Hunting for the Ivory-billed Woodowl

Before I start, a short comment on the weather here in South-East Michigan:
On Tuesday we had 63 degrees Fahrenheit (equivalent to almost 20 °C) and on Thursday morning there was fresh snow on the ground. Madness!


OK, what is this post all about? Dare to guess?

No, it is not a report of a newly described species of Owl in Africa, the Wood Owl there remains (systematically) alone (nicer picture here).
No, sorry, wrong again: it is also not a typo, I did mean Woodowl, indeed, and not 'pecker.

Yes, all right, I tell you:
You see, as a new arrival to North American birding, I am absolutely fascinated by the Ivory-billed Woodpecker story. Hey, to most of you, this is probably a debate that's been going on for the last ... well ... roughly 60 years, sometimes more intense (like now), sometimes more subdued. But to enter the show now and really dig into it with a still unspoilt sense of humour is just great.
Just the number of blogs and websites on the topic is quite something and with everyone waiting for the definite photo to be shot any day now (or never?), checking these web sites for news is more exciting than checking the latest opinion polls for Ohio or Florida during an election in the US.
Back to the title of my post:
What do all the blogs and web sites on the search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker have in common?
Well, apart from a repetition of the words "intriguing", "interesting", "data" and "evidence", they are characterized by a conspicuous scarcity of recent Ivory-billed Woodpecker encounters and especially photos. But one species we often find mentioned or even depicted there is the amazing Barred Owl, e.g. here. This is not all too surprising as it is apparently relatively common in the south-eastern United States.
The Barred Owl also occurs, be it in a reduced density, in South-East Michigan and the local email forum was recently just buzzing with reports of up to two birds showing very well at Stony Creek Metropark north of Detroit. And you see, this is where another factor suddenly makes quite a massive appearance: It is an owl and as such an impossible, invisible and de facto non-existing creature (see here), it is nice and big and most important of all, I had never seen it before.
So when Laurent and I were discussing the options of half a day's birding last Tuesday, there was a certain tendency to go for the owl. But of course, it is a far drive and there had been a multitude of reports of White-winged Scoters around Washtenaw County, so we were indeed a bit reluctant on reaching a verdict on where to go. These pictures then probably triggered the final decision: we went for the Owl!

So there you have it, the title of my post:
We went "hunting" for an owl that lives in the woods, is somewhat connected to the Ivory-billed Woodpecker thereby profiting from the mystique surrounding it and if you look closely here, well, it even has an ivory-coloured bill!

And here's how it went:

Driving from Ann Arbor to Stony Creek Metropark is not all that easy or quick when you don't know how best to get there and the road we decided to take would surely have terrorized even a Congolese Bush Taxi driver but at least on the way there the birds were with us. Best of all was probably a Sandhill Crane standing on the ice of one of the smaller - still frozen - lakes wondering where on earth his swamp went. This link here depicts the scene rather nicely, and all I can contribute is a Sandhill Crane from Michigan's Upper Peninsular taken in May 2005, but a picture is better than not a picture.


Eventually we got to the park entrance with the car still in one piece and inquired at the main office if there was any news regarding the Owl. The only information we got however was that the staff there didn't really know anything about the owl apart from the fact that a lot of people had come up to them recently and asked, so we were grateful for the description of the site in the email Laurent had printed out before the trip.

So off we went into the park and on to the parking area described in the email. On the way there came the next nice species of the day (after the Sandhill Crane) in the shape of a bunch of Wild Turkeys. Well, there may be scarcer birds in North America but the Turkey will always be an impressive bird to watch, so we were already starting to feel quite well and pleased. The Turkeys finally left the lawn and disappeared into the undergrowth, so we continued on our quest for the Owl, parked the car and proceded into the wilds of Stoney Creek Metropark.
Allright, admittedly, venturing into the wilderness there was not quite the same challenge as, say, the Yukon because the Barred Owl had been found in a bunch of pines along a small forest track right next to the parking area, but we still made only slow progress along the path checking each and every pine tree along the way. No owl yet, but looking up, a sudden flash of pale white blinded our sight and we became aware that what had just flown over us and pushed our retinas to their limits was not a Red-tail, not a Coop, nope, it was a plain brilliant adult Northern Goshawk! What a day! My first ever encounter with the North American subspecies of Goshawk, a form I had been searching for around Ann Arbor (well, around the Arb, to be more down-to-earth) all winter long finally made an appearance! Great!

