Owling in Rosedale Park

I’m not sure why, but this winter, I’ve been psyched for the owls.  In truth, I hadn’t had the patience for owls in previous winters.  I liked owls just fine, but my interest in going out in the cold and searching conifer stands for a single bird just wasn’t there.  I’ve only made a few excursions exclusively for owls, and most involved written directions to the bird’s precise location.  Winter wasn’t the time to waste hours in a pine grove for the small odds of seeing an owl.  Winter was the time to visit the marsh to spy on dabbling Shovelers and Gadwalls, or the grasslands to spot lingering Meadowlarks and visiting Harriers, or the Jersey shore to risk your life and your optics on a slippery jetty to see Harlequin Ducks and Razorbills.

I have no shame in admitting that I’m easily trained, and a little positive reinforcement can go a long way.  So when I went owling with my girlfriend and two friends, the success of finding the Saw-whet we were looking for made me an instant convert.  Suddenly everything that was awful about owling seemed like a charm; the monotony, the challenge, and then the reward of finding what you had been searching for. 

This is how this morning, several weeks later, I found myself in a dense stand of Eastern Red Cedar in Rosedale Park, following a well-worn deer path and scanning the surrounding forest floor for white-wash and pellets.  On my way to this cedar stand I nearly stepped on a pellet, although this one did not belong to an owl.  Two pellets and a few white wash stains littered the ground below a thin tree leaning over the trail.  The trail runs alongside the Stony Brook, which has swelled several feet and was flowing briskly from the past several days’ snowmelt. 

An intact pellet, possibly belonging to a Belted Kingfisher 

The pellets were incredibly delicate; as I was dissecting them they would crumble with the slightest contact.  The contents consisted exclusively of the chitinous exoskeletons of crayfish and the bones of small fish; based on the roost tree’s proximity to the water and the size and contents of the pellets, they presumably belonged to a Belted Kingfisher.

Pellet contents

As I was searching the cedar stand I would occasionally come across a pellet, once or twice with some white wash; each time I would look up eagerly into the tangle of branches for the creature that expelled them.  Then there was a row of about 6 flecks of white wash.  Two pellets.  I looked up.  Two big, yellow eyes stared back.  These peepers belonged to a brown bird the size of a Guinea pig, staring down at me the way a frightened cat would stare daggers at a strange dog in the house.  This was the Northern Saw-whet Owl.

Northern Saw-whet Owl staring down from its day roost

My camera had died earlier while photographing some scat loaded with fishing lures, and refused to take another picture.  Hoping that warming it would give it some more life, I removed the battery, unzipped my coat, and held it in my armpit.  Thirty seconds of warming allowed me to snap a single photo, so I put it back under my arm.  I noticed a thin, leaning neighboring cedar that looked as though it might offer a vantage point from which to photograph the owl at its height.  After about five minutes, I replaced the warmed battery into the camera.  I didn’t know if the warming trick would work again, but I didn’t want to test it in fear of losing the last bit of charge.  So I started climbing.  The roots and thin trunk cracked in protest as I ascended, and with each crack the tree would bend a little more.  When I got to the crown of the tree about 20 feet up, the top of the trunk was bent nearly horizontal.  I balanced on the last branches large enough to support my weight, and slowly stood.  The scrawny tree swayed in the breeze.  My legs shook.  With one hand on a needly twig for stability and the other on the camera, I managed to shoot nearly a dozen photos before the battery died completely.

Northern Saw-whet Owl