Thursday, January 29, 2009

more ornithology



I'm not perfectly sure, but I believe I saw a Great Grey Owl on my way home yesterday afternoon. I was in motion and so was it, so there was just one glimpse, but it was big, it was grey, it had blunt wings, and it was very rounded at the front end...
It's not uncommon to see Snowy Owls here in the wintertime, especially in the open fields near the airport, but I don't think I ever saw a Great Grey here before.

It's actually quite funny. I'm not really a birdwatcher; that is, by birdwatchers I'm not a birdwatcher. I wanted to be, when I was a kid -- earnestly equipping myself with a pair of binoculars bought from an ad on the back page of the Star Weekly (I leave the rest to your imagination), and a book-club edition of Audubon's Birds of America. NOTE: if anyone out there is thinking of providing Audubon as a field guide for use by a myopic eight-year-old -- PLEASE DON'T.

But I like birds. I'm glad when I see one. And I'm extra glad when I see one I haven't seen before.

6 comments:

Annie's Mom said...

I like it when you post about birds!

Crimson Rambler said...

thank you my dear!

Kathryn said...

Audubon may not have been the most helpful choice, but I bet it was beautiful :-)
I suffered from having a father who was a walking encyclopaedia of wildlife, so I never learned what anything was as I could "always ask Daddy". Then he went and died. So inconsiderate...

Christine said...

Nifty!

Patrick C said...

There's a story in the paper today about somebody's little dog being attacked by an owl not that far away from where you saw the bird, so I wonder if it was the same one (although the one in the newspaper story was a Great Horned Owl)!

Anyway, both dog and owl survived.

Leslie said...

I googled "leukanistic" and got your blog. Never even read your post on the subject of white birds because I got such a chuckle out of your "Audubon Birds of America" story. Dad learned his birds from cards that came in Calumet Baking powder in the 40's. I collected them and framed them. At age 50 I took up the hobby myself.