That sighting however meant that we had at once used up a whole lot of our daily portion of birder's luck and I feared we would later regret it...
We had finally covered the whole area as described for the owl in the emails without success and I had a sudden rush of comprehension: it was indeed an OWL we were looking for and that Snowy Owl was indeed the exception to the rule and I was just a very naive fool to have thought times had changes. We had run out of pines and there was no owl in sight. Oh dear.
Beyond the trail was a small stand of around 30 or so dense and high spruce trees and I heard a single Black-capped Chickadee warning angrily. Oh, I know what you think now "that's the owl, that's the owl", but those chickadees have darn far-reaching warning sensors and I have chased a few of those angry bundles of feathers through the Arb to later find that - even though I had been probably 50 metres away at first - I myself was the likely source of disturbance that had caused the calls.
So I remained calm, but Laurent and I followed a foot path (seen on the picture below) into the spruce stand towards the chickadee (which by then had come to us and continued its scolding, proving me right in my less than optimistic approach towards owling by following angry chickadees).

Somewhere out there might be an Owl

We eventually split to check out each single tree from different directions for better coverage and what can you say, I needn't have worried all day with Laurent "Owl Scout" by my side. It was probably less than two minutes and he quietly called me over to look at ...

Can you see it ??

Y E S !!

The Barred Owl.
Yes, the Barred Owl, and a beauty. I know I shouldn't be saying this without a firm background of Barred-Owl-Experience but I am sure it was the most amazing of all the Barred Owls in the world, and I knew that by intuition even without having seen them all!
Below is a photo Laurent took of our owl in case you haven't found it on my picture above.
Here's our bird!!


Needless to say, the looks through the scope were just ... yeah, as I said: needless to say, you get the picture.

THANKS TO THE FINDER FOR POSTING ITS WHEREABOUTS

After around half an hour with our owl (of course it was "ours" by then), we continued our birding day down on Belle Isle. There had been posts about Scoters around the island so we were curious to go and look for them and Belle Isle is often a good spot in general. Well, it is unfortunately also a good spot for anyone in Detroit to enjoy a bit of outdoors recreation on a sunny day and we weren't what one would describe as alone on the island. So of course, with people everywhere the birds were not - everywhere that is.
First stop was at one of the duck feeding sites which hardly ever produce extraordinary species but the feeding frenzy is nice to watch and you get close-up views of a few species which are always appreciated, and a Black Duck amongst the Mallards and Canada Geese was a nice surprise.

Using binoculars here (above) means you are really getting down
to the details, the fine tuning of bird identification

Nice drake Black Duck - I had never seen that species so close before

Here too, like everywhere else in the world apparently, the ducks had a very hard time defending their own against the mobbing gang of the much more agile gulls.


Ever read "The Lost World", with the deciding battle between the humans and the ape-men?
Challengers words after the battle that left the ape-men mostly dead: "We have been privileged to be present at one of the typical decisive battles in history - the battles which have determined the fate of the world. What, my friends, is the conquest of one nation by another? It is meaningless. Each produces the same result. But those fierce fights, when in the dawn of the ages the cave-dwellers held their own against the tiger-folk, or the elephants first found they had a master, those were the real conquests - the victories that count."

One of these days, I predict, the ducks will rise against the oppression of the gulls at the feeding sites and finish them off once and for all in a decisive battle that will determin the fate of the world - if you're a Guller. So enjoy this image of a Ring-billed Gull in flight, it might soon be a rare sight and replaced by a hovering Mallard.


In the North of Belle Isle is a small lagoon which is a safe haven for birds unless frozen, which it mostly was when we got there. A small area of open water however had remained and we were pleased to watch a small flock of Canvasbacks trying to get some rest while a few Bufflehead were giving them a hard time doing so because of their energetic courtship / competition behaviour, chasing each other around like little puppies on the lawn. Oh yeah, there were also Canada Geese. One somehow tends to neglect the mentioning of them. Maybe it is because they are everywhere? Well, possibly.


