Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 09:02:48 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Frank Powers Subject: Barred in Glen Echo? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit One of the magical moments in life is to get a call at the office from your 16-year old daughter, late in the day, who breathlessly and with great glee tells you there is an owl in your backyard, not twenty feet away from the kitchen window. And wants you to come home right away to share this incredible sight with her -- on Valentine's Day, no less! ("Omigod, Dad! I didn't know what else to do. It's sooooooo BIG!"). We talked it through. I'm only 8 miles away, but at 6pm in D.C., miles don't equal minutes. So, calmly, she got out the National Geo guide, fumbled through the pages, thought for a minute it looked like the Short-eared...then squealed, "No, here it is, a Barred Owl! It's hunched over like, not as big as the Great Big One (translation, due to over-excitement: "Great Horned Owl")...and it's got some white in its tail." So that will have to do. Without doubt, our family was honored with a visit from a Barred Owl -- a new backyard bird for our family list (no, I couldn't get there in time, so this is a joint bird sighting). My Little Valentine said so. And as every parent knows, 16-year olds RULE. Frank Powers Glen Echo, MD mattfp@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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================