Saturday, March 24, 2012

More Wildlife

I've heard the tell-tale signs for little more than a week. You know, "hu hu hoo hoo." And this morning we had our first sighting. Sitting at the breakfast table I saw a VERY large bird take flight from one of our trees by the stream and then land on another tree closer to the house. I saw his head swivel round to survey the land and then just as I was picking up Simon to show him my find, he/she/it few away.

I thought it was gone forever. Never having been lucky enough to see an owl before, I thought for sure I'd never see one again. And then Nana came down for breakfast and we excitedly told our tale, pointing out where the bird had been. Suddenly she said, "I see it!" And sure enough, there the owl sat, asleep in our pine tree right by the stream... She's still sitting there now despite the joggers, cyclists and cars driving by. Must have been a long night of hunting.

Thanks to our new 'Peterson Field Guide to Birds' the Western North America edition (recently sent by Grandpa to help us identify Coots, Wood Ducks and Mergansers) we believe we have a female Great Horned Owl living in our midst.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Lost Deer

On the way home from downtown we found these five lost deer. They were standing in the middle of Idaho street looking confused. There was a nice person trying to steer them towards the foothills but the deer stopped to eat someone's bushes.

Downtown

Simon and I went to the nature center downtown today. We played with the water table and built a dam, walked the outside to see the fish, and hit the park.