Barred Owl (Strix varia)

This is a female Barred Owl on Vancouver Island in Colliery Dam Park. A fellow near Nanaimo told me I might find this bird here. When I arrived, I found several people enjoying the park, walking about with their dogs untethered. In the distance I could hear a pacific wren that I really wanted to see and photograph, and I grew weary that the dogs and pedestrians would scare it away.

 

Suddenly, I noticed a lump five yards up in a conifer. I raised my binoculars and saw this beauty. She had been roosting there through all the bustle. I gazed and snapped away for more than two hours. I have heard The Who-cooks-for-you call of the barred owl several times, but this evening I heard it front and center, and it is very loud. She was calling her young, three juveniles who soon appeared as she led them out on the evenings hunt. I found the Pacific wren the next day.

Done