As of 4pm this afternoon, the owl has NOT been seen. Mandy Martin (another DCP Naturalist) and I headed out there at 3pm and organized a "field walk" that included many of the 15-20 people on site (this was OK'd by the farmer & land owner). We wanted to try to determine if the owl was even present anymore. We hiked a large portion of the area where the owl had been seen yesterday and were unable to flush it. It appears that the owl is staying away from the known location (for now at least). There have been numerous people there off and on since VERY early this morning and if the owl is still in the area, this seems to be enough to keep it from coming back... that, or the owl decided to leave last night, since people there early this morning were unable to spot it. Given the fact that this area sees only limited traffic (a vehicle maybe every 15min) and very little human interaction, the sudden influx of this many people could very well cause the owl second thoughts upon returning to his "burrow". There is also the possibility that there is a second site that he has been using off and on throughout the past week and this is where he is... basically, we have no idea =) At this time, I would NOT recommend anyone traveling out to the site. Especially if you have a long drive. I will check the site upon returning to work tomorrow and throughout the day if need be and will keep everyone posted. Thanks to all who tried to spot him and who helped with the 'field walk'. -- Robb Clifford - Naturalist - Darke County Parks www.darkecountyparks.org "We need another and a wiser, and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken a form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth." -Outermost House by Henry Beston- ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]