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Friday, June 4, 2010

It's, um, cute



Ch'rr....ch'rrr....ch'rrr... I paused. What was that? The night is home to hosts of unfamiliar noises. More often than not, the source of these strange sounds is an insect, a frog, or a drunken hobo...

This, however, sounded bird-like. I abandoned my search for the tenaciously calling Poorwill and headed in the direction of the mysterious call, shining the wimpy beam of my headlamp into the bushes and trees by the road. Within seconds, I found the culprit--a fledgling Western Screech-Owl. Or, more accurately, three of them.

In addition to being incredibly cute, they were very cooperative for photography, sitting on dead branches below eye level.

Tragically, however, my camera was resting sedately on my chair at home.

Hmmmm. Too good of an opportunity to pass up. Irvine Regional Park is only a couple miles from my house, so I called my mom to see if she'd be willing to chauffeur my camera over. Thankfully, she was, so within a few minutes I was happily photographing the baby owls.



Cute, no?