Flashback Friday: Wintery Gray Is Beautiful

Birding, especially when "chasing" a specific bird, is very much hit-or-miss. You might find exactly what you are looking for, or you might come up empty. I accept that in birding, it's part of the challenge. I have a hard time accepting that, however, when looking for files on our computer. They should be there, it shouldn't be a crap shoot whether they appear or not. I only mention this because I spent much of this week drafting a Flashback, and now I can't find the images from that trip anywhere on our hard drive. So, I'm putting off the post I prepared and will go with another trip, a search that did not come up empty.

Dateline: 12 February 2005, Enterprise, ON, Canada
My wife is not a birder. She is a botanist by training, an ecologist at heart, and loves the outdoors as much as the next naturalist. Don't get me wrong, she likes birds, and our arguments over what are more important, plants or birds, are mostly minor. She's more than happy to go on a bird walk, but we hear that term differently: I hear "bird walk," she simply hears, "walk."

But that all changes when it comes to a chase. Donna is nothing if not tenacious, and thrives if there is a specific goal, an identified target. In these situations she's all in favor of an outing. Dilly-dally along a trail to sort through warblers and vireos? Not her style. Identify a target bird a hundred miles away? Let's go!

Which is what we decided to do in late winter 2005. Things aligned well for us: Great Gray Owls were being reported in huge numbers in southern Ontario, including near Kingston, a mere three hours from Ithaca. We had some time off so we could make it a long weekend rather than a long day cooped up in the car. And Reina, just shy of 11 months old, traveled well. Bonus: she couldn't yet walk off while we were stalking our target, and she napped a lot in her car seat.

So, Friday evening we drove to Kingston. A nice dinner out, some time in the motel's pool, a little bit of studying the map Brian Sullivan highlighted for us, and an early morning on Saturday. Brian's directions were extremely simple: drive north out of Kingston on 38 for about fifteen miles, turn west on 7 towards Enterprise, and keep your eyes open. A Cornell group had gone up the week before and counted dozens of Great Grays using this strategy.

Very simply, it worked. When we turned off of 38 towards Enterprise the first bird we spotted was:

Perched a few yards off of the road, a Great Gray
Owl scans the open field for rodent activity.

What luck! We had slowly driven for about a minute through some heavily wooded areas. Suddenly the woods faded back and we were among pastures. Almost immediately Donna spotted a large bird perched on a fence, "What's that?" At first glance it was clearly a raptor, it actually looked like a Northern Harrier. It wasn't. The fence was just a few yards off the road, I eased the car on the shoulder (although we didn't see another car all day) and took in my lifer Great Gray. Donna took some pictures out of her window.

Preparing for take off: we were a bit too close for comfort.
The mottled brown, gray, and white make a beautiful pattern.

That first bird stuck around long enough for some photos and some stellar looks through binoculars. Even Reina, strapped in her car seat, not only noticed but appeared to be taken with this bird. Eventually the owl gracefully flew to a line of trees at the back of the pasture on a couple of slow wingbeats, landing less than 100 yards away. We continued on, driving various back roads that criss-crossed the area, but we did not find any more owls. Granted, we didn't get out and walk the roads, nor did we pause and scan the far ends of the pastures, so we probably missed seeing some that were seeing us. We did look for other birds, of course, and wound up with 10 species for the day. We scoped two different Northern Shrikes which flew off as soon as the camera was pointed at them.

One hour and 20 miles later we were heading back the way we came. The owl was perched in the same spot, and because we hadn't found any others we spent some time admiring her again. Happily, I was able to digiscope at will (during periods where my hands were warm enough to work).

The eyes seem a tad small for a bird this size, and combined
with the white lores (feathers between the eyes and the bill) she
appears to be frowning. The white "bow-tie" is just classy.

First she just a stared us down to see what we were going to do. I'm assuming this is a female, larger in size than the male. Of course, not having seen another owl all day and having no other direct experience I can't say that for sure. Referring to a bird like this with a disengaged "it" doesn't do the experience justice.

Taking some time to preen. The underparts are boldly
streaked over fine barring - exquisite!

Apparently unfazed by our presence, perhaps too hungry to care, she went back into what she was doing. She preened most of the time, periodically swiveling her massive-looking head right and left, as though she heard something coming. She probably did, just nothing that our comparatively weak vision or hearing could detect. And although she certainly looks massive, this species actual body mass is actually 15% less than that of a Great Horned Owl (according to the Birds of North America Online). That means a large female weighs in at a mere three and a half pounds! Much of their size is due to plumage, allowing these birds to withstand the cold winters of the far north.

"Turn to the right!" I've always wanted to say that. Even in profile you
can see how the fine barring in the facial disc forms concentric circles.

Irruptions like the one Ontario was experiencing are usually due to lack of food on the normal wintering grounds, it's suspected the birds that irrupt like this are starving. Although there wasn't too much snow on the ground during our trip, Great Grays are able to hear prey under snow, plunging through to grab the unsuspecting rodent. According to the BNA Online, they can break through snow crust thick enough to support a 175-pound person.

After a few minutes of communing with her it was time to go, partially to give her peace and solitude so she could continue to hunt, partially because it was wicked cold, partially because the other residents of the car were getting restless. We stopped at a small park and pulled out the sled, the "green" version of a snow machine, I suppose, for some winter fun.

Where to, majesty? Oh, donuts on the street again? OK . . . .

The drive home was pleasant, fueled with hot chocolate and the peaceful satisfaction of a successful weekend trip. Even those who don't keep lists marked the event, Reina received a Great Gray Owl plush-animal that resides in her bedroom to this day, a totem of the actual individual and the brief bonding experience that I hope resides deep in her memory. Sometimes you catch what you chase.

• Information about the birds in this post birds can be found at All About Birds | Bird Guide
• All images © Mike Powers.