Roofs & Rambles

Arrived in Portland, Oregon yesterday and at the top of my birdwatching agenda was to meet up with John Deshler, Pygmy Owl researcher extraodinaire. He has been studying the owls for at least four years in Forest Park, Portland. I was fortunate to come across a great programme on OPB, when watching one on green ecoroofs. My host Bob Sallinger put me in touch with John and I found myself parked outside the Audobon Sanctuary at 0600 am in the rain.

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I had a feeling that, what with the weather, John might blow me out but, not to be thwarted, he arrived and duely took me through the dark rain drench forest in search of the little owl I have tried so desperately to find in Europe for over 20 years.

I have search the forests of Germany, Poland, Switzerland and France to no avail. I have tried calling them, I have scanned the tops of spruce forests but everytime the diminutive and elusive little creature has eluded me. Being stubborn I have never weakened and sort out a guide. Until this morning. However this is a guide with a difference. John’s work is seminal in North America, where Pygmy owls have never really been researched. He is discovering many things about how the birds behave and function in the expanse of Forest Park, the largest Urban Park in the US.

Walking with him, I had a feeling of his intimacy with the birds. At first he didn’t seem too optimistic that we would hear let alone see one. The wet and the wind might keep the birds hunkered down. But then a distant ‘too too too’ was heard in the forest. John with his hands cupped to his ears sought out the direction of the call and then proceeded to call back.

John’s work is to find the nests of breeding pairs. The television programme highlights the sheer endeavour of this work. It is difficult enough to locate a calling male perched a top on of a hundred tall pine trees, let alone track down the female, witness the copulation and then find the nest.

With our binoculars steaming up, the lenses  peppered with raindrops and dark grey skies hampering our search this was not ideal pygmy owl hunting weather. But patience and  the presence and persistence of a man with an intuitive and intimate understanding of his subject paid off. Besides the relatively traffic free main road, John noticed the male fly onto a tall pine. And there he was. Just like in the guide books, sitting  right at top of a tree, head scanning form side to side.  I watched the bird through my binoculars for awhile, then rushed to get my telescope and camera. He sat there long enough for me to get some very poor quality pictures [the light and my lack of digiscoping skills to blame], but enough for me to say ‘I saw one’. For about 20 miuntes or so he stood up his perch, a sentinel, guarding his territory. I watched his head crane every now and then when some activity alerted him. And then finally  he flew off down into the mid storey of the forest to seek out his mate and was gone.

Finally I have seen a Pygmy Owl. But it wasn’t just about the bird. It was a pleasure to spend three hours with a man, who has dedicated his time and effort to understanding this delicate yet fierce-some owl.