Regarding owls

[Dominique roche <droche at mendel dot usu dot edu>]

Dear all,

        I have been in the Logan for four years, being a prof at USU and
most of you do not me since I have been keeping a low profile and did not
get involved in birding groups. I do my own personnal surveys on golden
eagle and some on owls in Cache Co. I know the boreal owl from older birding
days while I was still in France (Auvergne) before I got in the USA. It was
in 1979-1981.
I spent many years in New Mexico where I looked for it relatively
extensively in The Gila mountains in Southern New Mexico. I never found it
and to my knowledge no one ever found it.  I know it may sound like a
stretch but there are places (some limited spruce forests) in the Mogollon
Mountains only 100 kilometers from the Mexican border that keep a snow cap
from december thru may-early June! I remind you  Aegolius funereus has been
found in Northern New Mexico in the mid and late eighties.
        Since I have been in Logan I spent many hours at night to try to
hear one. I have to say I do not use the recording. I used the recording so
many times in France and New Mexico that I got sick with it!  Not using it
lower your success of finding one but you enjoy much better your nightly
walks.
Finally on march 6 and 15, 2004 I finally heard in the evenings a male
singing half of a mile west of Stewart Turner Campgroung (along the road to
Tony Grove) in a mostly-spruce stand. I could not here again on two
following visits. It does mean it was gone, this owl becomes mute as soon as
eggs are laid. This finding confirms a likely solid presence of this species
in Utah. It has been found as nesting two or three years ago in the Uintas
and there is at least one or two reports in the last few years in the Bear
Range including in Hell's Kitchen Canyon located only 4 to 5 miles north of
the location where I heard it.

        Early march I will take anyone who may be interested to hear this
bird.

Dominique Roche,

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