It was just what I was looking for this morning. I was feeling like I’d been doing too many uncommon owls and I was starting to miss the typical ones for where I live.
I also thought I’d been feeling a bit negative toward the Barred Owls lately as well. In looking up all the articles and posts for things here, I come across bad PR for the Barred Owls pretty often.
It’s nesting season, and there very territorial, so there’s all kinds of stories of Barred Owl attacks on people and dogs, all kinds of conservation issues that the Barred Owl is on the wrong side of, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service has announced going forward with a Barred Owl reduction plan, so I wanted to see them being cute and happy instead today.
They’re in an unfortunate position these days, due to their success as predators and one of the more aggressive species that has been able to keep adapting to an ever changing ecosystem. It can be too easy to start thinking of animals as bad if they aren’t doing what we want them to. But they’re just being themselves and trying to survive the day and raise their babies.