Happy Owling!!!

Recently, I have been behind on posting about my birding adventures, but I have finally broken that curse with this post! As usual the summer marks the time when I go camping with my family to Happy Jack Lodge every other weekend. During the first few weekends that we were there I decided to spend my time birding during the night instead of the day, or at least for the most part. So this summer I have spent many nights owling in the cool pines of Happy Jack. Most of these hikes were unproductive (with many of them producing no birds AT ALL!!!), however, there were two or three trips that were pretty awesome! The first night I owled was just flat-out depressing, because, I didn't hear a single bird! The next night I went owling again only in a slightly different area. After hiking for about a half mile I stopped and listened and could hear two super distant Flammulated Owls, lifer!!! I have to admit though, hearing these birds was pretty cool but I was trying for what only a hand full of people have done, and that is to not just see this elusive species but to photograph it! The second night I didn't have the chance to do so, but I did end up hearing three different Flams calling! The third night I owled was unproductive as well as the forth and fifth nights. The sixth night I wasn't planning on owling but I decided that I would walk up to the edge of the forest to listen for a couple minutes. While I was listening I all the sudden heard a Flam give its single "poot" call a few times!!! I then ran back to camp to let my parents know that I was gonna hike down into the forest to search for this bird when my mom offered to come with me. So there we were, my mom and I hiking down the dark and nearly endless forest in search of a 6.75" tall bird! Once we reached the spot where I was hearing the bird I was pumped to hear that the bird was still calling! Once I locaed the direction where the bird was calling, we quickly started hiking towards it. Once we reached a spot where the bird sounded like it was fairly close we started scanning through the treetops with my flashlight when we both caught sight of the bird flying away! We then followed the direction of where the bird was when we again reached a point where the bird sounded fairly close. This time instead of the bird flushing from about 20' away it flushed from 5'!!!!! I was totally confused at how the bird sounded like it was 20'-30' away when it was only 5'! This time when the bird flew off I kept the flash light on the Flam as it flew and saw where it landed!!!

Flammulated Owl (taken without a flash)

Once I got my mom on the bird we then walked a little closer to the bird and had even better views!

Flammulated Owl

Watching the Flammulated Owl and getting to observe it while it actively hunted for nearly an hour was probably my best "Booya Moment" bird-wise! While we watched this guy for a while his mate even came in to see what was going on, but she didn't stay around very long. By the time my mom said that it was getting late I had a whole bunch of photos of this guy!

Flammulated Owl

After that night of owling I didn't have any extreme birding moments like that but I did see that Flam two more times and even heard my second owl lifer at Happy Jack, a Long-eared Owl! I hope you enjoyed my Flammulated Owl post and I look forward to seeing this species again in the future! Cheers to the Flams!!!