[CT Birds] More Hawk Stories

[ORCHIDS]

Florida Dec 1974 - winter recess from college.  Folk we were staying  
with knew of our birding interest and said we should go out at night  
and see the hawk that calls.  Sure enough after sunset we heard the  
'hawk' - there was royal palm that had lost its top that was being  
used as a night feeding roost by a Barn Owl.

Other hawk stories on the digest remind me of the Great Grey Owl in  
Hadley (?) Mass in the early 1980's.  It was perched in a tree on the  
edge of wet meadow.  We had not realized that the water level was  
increasing around our feet from the recent heavy rains.  So there are  
about 12 of us in the meadow and then the owl flew right at us - I  
thought the owl was about to attack the woman standing next to me -  
flew over us with but a foot or two of clearnace and landed maybe 15  
feet away in the marsh - it had a mouse (meadow vole?) in its talons -  
it flew to a nearby telephone pole to enjoy lunch - we all applauded.   
The flooding obvious caused the mouse to seek higher ground - we were  
not as observant as the owl.

Ron, Ashford