The open river to the north of the Island was a maze of open water in between numerous small sheets of ice floating down. I suspect the quick movement of the ice made it a place too annoying for most ducks to stay at because there were none around. Not even a single Scoter we had counted on ... unreliable little rascals.


We finally had to leave Belle Isle to avoid the rush hour in Detroit and on our way out saw that quite a few ducks were stationed along the last bit of coast we had not checked, so we had missed the main attraction of Belle Isle that day by an unlucky accumulation of bad luck, but at least we made it through Detroit quite allright and in time to pay Ford Lake a short visit. There, we found (or rather re-found as it had been reported as being reliable at the site) a nice Horned / Slavonian Grebe and a mixed flock of Aythyas, mostly of Lesser Scaup, Ring-necked Ducks, Redheads and a few Canvasbacks as well as a Ruddy Duck but honestly, after Goshawk and Barred Owl that was all just the nice decoration, like the fruit and paper umbrella on your cocktail that you appreciate but that was not the main reason for really having enjoyed your drink.

So, what's next?
That's a question easily answered: Eastern Screech Owl and Great Horned Owl.
Laurent mentioned how much he'd enjoy seeing a Burrowing Owl. We are a bit far here in Michigan from its regular haunts, but who knows: up to now, owling's been easy enough to regain some optimism.

Finally, here is a link you've probably all seen before, but it is just too good to not include in this post. Nature does have a sense of humour!

R E V O L U T I O N

When I travelled through southern Ontario and Michigan in May 2005, I had my trusty old camera equipment from the 1980s with me, the monstrous and scary yet somehow pretty good Novoflex lens and an old Minolta Camera, like this one. As you can see, it did not have a winder and you had to transport the film yourself after every shot. I got pretty quick at this over the years, but that speed apparently worked hard on the camera's mechanics as I usually was only able to use them for two to three years until the film transportation system would collapse and I was forced to get a new camera.
And this is what happened during my trip through North America in May 2005, after I had found a Porcupine during a hike around Trout Lake. Here's the last picture I was able to take, and then the curtain fell completely, literally.


Back in Germany I enquired about a new X 700 but was told these were not being produced anymore and I'd have to get one second hand, best through eBay or other Internet sources.
Well, sure I could have organized myself another antique camera, after all they really weren't bad, but I decided this was a sign, a little hint by fate to push me towards digital photography.
Problem was: finances were not overly abundant after a trip to another continent and so it took me a long, long time - the longest time ever without a camera since I was 11 years old - until I received a new and - yes - digital SLR at the end of last week.
It's nothing overly fancy of course and once I have tested it enough to know what I am talking about I might write a review on this blog, but I am sure it will serve well to put more colour onto this humble blog and more belief in my future claims of Bachman's Warblers and Labrador Ducks along the Huron River.


Frankly, I had not realized just how massively outdated my equipment and thus myself had been back until 2005 and when I went to the Arb on Sunday with my wife to test the new camera (my wife also got herself a really cool point-and-shoot), I had the distinct feeling of having switched from this to this without having first obtained my PhD in Astrophysics and the latter being a big mistake.

Oh dear, how was I going to cope?

Well, I need a lot of practice, particularly preventing camera shake from not holding still enough (the Novoflex was much more heavy which meant there was little risk of your pulse messing up your image as in this light-weight equipment), but considering I had pictures like this on my blog before ...



it seems I am doing much better with this now:



This (above) was actually the first ever bird picture with the new camera, and even though the Cardinal is not sitting in a bush with snow, it is still a worthy reintroduction of the photographing Belltowerbirder to the wild.
Northern Cardinals are actually such nice and obeying photo objects that I managed a few more shots. I know these pictures are not so special, but hey, this is my new camera and these are actually pictures I took myself, not just links to other pages, so you'll have to live with it for a while! Therefore, here are the Northern Cardinals:




We spent a total of 3 hours at the Arb around noon and it was yet again rather busy - weekend - but less crowded than before with most students gone (summer break). Bird life was not so abundant due to the time of day and people around, and I was focusing with and on my camera anyway and not fully paying attention to every peep from the canopy and rustling of leaves from the forest floor (it is very difficult to handle an auto focus for the very first time in your life, I can assure you that in case you have forgotten).
Photo opportunities came in the form of the Superior Raptork (formerly called Turkey Vulture) at the beach section, and I tried to make the most of my chance and obtain a decent image.



