He's the King of Mountain species; and he regularly explores the San Gabriel Mt. at night! Been to owling with him with Pasadena Audubon members recently, and it was a memorable first experience!
Target species were 5, and we scored 4, not bad at all!
First we found Northern-Pygmy Owl, which had a surprisingly loud voice. It wasn't very shy either, stayed long enough after it was spotted and 'assualted' with headlights and camera flashes lol.
Next, the highlight, Western Screech-Owl! Responded to a Northern Saw-whet Owl vocalization, and it didn't move at all, SO cooperative at such close quarters lol. I've never seen a bird SO bold! We could study it for a long time, so long that we eventually got tired and left it alone lol.
Spotted Owl and Great Horned Owl, despite being bigger, were rather retiring; only could glimpse SPOW fluttering away, and GRHO also kept quite a distance from us.
It was SO cold, so we could all the more appreciate Mr. Benner's efforts; and he could hear SO well! I really envied him since I'm paritally deaf; as another author said, wearing a hearing aid makes it all but impossible to detect the direction of the calls as well. I was in utter despair after receving the complete list from him, since I missed most of the birds lol.
We met a jogger along the trail with a headlamp, quite an intrepid one!
Again, mucho thanks to him; it really was a special experience!
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