Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Eleven!!! Eleven!!!

Eleven great gray owls on the way home, which totally blows my theory that they've gone further south. Four were on 61 north of Hinckley in the vicinity of the big curve towards Sandstone. The rest were along 30 east of Sandstone (the "churchy way" as Joey calls it, because we go by our small country church enroute) and north on 22. "Our owl" was there perched in a white pine near Sand Creek on the front part of our property, as usual. I also saw one ruffed grouse; grouse are low in number this winter due to the natural fluctuations in their population which seem to go in a seven year cycle. This grouse was so out in the open as to be obvious to me as I was driving along at about 55 mph, in a crabapple or other low shrubby tree eating buds or something.

55 mph is relative; these days I am driving a 1990 Honda Accord from Canada, with nearly 400,000 km on the odometer. I still have trouble converting mph to kmph, although they nicely include mph on the inside of the odometer in small numbers. I think I can drive about 85 kmph and be reasonably within the law here!

I need to brag about Joey (age 3) here; he actually spotted one owl that I would otherwise have missed. He knows how much his mommy get excited seeing owls, and he just wants to help.

Great gray owls are awesome!!!

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