Of course, Belltower Birding always thrives to deliver insights beyond the cool and one of the advantages of a 10 Mega pixel camera is that you can zoom in quite nicely. What follows is heavily cropped, but it allows us to age the bird. The facial skin is still clearly blackish and not fully and bright red as it should be for an adult, and the bill is still dark instead of Ivory (oh, the word) as in decent adults, so there we have it aged: a bird in its second calendar year, which will soon be celebrating its first birthday.



I have now been in Ann Arbor more than half a year and my new camera now finally allowed me to thank the city and South-East Michigan in general for the Barred and Snowy Owl, for the Black-throated Gray Warbler, the Red-shouldered Hawks, Lesser Scaups and all those other lifers and goodies. Thank you all, you're great and GO BLUE !!!




And last but not least for the first day out with a brand new camera, the warbler pics I got.

This is where the auto focus of my camera realized how unfortunate it was to have ended in the hands of a bird photographer. The camera struggled and it worked and it cursed and it wished an old nanny would have bought it to take pictures of her little doggies but no, it had to be warblers in a sea of twigs and leaves. Here are the least shameful results. I suppose I still need to make a few changes on the technical settings of the camera, but I'll work it out before the arrival of the Swainson's Warblers at the Arb, for sure. I had temporarily wondered if it was possible to publish these as proof for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in Michigan and buy myself a nice little house in Costa Rica from the funding I'd receive, like Rancho Naturalista. But I guess I am just an honest guy, so here are some pictures of Yellow-rumped Warblers from the Arb last Sunday...


So let's go then, bring on spring migration !

The One I Deserved: The last of the St. Louis lifers

As I have mentioned in a recent post, I prefer to see all the specials of a particular area instead of striving to add as many species to my list as possible, and to me these special bird species - but of course all of them are special in one way or another - are species one is most / only likely to encounter in that one particular area. Now, the Heartland of North America only harbors a limited number of these special birds as most of the local breeding species can be seen further South in winter or also occur at more popular birding destinations.
Let's be honest here, I thoroughly enjoyed Missouri. But once I am back in Germany and birding in North America will mean a somewhat costly holiday, I am more likely to consider trips to Colorado, California, Arizona or Florida (and of course upstate New York) than to, say, Kansas or Iowa.
So now that I was right in the central part of the Continent by lucky chance, I tried my best to see the two birds most special to that particular area. These two bird species can actually be found over much of South-Western North America, but the forms occurring in the central part seem rather distinct and, with today's approach to taxonomy, might be viewed differently in the near future.
Of course I am talking about the eastern/central forms of Bell's Vireo and Bewick's Wren.

Bell's Vireos had been easy enough as the local birder's guide gave quite detailed descriptions to good sites. This was however not the case for Bewick's Wren, and the species therefore was my main reason for temporarily joining the Missouri bird forum and ask for help and assistance.
Sadly I got no response regarding Bewick's Wrens and remained clueless on the morning of my very last day birding around St. Louis.

That's bad.

Okay, I had been given directions to a Western Kingbird and had looked up a nice site for Yellow-throated Warbler and Fish Crow, so I had a few nice plans for the day. However, these were species I could probably encounter in other parts of the country I was more likely to visit in the future, like Alabama's Dauphin Island or California. But the Eastern form of Bewick's Wren?

Very bad, indeed.


Lifer No. 8: Bewick's Wren

So I sat there in front of my laptop in my St. Louis Hotel, ready to hit the road to the Western Kingbird, and knew that I had to make a plan all by myself.

In a last desperate attempt I googled "Bewick's Wren Distribution Missouri" and got to this link.

It clearly had to be the West I should head for, but it didn't look very promising to be right at the edge of its Missouri range, where there had only been between 3 and 5 encounters out of 100 "stops", statistically.

I checked the St. Louis birding guide and the only birding site in the South-West that seemed fit to potentially hold the Wren was ... Shaw Nature Reserve, a place I had been to 2 days earlier.
Therefore, I quickly scanned through the Nature Reserve's checklist I had bought but not read yet and Bewick's Wren was actually listed as an "uncommon" breeder. The fog was starting to clear and I could sense some light.

