Owl Prowl

How fun!

Steve and I signed up for the Owl Prowl through the Friends of the Gatineau Park. We began at the park visitor's centre where we attended the lecture on local owls, recent owl sitings, slide show, home movies taken by our speaker, and finally, some calls. It was great! It brought back a lot of what I used to know from when I was in university - one of my electives was Natural History, basically, the flora and fauna of the region. This along with astronomy were probably the most fun courses I took! Anyhoodle, from here we hopped in our cars (it was now around 8PM and dark) and headed to Mackenzie King Estate.

The speaker told us to be very quiet, which we tried to be, but it was below zero C and we were a little cold! He began by calling the saw whet owl (start smallest to biggest because when you call the biggest predator first, the little ones don't answer for obvious reasons!). No response. Next he called the other most probable candidate, who he found last week in this spot, the barred owl. Nope, no reply.

We moved on to P7, where we started over. Again, no reply from either bird, though he did interest a dog!

Lastly we moved to P8 at the base of the park. He called and called, and we were shivering, to no avail. We weren't disappointed in the least because it was so much fun to be out there anyway! Sure enough, on his last try, he gets a response from the barred owl:




After calling back and forth what sounds like "who cooks for you... who cooks for you all...", even with the odd car going by, we hear from very far away one of the little saw whet owls calling:



He didn't call for it, but a killdeer got into the action too, joining in the fun by calling a couple of times:


He didn't call a screech owl, because he said he couldn't do it. No problem, I've heard one before at my sister and her hubby's cabin in the Eastern Townships. Scared the crap out of us!

Having attended this session, I will now look up a little more when I hike and run. I never think to try to spot owls during the day, but they could be up there sunning while snoozing in a tree, now do I think to try to call them at night. You never hear them as they swoop down pretty much silently. You KNOW I'm going to be trying this soon!

Next up, the Frog Chorus on April 20th. Wooo!