Screech update and North Woods news

As you may know Bob Levy [check out his forthcoming book about Central Park birding and birders-- The George Club-- on Amazon.com] has been a devoted follower of the Ramble Screech-owls. Here's his latest communication:

Marie, an exclusive owl update for your website:

I guess you know the Great Horned Owl has moved. It has not left the park but I did not see it at its new headquarters. The red morph Eastern Screech-Owl was not in either of its known roosts and I had no illusions about finding its on-again-off-again-mate. This made for a lonely “owling” session. However, I went to check up on the pair of gray morph Eastern Screech-Owls that I had seen cohabiting earlier in the season. I did catch sight of one of them recently but not the second. For a long time I have not heard reports about finding both of them. I had wondered if they too had separated.

This evening I arrived just in time to find one of them perched at the opening of the tree cavity. At about 5:35 PM this gray morph shot out of its roost practically hugging the ground as disappeared into the shrubs. I searched with mutual acquaintances Fred, Tom and Gabriel. We could not find where it had gone. When we returned to watch for the second owl its head popped up into the opening. Perfect timing. It was the other gray morph. This one took a look around and decided it did not want to come out. It dropped down and out of sight. After a wait of more than forty minutes we gave up hoping to see its flight out. That was disappointing but it was good to know these two owls are still together. So it turned out to be a good “owling” session after all.

Regards,

Bob Levy