Hermit Thrush at Owl Woods, NY

Whenever the illustrious Mike Bergin of 10000birds.com is hunting for owls around Rochester, I am obliged to accompany him as his talisman, his good luck charm, his supersonic owl finder.

(I’ll tell you, but nobody else, that I’m exceptionally sharp at finding owls, but we’ve had some excellent luck  at scoring Strix and Bubo and even both Asios, and I’m not about to spoil his or anybody’s perception of my avian prowess.)

That said, my reputation arises from at least three separate outings, and even a single three-owl week, that we’ve managed to share in the last year or so. Mike and I have spotted a Long-eared in Webster Park, Short-eared Owls on Doran Road, and just last week a Barred, not “barred” Owl at Cobbs Hill.

So when Mike asked me to head up to Owl Woods along the lakeshore in the hopes of finding a few Northern Saw-whet Owls, those precious little creatures that migrate through here each March/April, I was on the job.

Owl Woods is a small patch with a single trail that loops through mixed conifer-deciduous woods. The Saw-whets are relatively tame, and are usually spotted on pine boughs like this:

Saw-whet Owl (Aegolius acadicus), Owl Woods, NY 2009

We slowly circled every pine tree, searching up and down the trunk looking for a squat creature, smaller than a Screech Owl, with a reddish-brown streaked belly and a black bill.

I’ll spare you the drama and let you know that satellites were TOTALLY interfering with my owl mojo that day.  We saw no Saw-whets.

But fear NOT! I found some excellent footage not only of a birder searching for Saw-whets, but of a birder searching for Saw-whets right here at Owl Woods! This was taken by Matt Bango, whom you may know as the guy behind Chirptracker. Matt lives in New York City, but went Rochester Institute of Technology and has birded this area before. Watch the video to see what it is like to comb a pine tree ISO these tiny owls…

Instead, we whet our early-migrant appetites on a few nice birds, such as this Hermit Thrush, which we heard, but didn’t see for the longest time as it poked about on the woodland floor.

Hermit Thrush, Owl Woods, NY. April 21, 2010

Secretive as they are, I enjoy seeing thrushes of any type as much as I enjoy hearing them. To capture an image, even a bad one, is a thrill, and still feels like a privilege.

The woods were filled with highly active with the clicks, tsees, twitters, and chicka-dee-dee-dees of Black-capped Chickadees, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Dark-eyed Juncos, and at least one Yellow-rumped Warbler.

Both Mike and I, who are more used to seeing winter foraging behavior in roadside juncos, were pleasantly surprised to see a group of juncos engaged in a springtime gleaning frenzy on the young shoots of this budding tree, and for a moment I thought I was in a boreal forest in the Adirondacks…

Dark-eyed Junco, Owl Woods, NY. 2010

Dark-eyed Junco, Owl Woods, NY 2010

So even though my owl mojo was out to lunch, we had a pretty nice day in the woods.