Owl on a Bike

Meanwhile, back at the ranchita, our new resident Western Screech Owl is peacefully perching, not in the screech owl nest box but in my neighbors' bike shed. He's been sitting in this exact spot most days for almost two weeks now. We were initially going out of our way to avoid disturbing him, tiptoe-ing about our yards, putting off bike rides because a bike couldn't be fetched without bothering him, waiting until he had left for the evening to go grab a rake... but we quickly realized that as a city creature, he is amazingly undisturbed by city noises, dogs barking, my neighbor's verrry nearby construction project, and has let us approach to within a couple of feet with no more than the flick of an eyebrow. He departs in the late afternoon or early evening, presumably to go hunting for the night's meals, and returns in the morning to what seems to be his current favorite daytime perch: a bike tire. We hope he is here because he has a mate and babies in a nearby tree!
~trina

From 2010 Spring

From 2010 Spring