My Screech Owl Stakeout--Mission Accomplished

Screech owl box the evening of March 17, 2014. (Photo by Don Comis)

I got all set to stake out the screech owl box tonight.  I got settled in my camp chair by 7 p.m., knowing that my neighbor's screech owl leaves his box a half hour before sunset, which WeatherBug lists as 7:40 p.m.  So if the box is an active list, as its stuffing with leaves suggests, I should see a screech owl or two come out at 7:10 p.m.

Once in a while I thought I saw movement and used my binoculars.  Nothing.  I let myself get distracted at times, checking out the nearby hawk's nest, looking for the woodpeckers' pecking, looking at a song sparrow.  But sometimes I even ignored a woodpecker when it seemed to be in the tree next to me.

I kept taking photos of the box to adjust for the lessening of light as the day came to a close.  But I didn't want to check my cell phone for fear that motion would alert the owl.  And there's something about sitting in a folding chair between a playground and a parking lot to the Apple Valley Clubhouse, dressed in camoflauge jacket and gloves, topped off by not one, but two, layers of red hunter hats, that makes a person think of more than just what time it is.

So when my creature appeared it seemed to be right on time.  I had wondered how an owl could move through all those leaves and fit through the hole.  I could see white, on its chest I thought.  I finally thought I could make out a small face and ears, and marveled at how the hole made the head look small.  There was room to spare for that head sticking out of the hole. Sometimes I thought the owl was making moves to fly out.

And then it became clear to me that this was no owl, but a squirrel.  Of course, how could I not have remembered that squirrels build their nests out of leaves.  This squirrel saw the box as opportunity.  All he would have to do is gather the dead oak leaves from the tree as usual, but now he could just stuff them into a ready-made box, rather than try to fit them on a trim limb or fork of a tree!

And I had been warned when building woodpecker houses that a squirrel might move into them.

But I continued to photograph the squirrel looking out of the box, moving closer a step or two at a time until convinced I had a reasonably close shot, without overly scaring the squirrel.

The time on the photograph showed he or she had come out at 7:32 p.m., 22 minutes late for a screech owl, but just 8 minutes shy of sunset.

I couldn't help but wonder why that squirrel woke up in the middle of that pile of leaves and looked out the hole.  Was he bored, wanting to see outside before it got dark?   He couldn't have heard me because I was so far from him.

I like to think he was enjoying the sunset and his lakeside view.

And I admire his safe home, where anyone looking normally would only see leaves, whether he was home or not.  Until he took the risk of poking his head out.