[obol] the gods must be crazy.....

[DJ Lauten and KACastelein]

You can delete now if you're not interested in hearing a story about 
owls and personal goals....or you are only interested in state birds......


For those who know us, we have now lived in Coos Cty for 10 years.  
Kathy and I surpassed 300 bird species for the county last year.  In the 
course of doing so, we somehow managed to miss SHORT-EARED OWL all these 
years.  We looked, they were seen by others, but we simply had zero 
luck.  Last fall there was quite a few sitings of this mysterious owl in 
Coos Cty, and Dave finally saw one at Bullard's Beach St Park/Bandon 
Marsh, albiet briefly as it flew north over the trees and out of site.  
Kathy, unfortunately, was not with me.  She never did see one after that.

Which brings us to yesterday (2/28).  6:00 PM, and we decide to climb 
into our hot tub.  We are sitting in the tub when a Fox Sparrow gives 
off a very loud 'chink' from the nearby fuscia bush.  I thought it 
sounded a bit alarming, so I casually turned around and out of the 
corner of my eye I saw a fairly large bird coming towards us along the 
hedgerow.  My first thought was incoming Cooper's Hawk, but then it 
banked over the hedgerow and I could see it was an OWL!  Kathy was not 
looking in that direction, so quickly I said 'an owl!' and pointed 
towards the road.  The owl flew over the hedgerow out of sight, and then 
we briefly saw it cruise up the road, and then we got only glimpses of 
it as it flew north.  We were a bit stunned, and we weren't sure exactly 
what species it was, although it was clear from behavior that it was 
either a Short-eared or Long-eared.  After about 5 minutes I suddenly 
saw the bird in the backyard again by the old barn, cruising over our 
pasture.  Now we started to get a better view!  It flew across the field 
and then landed directly south of us on a stump, about 30 yards away.  
We sat in the tub, astonished and excited.  Kathy then slowly climbed 
out of the tub, slinked inside, got a pair of binocs, and slowly came 
back out.  Sure enough, there was a SHORT-EARED OWL sitting on a stump 
in our backyard!  Of all crazy things!  The owl was head bobbing and 
looking around, and suddenly it lifted into flight - right at us!  It 
went over the fence, and cruised right towards us - I thought for sure 
it would veer off, but instead it headed right towards the platform 
feeder in our front yard, passing us within 15 feet!  But unfortunately 
it did not see the other fence line between it and the feeder, and just 
as it got to the fence, it flung its talons forward and BONK - right 
into the fence.  It didn't hit too hard, but enough to knock it to the 
ground, where it jumped back up right away and turned, cruised over the 
hedgerow, across the street, and over the other hedgerow and out of 
sight.  We looked at each other and started laughing!  Kathy finally got 
her SHORT-EARED OWL, of all things, from our backyard, in our backyard 
(yardbird!), and from our hot tub - in our birthday suits!  The gods 
must be crazy!

Reporting from Bandon, Coos Cty

Dave Lauten and Kathy Castelein