Saturday, November 03, 2007

Northern Saw (part IV) whet owl sighting

My dear friend Jodi Hildebrand had put me in touch with some screenwriters, Luke Matheny and Rob Meyer, who she knew from her work and were looking to do research on a script they were writing about teeange birdwatchers. We met up in Central Park the other day, and we had a very sucessfull birding day. Luke and Rob had never been birdwatching before, which made it way more fun and exciting to see and identify birds. Plus, I got to feel extra knowledgeble. Like the time my mom, my brother and I were candlepin bowling, and we felt really confident about how the league team playing at the same time was hardly better than we were (then we realized it was a league for mentally handicapped people).

I thought the highlight for me had come early with a good sighting of a pair of male and female eastern towhees, but just like bowling with retarded people, it only got better. We spotted several middle aged women and a young boy huddled around the bushes between the bike path and the lake. We asked them what they were looking at, and they pointed to an owl sitting in the bush, only about 6ft away from us. We identified it as a Northern Saw-Whet Owl, which is a bird I've never seen. In fact, I've never seen an owl in the wild period. So this was very exciting. Later that night, I checked the NYC Bird Report website, and found that this bird had not been reported all year.

Rob got some excellent pictures:

Northern saw-whet owl


Yellow-bellied sapsucker


Black capped chicadee

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey, Katie. Thanks for the mention. I feel like a celebrity! -- Luke

Unknown said...

let's go birding again soon -- luke and i are clearly good luck...

Unknown said...

I am so happy that I was able to connect three wonderful mentally handicapped people for a day of birdwatching.

Madeleine said...

KATIE NOTOPOULOS!
I just this morning decided to stalk you on the internet. Yes, it was just as creepy as it sounds. I tried facebook, but when that didn't work I just googled you and found out that you're a bird watcher. Awesome. Don't know anything about birds myself, but I dated a couple of birders, so I know they're crazy, which makes sense given what else I know of you. Bird watching has nothing to do with playing the bassoon - you've changed, I feel so distant. Maybe I'll see you one day in Belmont or Brooklyn. That would be fun.

sara said...

dude, that owl is effing cuuuute!

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