Friday, February 1, 2008

I think I saw the owl!

Math problem:
If yesterday = 12 inches snow then today = ???
Please show your work...
....
....
....

the correct answer is today = 90 minutes of shoveling to get 1/2 driveway clear

I like snow, really I do.
I don't mind shovelling at night in the cold, clear, quiet it's very zen-like.
After all the other people with their noisy snowblowers finished and went inside I was pausing to catch my breath and I heard the owls again!
One north near the tree farm and one south by the woods.
I decided then that I had cleared enough to get the cars in the garage so I went and got the binoculars and walked up towards the tree farm.
I think I saw the owl up on a bare branch in a tree moving back and forth, but it's been awhile since I used binocs and couldn't hold them very steady.
I'll go back tomorrow when it's light and see if I was looking at a squirrel's nest :)

But....
I was down on one knee in a snow bank trying to get a different view of the branch and when I took the binocs from my eyes and was about to get up I realized that there was a coyote staring at me from about 20 feet away.
Coyotes are NOT small, as I found out when I hit one on the freeway with my new Kia in September of 2006.
This one seemed not quite as big as that one.
It looked at me as I stood up slowly, then it turned and ran off towards the pond, leaping over the snowdrifts.

I like living on the edge of the country, but I know animals can show up in the most unexpected places, like the fox that we saw several times walking down the road at night in London when we there in 2006.
We were staying in the Bayswater area on the north side of Hyde Park and see the fox as we were walking to the tube station and to "The Swan" a very nice little pub that we ate at twice.
Mr. Fox was too quick for us and we never got a picture of him.

UPDATE: I walked down to the tree farm this afternoon and there was nothing on the branch I was looking at last night! Owl confirmed!

2 comments:

moml said...

I am so excited by your sightings! The coyotes are out
and about right now looking for voles and rabbits.
I found out the great horned owls will eat the head
of a rabbit they catch - so that must be what got
the one out in our yard cause only the head had been eaten and I have seen at least one owl sailing through
the woods at night.
so cool!!

Anonymous said...

I loved the Swan! Thanks for finding a website with the pic of it! Awesome food. I even regret not trying the Spotted Dick!