The Motivation.
I believe that whenever I publish a blog I will see an owl, so after we came back from Pennsylvania I posted about the Common Grackle. The next day I was all Yay! We’re gonna see an owl! We drove to Tower Street, I hopped out and started walking the trail.
Where are they?
To me, Tower Street means eagles which are by far my favorite birds, but as we walked up the hill, no pearly white heads or chocolate brown wings greeted us. Papa scanned down stream, all the eagles had congragated on an ice flow near the bend. We kept walking when a feather drifted down.
The Mystery
I was confused. Why was there a feather out in the middle of nowhere? There was no bird in the trees above, so how did it get there? Did a bird fly over and the feather fall off, or had it been there just waiting to fall? We continued on, searching the trees.
What I thought I knew
I knew that Northern Saw-whet Owls liked junipers, I knew how small they were, at least I thought I did. I branched off the trail to a smaller path that had junipers. It looked promising. We continued, searching every juniper I saw. We had just finished searching this tall, wide one when Mom said ” Look what I found”. She opened her hand and revealed a tiny gnome.
The gnome
I was amazed, apparently the gnome had been sitting in a small piece of bark still attached to the tree. We had found a few of the nature gnomes before, but I still appreciate the way each of them were different. This one had a little bottom that stuck out like it was sitting down. The other one we had found was at Kelly Island, shoved into a log. I turned around a bend and the sound of an alarmed chickadee reached my ear.
The Grove
I listened, then noticed that the sound was coming from a grove of junipers. The trail split in two, so I followed the path that led right into the middle of the junipers. Mom’s plan was to just bush wack through the junipers. Papa thought that was silly. I had been checking out some whitewash when Mom called over because she had found some too. I wandered over and began to search the tree. My eyes landed on a small blob of fluff and I froze. That ball of fluff had two beady black eyes and sharp talons. The owl was a foot away from Mom’s head.
The Owl
“IT’S RIGHT THERE!” I shrieked, pointing to the 8″ owl that was staring curiously down at us. It was perched on a small branch about six feet off the ground. As the owl stared at us, I noticed that Lucy was creeping closer. I bet she wanted to pick up! I kept whispering “Wow, we found it, I can’t believe we found it.” I thought I was going to die with astonishment and excitement! At one point I told Lucy to stop. When she stopped, her foot made a crack against the leaves. The owl turned its head to Lucy and stared at her. “I think it is looking at me” she whispered. I giggled. Once the owl got used to our presence, Papa and I walked around to the other side of the tree. Not to my surprise, you could barely see its head. “Huh,” I said “so that’s why we’ve never seen it on our way out”. “Or it might be because it has a different roost site” suggested Papa. I agreed and we headed back inside. Me and Lucy skipped our way back to the car. She fell off the fence on the way out. “I still can’t believe we saw it” I said as we pulled out of the park. “I thought I was going to die”.
Missoula Bird Nerds 
You are so awesome Dottie and a gifted storyteller.. love you
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Thank you for commenting. I can’t wait to see you for my birthday.
I miss you,
Dottie
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What a wonderful read over my morning coffee. Love your birding adventures
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Thank you for commenting!
Love,
Dottie
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