Owl Prowl - SE Mass 10/18/2014

  This was a combined South Shore & Brookline Bird Club trip in search of owls in and around the Cumberland Farm Field in the towns of Halifax and Middleboro. Five others joined me and we began scanning the field at dusk. Weather conditions were comfortable with mild temperatures and light winds. There were hundreds of Am. Robins milling around on the harrowed section of the field and hundreds more overhead heading to a nearby roost site. A Northern Harrier was seen coursing low over the field and an American Woodcock fluttered up over the group as the light was fading. Several small flocks of Wood Ducks were dropping into the marshes in the southern portion of the field. Our first owl was a distant, heard-only Great Horned Owl.

  Darkness was now upon us and we spent the next few hours in the area making several stops playing owl calls and waiting to hear a response. We managed to attract 3 Eastern Screech Owls, having nice looks at 2 of them (both gray phase).
  The highlight of the trip was a nice encounter with a Barred Owl. While playing a Screech Owl call, we noticed this large owl silently fly in and land high up in a nearby tree. Nice looks were had by all as the owl perched above, trying to figure out where the Screech Owl could be. The Barred Owl never did vocalize, so we were fortunate to have seen it fly in.


Canada Goose  2
Wood Duck  60    Estimate. Flyovers at dusk
Great Blue Heron  1
Northern Harrier  1
Red-tailed Hawk  1
Killdeer  1
American Woodcock  1
Mourning Dove  1
Eastern Screech-Owl  3
Great Horned Owl  1
Barred Owl  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Blue Jay  1
Tree Swallow  25
Carolina Wren  1
American Robin  1500    Rough estimate of birds heading to roost.
Song Sparrow  1
White-throated Sparrow  1
Northern Cardinal  1

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)

Vin Zollo