My birding is sounding more and more like spy work. Last post, I talked about a stakeout for a feeder bird. Today, I went on a secret birding trip. My friend Craig had found a Long-eared Owl, a species for which I'd been searching for years. The catch was that it was sitting on a nest in a relatively accessible place. He was afraid that if word got out about this hard-to-find species, the attention drawn to the nest could disturb the parents enough that the nest would fail, and I think he's justified in that fear so I do not plan to post where the nest is. But luckily for me and Stephanie, Craig trusted us enough to take us to see the bird today. We slowly approached the area and stopped as soon as we spotted the nest, still quite a distance away. But there it was, probably incubating eggs, my lifer
Long-eared Owl! Below is the best photo I could get from so far away. While we were looking for and then watching the owl, we also saw a
Wild Turkey and several songbird species, but not the Fox Sparrows Craig had seen here before, a species I'm still missing but which should be pretty easy to find soon.
My birding is sounding more and more like spy work. Last post, I talked about a stakeout for a feeder bird. Today, I went on a secret birding trip. My friend Craig had found a Long-eared Owl, a species for which I'd been searching for years. The catch was that it was sitting on a nest in a relatively accessible place. He was afraid that if word got out about this hard-to-find species, the attention drawn to the nest could disturb the parents enough that the nest would fail, and I think he's justified in that fear so I do not plan to post where the nest is. But luckily for me and Stephanie, Craig trusted us enough to take us to see the bird today. We slowly approached the area and stopped as soon as we spotted the nest, still quite a distance away. But there it was, probably incubating eggs, my lifer Long-eared Owl! Below is the best photo I could get from so far away. While we were looking for and then watching the owl, we also saw a Wild Turkey and several songbird species, but not the Fox Sparrows Craig had seen here before, a species I'm still missing but which should be pretty easy to find soon.
I had no idea the importance of covert ops in birding. You make it sound so secretive, so sneaky. That's it, I may have to take up birding now that it sounds so cool. ;-)
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