Today I started my first observations for Raptor Nest Monitoring in The Presidio!

And I observed FOUR Great Horned Owls in a very short time. Lucky me, two pairs apparently don’t mind (?) being so close to each other… No nests I could see or see being used, but since I’m seeing both of these two pairs it is seemingly too early? At least, to find them sitting on a nest!

I’ll be volunteering my time to monitor every other week (which is still A LOT given my NUTSO personal life schedule right now), along with a handful of other volunteers (including our very own Allen Fish!). I expect I’ll only be posting if and when I see actual GHOs, as I can’t imagine empty nest updates would be too interesting for me to write about.

But I already have two pairs to keep track of in this endeavor. Not too shabby a start!

I was standing there in the rain, in my Conservancy gear, and a woman walking past me stopped to see what I was looking at. I explained, and she marvelled at the GHO she was able to see (without binocs). And she thanked me for all that I do (a frequent sharing of gratitude from random strangers when I’m wearing my Conservancy gear). Always nice to hear that from total strangers. Who love their parks. And those that steward them in whatever way.

Oh, and I even saw MATING behavior from the first pair. Haven’t seen that in a while!

Apologies for the notgreatphotos whatsoever. But it was RAINING. And getting dark. I gotta get out there earlier…

Hoping I didn’t sign up for more than I can chew these days. But we shall see. I’m so happy to be doing this. And should any of you locals reading this be interested in joining me, my plan is to go after work on an evening early in the week. For now. Once all the stuff going on with my parents’ house calms down (OOF), I’ll have more flexibility. I hope. Signed up to do this until August!