Owl Survey

Last fall I went to a presentation up at Hawk Ridge in Duluth. A volunteer there talked about opportunities to get involved in citizen science projects. One project was the annual owl survey. That sounded interesting to me. I thought it would be a good way to learn owl sounds. So a sibling and I signed up. We both passed the on-line quiz of the ten Minnesotan owl calls. Our survey had to be completed between April 1 and April 15. On Monday night we completed our route. A third sibling joined us. Three sisters on a road trip/owl survey. After dropping Offspring #2 off in Northfield, we proceeded east to Lake City. We wanted to scout our route in daylight so we would know where we were going. We wrote down the longitude and latitude of each of the ten stops along with a description such as "fields on both sides" or "deciduous forest on left, field on right" or "just past a huge mud puddle in the road" or "twenty plastic calf huts on right." By the looks of the ravines and wooded ridges, we figured we were in prime owl territory. We went out to eat in Lake City at a restaurant right on Lake Pepin. The view was beautiful. Nerdy or not, we looked at water birds with binoculars during the meal. Yeah, nerdy. Definitely. The view was better than the food. At 8:15 we started the route. It was dark and windy at the first stop. We stood in the road next to the car in the pitch dark listening for owls for five minutes. We heard sounds but not owls. This turned out to be the theme of the evening - sounds but no owls. At the third stop I thought I heard something walking in the woods. I turned around to look but couldn't see anything. Five minutes can seem like forever sometimes. At the stop by the mud puddle, the sounds of frogs was deafening. One of the croaking frogs was a gray chorus frog and they sound like someone rubbing the teeth on a comb. Once a car stopped and asked if we needed help. I imagine we looked like we needed help - two people holding clipboards standing outside a car in the dark on a dirt road. The sixth or seventh stop was on the edge of a mowed section by someone's house. We stopped the car and got out. Two dogs barked and barked and barked at us. I thought if that dog comes running up to me, forget the owls, I am getting back in the car. We heard the homeowners calling the dogs into the house. When the five minutes were up we got back into the car and drove past the house. We could see two people standing in the doorway looking at us. I hope we didn't scare them too much. We finished the tenth stop about 10 p.m. We didn't hear any owls. But the fact we didn't hear any owls in important too. Owls don't talk all the time. I imagine at least one owl watched us listening for them. We had a good adventure. We are considering doing the frog and toad survey for the DNR next. At least we have a better chance of hearing frogs than owls.