Owl Fledglings in East Windsor

A friendly birding couple that I've met through my blog invited me to their neighborhood to see some recently fledged Eastern Screech Owls. Almost like clockwork, they appeared at dusk and stayed within 100m of where we were initially standing (In the middle of a residential street). These three photos I've featured were about as good as I could get in poor dusk lighting and telephoto zooming. I did not attempt to use flash as I felt it may not be in the bird's best interest. Instead of flash, I increased ISO sensitivity to 3200 and used a tripod.

It was strange to see five Owls in a residential street, and seeing cars going by with blaring music, and hearing fireworks going off, and to hear the thumping base coming from the Detroit Electronic Music Festival... it was incredible that these guys could use their highly tuned hearing and vision to find food.

Earlier on  during Monday afternoon, I did a quick 1-hour kayak tour of Peche Island. It was not overly eventful. It was rather quiet actually. One common bird I noted and photographed was a flycatching Cedar Waxwing. The photo below was photographed from my Kayak.Very few other noteworthy birds were seen. No Kingfishers, one GB Heron, one male Wood duck. It was very quiet.

Birding is about so much more than birds. Its about geography, weather, history, environment, biology/ ecology, seasons, chance, optics/photography and finally, meeting great people! I must say that I've never found an Owl, just on my own. Its either been through the blogosphere, or the small personal birding network I've amassed over the last two years. Rick & Kevin from Leamington have been incredibly generous with their knowledge of Owls near Point Pelee, A local Pbase photographer had mentioned one or two at Ojibway and in this blog-postings' case, it was Kikipotamus and Syl who invited me to see these wonderful birds. Thanks guys!

Good birding!
Dwaynejava