Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 20:57:28 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: William Leigh Subject: Re: Snowy Owl New Design Road Md Comments: To: va-bird@list.audubon.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I > Hello all, > > Beautiful > beautiful bird, just plain impressive!. I and about 5 or 6 other birders > watched the owl for about an hour just before dark. It was perched on top of > a telephone pole alongside a very busy two lane highway surrounded by farm > fields. After a while the lady beside me noticed that there were a pair wood > rats periodically popping out from a clump of grass and climbing up a soy > bean bush, snatching a few beans and scurrying back to the cover of the tall > grass. > The Owl was well aware of the rats and I think the rats were aware of the > Owl, but rats gotta eat so they kept taking their chances. Eventually the Owl > took off and grabbed one of the rats but as it lifted up into the air with > its dinner it struck a barb wire fence. The rat was catapulted about 10 feet > into the air only to land smack dab in the middle of the road on its back. > Eventually it recovered and took off for the another clump of grass on the > other side of the road. Meanwhile the stunned Owl flew off to the middle of a > plowed field where it kept turning in circles seemingly stunned senseless. > After about 10 minutes it recovered and flew back to the same telephone pole > apparently sparred of any serious consequences. I really don't understand how > that rat survived. > WIlliam Leigh > Leightern@aol.com > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================