Northern Saw-whet Owl, Up Close and Personal

Sunday morning started normally enough, with two slow-rising parents having coffee while an already wound-up child was running wild with her imagination in the living room. But then we heard a light "thump" against a window from the other side of the house. I figured I'd search under the windows later, when my eyes were a bit more open, to see if a junco or goldfinch met with some bad luck. That would be unusual, window strikes almost always occur on the south side of the house.

A few moments later we heard a scraping, fluttery sound from just down the hall from the living room. It continued long enough that I was able to peek around the corner to see the south-facing windows, expecting to find a junco chasing its reflection.

Nope. Clearly a bird too big to be a junco, and not black/white but whitish, brownish, and streaky. Sharpie pinning an unfortunate junco? The bird seemed to be looking to perch on the ledge and finally succeeded. Not a Sharpie, it was a Northern Saw-whet Owl!

We all got amazing close-up looks of the owl, the owl had amazing close-up looks at us. We stared, it stared. I ran for the camera, it flew. Luckily Donna and Reina watched where it landed, in a line of spruce trees not too far from the house.

There's an owl in there somewhere. You can actually see it, look closely!

Armed with binoculars, a scope, and camera we headed out into the yard a reasonable distance from the line of trees so we wouldn't spook it further. It didn't take long to find, though it did relocate a bit farther back in the tree as we watched. We tried not to stare too long, we tried not to point and make it obvious we were gawking.

Hunkered down next to the trunk, this bird settled in for the day.

Ultimately it did what saw-whets do when encountered by people: they sit stock still and wait, giving the very-wrong impression that they are tame. This one perched fairly high so there was no temptation on Reina's part to try and pet it (which we would have stopped, don't worry). I've seen folks of all ages consider that option - let's face it, and I understand the temptation: saw-whets are arguably the cutest owl ever.

Reina gets an eyeful, hopefully ending her saw-whet phobia. When she
was two I whistled one in, which flew a little too close for her liking.
To think, I could have ended a potential birding career with that!

Scopes are invaluable in getting folks excited about wildlife. The "Wow!" factor jumped by an order of magnitude when all the neighbors we could muster took a peek. The funny paradox with the scope: we had to step back a ways to get a closer look.

Eyes mostly closed, but still keeping an eye on us. I thought
the chickadees, Blue Jays, and crows would have been a
bit more wary, but they ignored the owl completely.

We left the bird alone for the day, though I checked on it periodically. It roosted, seemingly content. I opted not to run the lawn mower at all, even though grinding up leaves to cover our gardens was on the "to do" list. Hopefully the weather will hold and we can do it next weekend.

Though it may be just passing through we're hoping this bird will stick around. We often hear them in during the winter months, maybe our yard is part of its wintering grounds. Come to think of it, we found quite a few mice in our yard this year, nesting in some of our nest boxes and even nesting in a small divot in our garden. Seems like a reasonable food supply this year.


Read more about Northern Saw-whet Owls.

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