so what did i do with my big night alone? went looking for owls, of course! i took advantage of having no plans around sunset to finally have the best chance of owlspotting the Great Horned Owls of Stow Lake. and, I FOUND THEM! they’re currently in trees on the Strawberry Hill reservoir level. where i had seen them mating. no sign of owlets. just normal hooting at sunset behavior. maybe no owlets for them this year? or the nest and owlets are at the top of the hill? on top of finding them, after many circles of trying to figure which tree they were hooting from, i spotted a Red-tailed Hawk who posed nicely for me. the Golden Hour light helped a lot. in general, i was relieved to just hear them hooting. i haven’t heard or seen them since Winter. so nice to know they’re ok. once i found both of them, i watched them fly one by one into a couple different trees. watched them treehopping from the West side to the East. and watched one glide over my head and over the waterfall and down out of view toward the lake or Pioneer Meadow or WHO KNOWS. i love watching them fly. again, had several friendly/inquisitive interactions with strangers, curious as to what i was seeing through my binocs. guess it comes with the territory of going unmasked and having binocs in your hands! not sure if it’s just the general emptiness of the city right now (grocery stores were pretty sparse of people today) or what, but the park was relatively lacking in people today. are folks all out of town? starting revenge vacationing? whatever it was, it was a delight to have most of Stow Lake and Strawberry Hill all to herself. that, plus having no need to rush home for anything was frickin’ liberating. i think i’ll be a-ok when Brian’s in MI in july, so long as i can be outside. should be fine.
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The Afternoon Naturalist