I went to lunch on Tuesday not expecting anything different from my usual Tuesday. That was until I saw a post come across birdtalk about a flock of Evening Grosbeaks still coming to a feeder in Summit Park. I don't know why, but I am a sucker for that species--so I took an extra hour at lunch and headed up I-80 to go see what I could find.

As I made my way to the area the birds we reported there were no grosbeaks. However, the chorus of Mountain and Black-capped Chickadees, along with Red-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, and Golden-crowned Kinglet got me thinking about an owl being around. I started to imitate a Northern Pygmy-Owl, and almost immediately I was in a whistling duel with a bird just off the road. My whistle must have been on point today, because after about 2 minutes the bird flew into sight and set up for me to watch. I shot a couple of pretty cool videos with my cell phone--surprisingly way better quality than what my point and shoot gives!

Here is another video from a different angle:

And of course I had to take a few shots--I have never managed a shot of one before, and these were by far the best looks I have ever had at one.

All photos link to a gallery on my website.

Northern Pygmy Owl. Copyright Tim Avery

I ended up watching the owl for about 45 minutes before I had to take off and get back to work. In that time it moved to about 5 different perches, and if you look at the gallery, you will even see it enter an old flicker cavity. What a great consolation prize for missing the grosbeaks... Oh, except I had a flyover of between 25-30 Evening Grosbeaks before I left. That and a Northern Goshawk made for a nice afternoon at Summit Park.