The path to the Spotted Owl

Saturday March 7 2015:  We went to a bird walk along the river from 8-10:30.  nothing new here to report.  We went to another "Bird Spot" but it turns out it is now a Group home for young men.  We were invited to walk around but we decide to go to another spot.  As we are heading up to the canyon (Millers) we spot this street sign

I believe it reads "Morales' Dreams"... it was a horse farm.. not my dream but liked the sign..  might need it for our road at home???

we found another sign:

Honestly where do we go to look for birds??   at this point we are thinking we are going to the Guest house to look at Hummingbirds.

We are a bit early for the hummingbirds but the owner tells us about a Spotted Owl up in the canyon. He says it is about a 30 minute hike up, gives us pretty good directions and allows us to cross his property.  

We get dressed for a bit cooler temps than down below and we head out.  After walking through his orchard we came to the second gate:  this way to the owl....

we have to go up

and up

and up

across some obstacles

across ravines

past boulders

and more boulders

and up again

after 1.4 miles and 1 hour we get to the "split loaf rock" where we will find the Owl

we did find our Spotted Owl.  this is the female, we did not find the male.  he is trying to get her to go further down the hill, but so far she has been in this tree for 4 days..

Although we did not set out to look for this beautiful bird we lucked out when we met the owner of the Guest house.  It was quite a hike that kind of wore us out but well worth the time and effort.  We are getting to the point where it is getting harder and harder to get new birds.  We still have a few we would like to get before we leave this area.