When eyes are candles

Photo by Teri Virbickis

Take a look at this diminutive owl and get ready to see it as never before. Here is a 5oz Romeo that could easily have been Tiffany’s jeweled emblem for love. Long before Valentine’s Day etched its way into our calendar, the male Western Screech-Owl made spring nights an opera for courtship. It is an E-ticket to hear him!

What does he do to draw in an eligible lady?  He hoots bouncing bubbles of creamy chocolate!  Oh how earnest his wait for a favorable reply! Between expectant pauses Romeo’s eyes are candles dripping with desire. Ears widen and rotate to take in any new sounds.  At last! She agrees to a chat! What comes next is a duet telegraphing a code to test and perhaps declare their compatibility. If you are a witness, stand motionless and utterly silent so as not to disturb them.  It won’t be hard. You will be transfixed!

‘Love child’ of Western Screech-Owl by Dan Lockshaw Optics4Birding

Photo by Peggy Honda

Screech-Owls live in a variety of habitats across North America, including some urban neighborhoods. Within the region of the Cavity Conservation Initiative, several Orange County Parks are known to be home for these owls. Do praise rangers who protect habitat suited to them. Here is one photographed in the daytime at Irvine Regional Park in Orange, CA.  By checking the website of your local Audubon you may find an opportunity to go on an owl walk to hear this and other owls that live among us.

Please consider these vulnerable creatures, remembering their need for holes in dead trees in which to raise their families, and remembering that when we poison their rodent prey, we put them in peril. Snap traps are the ‘green’ choice of good stewards.

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