So I had one of those days in my cubicle on Wednesday where nothing went terribly wrong and nothing went perfectly right and I left feeling rather numb and indecisive about pretty much everything. So I walked the dogs, and, since that didn’t “blow the stink off me” as Mark affectionately refers to my daily jaunts, I set off to my favorite stomping ground. And I stomped around.
Now, if you haven’t stomped around across country through 6 inches of crunchy snow wearing layers of down and leather boots and toting a heavy camera and a ghilli suit, well, I can honestly tell you, you’re not really missing out. Because, it’s a lot of work crossing country, uphill and through wetland to try to get a good photo of a deer or what not.
It was 5:30 when I set out on my torture walk and I was breathing like a dragon by the time I found a dead 10-point I found lying in the marsh. I mumbled, “God bless the old buck” and continued mushing across the cattails and finally plopped myself down on a snow-covered log where the marsh met some old pine trees. I pulled my ghilli suit on and before long, tuned out the cars way, way in the background and the single plane overhead and focused on the noises around me.
Nearby, under the snow, was a Snow Critter munching on something. The sound was not unlike a chipmunk crunching on a peanut. I moved once, making quite a ruckus in the process, and took another step and waited again, but the Snow Critter remained a mystery critter, happily munching away under the snow unseen.
The sun was pretty low by the time I gave up on the Snow Critter and settled back down on my log again, and within minutes, I heard loud crunching from behind me and within seconds of that, there appeared a deer. Then another and another and soon there were seven deer. Bambis in the snow look sort of like this.
And like this.
The thing about deer is that they don’t respond well to getting their photos taken and I know this because they all ran off. After the deer made a huge bunch of noise running across the marsh, I poked around one more time for the Snow Critter. I’m pretty certain I heard giggling under the snow as the Snow Critter continued munching once again on whatever nut he had stashed away.
Seeing the sun was down, I began making my way back across the crunchy snow to my car. I felt I was making absurdly loud noises as I stomped my way back, and was therefore quite surprised to see an oval-shaped lump of darkness up in a tree. Just sitting there. Not moving as I stomped my way closer.
I stomped a little closer and took another photo, which I tweaked a bit to discover was my first ever barred owl.
According to The Owl Pages web site, the barred owl has also been called the Northern Barred Owl, Swamp Owl, Striped Owl, Hoot Owl, Eight hooter, Round-headed Owl, Le Chat-huant du Nord (French for “The Hooting Cat of the North”), Wood Owl, and Rain Owl. That’s a lot of names for, hm, I wonder, what reason? These owls eat just about anything that wiggles or flies, including mice, voles, rabbits, and birds. Its only predator is the great horned owl. I personally don’t think owls should eat other owls but nobody asked me. But maybe that’s why he or she blended in so well with the tree it was on.
This owl mates for life and, like things should be with all species, the male brings food to the female when she’s sitting on her nest. She lays 2-4 eggs and the young don’t leave the nest until their 4 weeks old. Unlike other birdies, when the baby barred owls do leave the nest, they can’t fly. Instead, they use their beaks and feet to wobble about on branches, which is why these babies are called branchers. Too cute. When the babies can finally fly, the young barred owls only disperse about 6 miles, which makes it such that they can stop by to check on their parents.
I took only a couple of photos of my first barred owl before he flew off. Having accomplished my desire for torturous exercise, I crunched the rest of the way to my car. While removing my sexy ghilli suit, I heard a call that The Owl Pages web site describe as: “loud and resounding ‘hoo, hoo, too-HOO; hoo, hoo, too-HOO, ooo’ which is often phrased as ‘Who, cooks, for-you? Who, cooks, for-you, all?'”
Fact is, nobody was at home cooking for me because Mark had pulled his back earlier in the week. So in response to the owl’s second call, I yelled, “I cook for us. Want to come over?” And then I added, “We’re having ham. You cannot eat my hamster.”
Hey, this is some nifty stuff. Keep up the good work. But don’t expect me to read much becuase I hate the computer.