2010 Owl Prowl

This year brought sweet success from my three-year quest to get my hands on Owl Prowl tickets. This year I was in in to win it. My strategy began with a 6:45 a.m. alarm on Saturday morning, a quick drive to Leavenworth, and was followed by standing in line at the Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce with a bunch of bird nerds. About an hour later, I was on my way home with two carefully guarded tickets for a late-night hike outside of Leavenworth to view owls.

On a Friday evening, Darin and I met our Owl Prowl guides (and fellow prowlers) at the Leavenworth Ranger Station. We drove out to the middle of nowhere and started hiking through the woods (not on a trail, mind you). It was really dark and really fun. It was spooky too. I was really wishing that I wouldn't have watched that werewolf movie recently, because I swear I heard werewolves while we were out there.

After hiking only about a quarter of a mile, the owl biologist started hoot hooting for Barred Owls, and within 10 minutes or so, two Barred Owls flew into the trees above us. It was awesome. They made all sorts of calls that you wouldn't expect to come from an owl and flew around us to scare us out of their territory. After about 5 -10 minutes, they figured out we were a bunch of silly owl prowlers, and they flew off. It was too dark to get photos of the owls, but this is what we saw. I can't wait for Owl Prowl 2011!