birder Bob Milardo, volunteer for Maine Audubon and Bangor Land Trust, and I led 15 people on an Owl Prowl in a wooded part of Bangor. Not an owl was seen, nor heard. Where are the owls when you need them?

For information on Fields Pond Audubon Center, call 989-2591.


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