A Quiet Night in the Santa Catalinas

Unbelievably quiet last night in the Santa Catalinas, where Scott and I headed to listen for owls. We started in the early evening at a “known” site for Elf Owl, only to find the hole used by the owls in years past occupied by Gila Woodpeckers; it’s a hard life for the little guys. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to wander around listening for others, but after ticking off Great Horned Owl, started our ascent on the Mount Lemmon Highway.

It should have been a good night for owls, clear and calm early on (the wind did come up later in the evening). But all of our sure-fire stops were silent, with at best a few distant Common Poorwills the only reward for listening hard.

Finally Mount Bigelow (daunting road in the dark!) produced a strigid, and a good one at that. A Northern Saw-whet Owl sharpened his blade for a good 15 minutes as we stood in the cold dark and hoped for a close approach; the bird was in fact not far off, but never bothered to reveal himself against the starry sky.

Normally our route would have produced 6 owl species or more. The drive home was made longer by disappointment, but we diverted ourselves with a complicated calculus of owl value: was hearing the Saw-whet worth missing Flammulated? Did it outweigh missing both screech-owls? Would we rather have heard Spotted or Saw-whet? The games birders play!