Elusive owl calls Southern Oregon home

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Photo by Norm Barrett

Ashland is recognized throughout the West for its Shakespeare plays. The Rogue River is noted for its rafting and fishing. But Southern Oregon is even more widely known among birders.

Your typical birder may enjoy a day in the field, often with a camera checking out what new migrant or rarity has shown up near Howard Prairie Reservoir or at Lost Creek lake. News of a rare bird will spread through the birding community, and many will head out after work to check it out.

However, there is another class of birders, a different creature entirely. This is the lister. In Britain they call them twitchers. Their quest is to see as many species as possible. Depending on one's interest, free time, bank account and spouse, this sport is played out on the county, state or an even grander level. The sport can have self-imposed time limits. The epitome of listing is the "big year." The goal is to see as many species as possible north of the Mexican border in one calendar year. The record is more than 750 species. This is where Southern Oregon comes in.

Southern Oregon is home to an uncommon and very elusive bird, the great gray owl. It is huge and gray (of course), has a satellite dish for a face with two yellow eyes and a small white bow tie of feathers. And, unlike the great horned owl, it has no ear tufts. The large facial disk of feathers helps it register minute sounds of scurrying mice under snow, and gophers and moles burrowing near the surface.

You might think the great gray owl would be an easy bird to find. Think again. It is one of the most elusive species in all of North America. It wasn't until the mid 1900s that we even knew they bred in the "lower 48." The few individuals that were chanced upon in the woods could easily have been visitors from Canada. "The Birds of Oregon" published in 1940 reports a handful of sightings in the state but reached no conclusion regarding its status.

Then a couple of breeding pairs were discovered in Yosemite National Park. This was a surprise to almost all. Then they were found near Fort Klamath in the 1960s. Though rare, we now know they breed throughout the Southern Oregon Cascades at high elevations and throughout the Siskyous at all elevations. They also occur in the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon and at scattered locations elsewhere in the Oregon Cascades.

The Dead Indian Plateau supports one of the largest populations south of the Canadian border and is perhaps the most dependable place to find one. Birders from all over the U.S. visit here hoping to encounter this bird. If not here, birders typically must go to northern Minnesota in winter. Not my choice.

If you wish to see one of our famous but shy great gray owls, your best chance is to head to Howard Prairie in the evening and wait until daylight begins to fail. If you are fortunate, you will be surprised as a large owl glides silently out of the timber and lands on a fencepost for an evening's hunt in one of the mountain meadows. Good luck.

Stewart Janes is a biology professor at Southern Oregon University. He can be reached at janes@sou.edu.

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