The mystery revealed: Owlets

So that strange little fuzz ball on the trunk of the aspen was a clump of downy feathers on a barred owl owlet (which is maybe only slightly more obvious from the above image). One of the interesting things about the many responses I received was that some of you not only knew what species the mystery organism was, but also who the individual in the photo was. And a very few of you even shared images of that same individual from my photograph (or at least one of its siblings) as evidence in support of your guess!! Seems like this barred owl owlet (or is it just barred owlet?) is a local celebrity.

My whole experience of observing and taking photos of the barred owl family highlighted the strange and beautiful role that charismatic natural phenomena play in building community and ultimately deepening our connection to the more-than-human world. Some phenomena, like Hurricane Irene or this current heat wave, are so prominent and dramatic that they cut through the wall of our collective disconnect from wild things, with virtually everyone sharing in the experience. Witnessing the eclipse became a shared vocabulary that immediately forged connections between strangers. Other phenomena are more subtle expressions of the seasons, like slug breeding season or the dropping of marcescent leaves in the spring, requiring a keen eye, bit of luck, or guide to point the way (or all three). As a naturalist and educator, it’s the latter that I’m most drawn to.

And so it was that last Wednesday I was out with The Wilds preschool when we came across someone looking up into a tree with binoculars. I always say that the best way to find birds is to look for birders. And sure enough as we walked by the birder offered, “Interested in a teachable moment?” With a resounding “Yes!” he brought us over to look at a small pair of bulging eyes staring back at us from a nest cavity in a diseased beech tree. The group was in awe of the adorable and awkward craning neck of the inquisitive owlet.

Owlets are something to be excited about and since they were adjacent to our base camp for the Field School I told the rest of our staff about them. Ross (our Youth Programs Director) was out at the nest on Thursday night and had seen the owlets shortly after they fledged, so when I came back Friday morning I expected them to be harder to find than just going back and looking at the nest. Fortunately, I arrived to find a fellow birder taking photos of the owlets. He pointed to two owlets perched on a branch just above the nest and a third who had failed to make the flight up and had crash landed on the ground (this one slowly ambled upslope away from the bike path and ultimately up the aspen tree).

Alicia Daniel (former Field Naturalist for Burlington’s Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department) showed up shortly after to check in on the owlets. While we stood on the edge of the bike path and gawked, nearly everyone who passed by slowed down to ask what we were looking at. I stayed for about an hour and a half and shared in the joy of watching the owlets with about 30 or 40 other people. One mom and her kid even walked home and brought back the rest of her family.

And in everyone, there was a palpable joy, awe, and even surprise to co-inhabit this space with such wild and majestic (and, yes, adorable) beasts. While the two owlets were mostly seeking out their mom, who was hovering around the third owlet who had fallen to the ground, the pair stretched, yawned, and occasionally stared back at us. One kid even gasped when the owlet’s gaze caught his own through a pair of borrowed binoculars. 

These moments are magical portals into the lives of our wild neighbors. They are accessible and ever present, beautiful reminders that our city is an ecosystem, and that we, like the owls, are part of this interconnected web.