In early March World Bird Sanctuary began its sixth season working with Ameren, looking at the control methods they use for maintaining their rights of way.
I started the season by cleaning out the nestboxes, removing old nests, mice, and debris from the winter. I have also been working on repairing and replacing nest boxes. Local boy scouts working on completing their Eagle Scout service projects make all of our nestboxes.
As of March 10, I was starting to see bluebirds displaying near the nestboxes. On March 23, I saw the start of nest building by a few bluebirds as well as chickadees and titmice.
I’ve had many enjoyable finds signaling the start of spring, including sightings of flocks of Snow Geese flying over, the first Killdeer, and Eastern Phoebes. Then there is always the first butterfly, bee, spring peepers, turtles and flowers. All first finds make the start of the field season enjoyable.
The start of field studies also means fun encounters with wildlife. My most memorable encounter this season was on March 24 about 1 pm at Robertsville State Park. I had stopped there to enjoy lunch on a beautiful 65° spring day. Birds were calling and a nice warm breeze was blowing, while off in the distance Barred Owls could be heard calling.
When I finished lunch I had about a minute or less drive to my parking spot so that I could check the boxes in the park. I had just driven under the power lines when I saw a good size gray bird on the ground off the shoulder of the road. I quickly came to a stop and pulled out the binoculars and there was a beautiful Barred Owl with something in his foot. I approached slowly in the truck. The owl flew up to a branch about five feet into the woods. I drove up slowly, rolled the window down, and pulled out my camera. I took several photos of this Barred Owl. It just sat there and looked at me. I pulled into the parking spot and enjoyed more looks at this beautiful bird.
The Barred Owl remained in the woods while I worked around the truck. I walked out and took care of several of the boxes, went back to the truck, and the owl was still sitting in the woods watching the truck and me. I have to say this is definitely one of my most memorable experiences with a wild Barred Owl.
Submitted by Cathy Spahn, World Bird Sanctuary Field Studies Coordinator
Loved the picture of the barred owl. Just beautiful!
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