TWO RECENT SIGHTINGS!
A passerby snapped the pictures above and submitted the following report:
"I was just walking along minding my own business when I saw this birdy come hopping up. Not flying like the others which is why I noticed it. It came hopping along the barb wire fence, (or maybe chain link, I think they call it) like it wanted to get inside. It went all up and down the fence and around the corner trying to find a way in, but couldn't find one. It looked pretty disappointed to me and was making those little squeaks and clucks like it was homesick or something."
"Just then the bus full of prisoners from the Berkeley jail showed up for their daily exercise in the yard there behind the fence. The poor little birdy got scared, it seemed like, and hopped away double-time back south toward the Berkeley Marina or maybe the Hana of Japan restaurant, I can't say for sure. That's about it, what I saw."
(Editor's note: We finally have our first fully-confirmed sighting of a burrowing owl!)
Public Art projects in Albany tend to come off flawlessly, so it is unusual to see a problem such as the one at Memorial Park. The art here took the form of a grassy bunker with the inscription. "BE THE CHANGE YOU WISH TO SEE IN THE WORLD" or some such. Unfortunately, the change that actually occurred was this: the grass on the bunker died, leaving instead what could be described as a bare dirt mound.
But "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good", as they say. Whereas we humans may find this bare mound less than visually attractive, it turns out that alert burrowing owls quickly recognized it as just the sort of habitat they had been looking for. Local Audubon Society rep, Sandra P. Landers, was fortunate enough to observe one of the refugee owls surveying the site, assessing its overall potential, and carefully considering where he might best place his tunnels.
Back