Should've had my camera . . .

[westwings at sisna dot com (Mark Stackhouse)]

I've often said that the best bird sightings happen when you don't have a
camera. In fact, I sometimes leave my camera behind on purpose - in the
superstitious belief that it will help me see something really good. This
morning, I contemplated bringing my camera on cross-country skiing outing
with my wife, Dee to Millcreek Canyon. I wasn't really expecting to have
anything great to shoot, but I have a partially shot roll from my Veracruz
trip that I'd love to finish, and I thought for a moment that there might
be a pretty winter scene or two. However, it's hard to take photos when
skiing, so I left it behind. Bad move.

One our way back home, we were almost to the mouth of the canyon when we
saw two magpies in the road, with a gray mass in between. As we approached,
I looked closely to see what manner of road-kill they were eating,
expecting to see a squished squirrel. To our surprise, the gray mass was a
pygmy-owl, and it was still alive. We were dismayed to think that such a
wonderful creature had been hit by a car, and quickly pulled over to
investigate. We walked up to the owl, and saw that, in fact, it hadn't been
hit by a car at all, but was closely guarding a freshly killed Downy
Woodpecker, which the magpies had been trying to steal. The owl allowed us
to approach to about 5 feet before (to our amazement) picking up the
woodpecker (which looked about as big as the owl) and flying up to an oak
branch just off the road and just below eye-level. There it sat in a
perfect pose, with woodpecker dangling from its talons, even showing the
red spot on the back of the male woodpecker's head. It would have been an
awesome picture! As it was, it went into our memories as perhaps the best
view either of us has had of a wild pygmy-owl, and the highlight of a
beautiful morning in the canyon.

FYI, it was about 100 yards above the very bottom of Millcreek Canyon, and
flew into the oak brush on the north side of the road.

Good birding!

Mark Stackhouse
Westwings, Inc.
1432 Downington Ave.
Salt Lake City, UT 84105
tel./fax. (801) 487-9453
westwings@sisna.com


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