While I wasn’t able to film the encounters, I tonight was the first time I noticed the Barred Owl investigating roosting hawks. It stopped by a roosting Cooper’s Hawk, who I heard call. And then I saw it in the same tree of a Red-tailed Hawk who also called.
The evening was also the conjuction of Jupiter and Saturn, which I was able to watch from the top of the path near the Polish Statue around 80th Street.
The evening was enjoyable. The owl gave great looks in the roost tree, flew off to look for squirrels, and then went off to a Spruce Tree across the East Drive, which we would learn a week later was home to a roosting Cooper’s Hawk.
On days where this Barred Owl has a quiet afternoon, it spend time hunting near the roost site. Today, it went to the ground twice and spent a good deal of time giving the small quiet group watching the owl lots of good views before flying out to sight.
Central Park had a visiting Long-eared Owl that was only seen for a day in mid-December in a stand of trees in Shakespeare Garden. I drew a large crowd, so I only stayed a few minutes.
A Riverside Barred Owl flew out about twenty minutes early and slowly worked its way north about six blocks before I lost track of it. The park is slopes downhill, so from the sideway, one has a great view of the treetops below. On Saturday, this made for almost perfect viewing.
Owl watching requires some luck. Tonight, we had lots of it. The owl was after squirrels in various trees and eventually was captivated by one in a small tree at eye level for about ten minutes before flying down near the highway and out of sight.
