Watch out for the little guys

So there we were, the entire Friends of the Sisters Library (FOSL) Board at our monthly meeting in the Community Room of the library, listening to Susan Schneider telling us about the financial health of the Oregon Community Foundation (OCF).

She suddenly stopped, looked at me and said, "You'll never guess what was on my bird feeder this morning."

That's the way it is when birders get together. Though a very important subject may be the focus of the moment - completely unrelated to birds - all it takes is one look at another birder and, blam! Birds dominate the rest of the conversation. Love it!

"An adult saw-whet owl," Sue said with a big grin. Then Norma Funai got into it about an owl she had seen, Zeta Seiple added her bird comments along with Sue Edgerton; it would have gone on for an hour if I hadn't stopped it. As it was, Sue Schneider almost lost the thread of what she was explaining about OCF, but being a professional, she got us back on track.

Probably the main reason the saw-whet popped to the surface so quickly is that Sue was raised in a home where birds count. Her parents, Dick and Marge Ettinger, are birders from the inside out.

In all the years I have known and enjoyed the Ettingerii, we have never got together - even when Dick was my mom's and my personal physician - without first talking about birds. His boys climbed trees with me to band eagles. I can even recall that unique part of my physical examination when Dick would change the subject to birds when he was ready to say, "cough."

Owls were just one of our favorite subjects.

I don't know a lot about saw-whet owls, except that this is the time of year when they appear around Central Oregon in fairly large numbers. Not like American robins that drift in by the tens of thousands. (At the moment there are almost half million robins over in the Paulina/Post country.)

But every few years, around 10 to 20 saw-whets will pop up on feeders, tops of junipers, dead along the highway struck by motor vehicles, and other places.

My hunch is they drifted south from the boreal forests of Washington, Idaho, Montana and Canada. There may have been a bumper crop for them in their home range and the surplus is out exploring new territory. Or perhaps their normal prey base collapsed and they're looking for enough food to get through the winter.

Whatever the reasons, this is a good time to keep your eyes open as you travel through the countryside. Please! Keep alert! Drive at the posted speed limit and just casually glance at the tops of trees as you drive along. If you see a small lump on the top it may be a saw-whet or northern Pygmy owl. Both of these little guys are common visitors here in winter.

Oh, one other thing. They are NOT "baby owls." I've received phone calls from wannabe birders all excited about seeing a "baby owl" on their feeder or backyard fence, which are in reality adult small owls. There are several to draw from, all in the six- to eight-inch size: western screech, northern saw-whet, northern pygmy, and boreal owl.

Please contact me at [email protected] if you have a sighting; what you report may fit into other reports and help us to gain more understanding of the who, what, when and why of owl movements. Thank you!