Now, Shaw Nature Reserve is so small that "uncommon" can't mean anything else but less than a handful of pairs, yet it is big enough to hide these pairs quite well.
I therefore had to get more information on its habitat to narrow down the possible corners of Shaw's Nature Reserve worth searching.
So, again, I returned to this wonderful link and found the following description:

"Open woods, thickets, brushy areas & gardens"

Trying to remember what the different parts of the Reserve had looked like two days ago (and were probably still looking like now), I came to the conclusion that I would spend my last few hours of birding in the woodlands just above the slope towards the lowland forests. Some parts of these woodlands had been cleared recently by park staff in an effort to restore native habitat and I figured that these open scrubby areas were my best bet.
The plan was made:
1. Western Kingbird
2. Castlewood Park
3. Shaw Nature Reserve

After successfully ticking off the first 2 point of my day's checklist I arrived at the parking lot just next to the cleared woodland areas of Shaw Nature Reserve, with about an hour left for birding until I had to return to the hotel.
I surely thought I had a certain chance, but my luck had to run out at some point and I had this nagging feeling Bewick's Wren would be it, the precise point at which my luck was bound to fail me.
First, I walked a short bit to a nice view point over the surrounding areas and scanned for the part I thought was best (seen below on the left).



Feeling satisfied with my choice, I started to walk to the target area, which took about 5 minutes, probably less.
Arriving at the edge of the target area I turned off the main path onto a small track, walked another 10 metres and spotted some movement in a scrubby patch 15 metres away, a brownish and long-tailed bird, surely a Field Sparrow.
I waited patiently and calm (as I always do in situations like these, like any other birder) for about 20 seconds until the Field Sparrow reappeared: dark brown above and heavily barred in parts, paler brown below, whitish supercilium, slender and slightly down curved bill, very long tail with small white tips.

I was left with three choices regarding its identity:

a) the most aberrant Field Sparrow of all time
b) a hybrid between a House Wren and a Gnatcatcher
c) a typical Bewick's Wren

Call me a stringer, but I opted for Bewick's Wren, two of them to be more precise, an adult feeding/attending to a young bird.

This felt good.

It felt very good.

Actually, extremely good.

Here are a few pictures, taken at a considerable distance and heavily cropped, so they are really bad, but they might allow those in favour of a House Wren X Gnatcatcher hybrid to summon more arguments for their case.



And then something remarkable happened. As I was approaching the birds to get better pictures, my camera switched off. I had been so busy birding lately that I had forgotten to recharge the batteries, and right there, in front of the Bewick's Wrens, the batteries were goners.
Now, you might think this upset me, or the fact that I had a Red-eyed vireo perched at eye-level 3 metres besides me for prolongued periods on my way back to the car, but I was actually somewhat happy:
This - the Wren - was a species I had searched for so intensively, wanted to see so badly and felt so happy to see that I really didn't mind not being distracted by trying to get the perfect picture.
Instead, I went for the perfect observation and just looked at it, soaking it in.

What a fabulous bird!

From A to B

The time has come.

Both dreaded and longed for, the move back across the Atlantic is imminent. The plane for Germany leaves tomorrow, on Saturday, and I'll be a North American Blogger no more:

I'll move from Ann Arbor back to the Baltic coast of Germany.

Looking back, it's been a great year. Lots of birds. Well, not too many with around 240 species recorded, but then I wasn't chasing them anyway and as so often in life, it is the Quality that matters.

What were the highlights?

Gosh, that's difficult.
Surely the (roughly) 20 lifers I found, but as it is not all about a long list, and going through my blog entries, I'd say the following birding adventures will stick with me for a long time:

Writing my first ever real post on Bell Tower Birding.
Winter birding at the Arb.
Getting prepared for and participating in my first ever CBC.
Gulling through Washtenaw County with Bruce a few times.
My research on Edgar Allen Poe's connection to birding during those long winter nights.
Meeting Laurent and watching a Snowy Owl in a way I am not likely to ever see one again.
A winter trip with my wife to Point Pelee.
Seeing a Barred Owl.
The first warbler of spring with - later - a very unexpected surprise.
Trying so hard and finally succeeding in seeing an Eastern Screech Owl.
Hosting I and the Bird #47.
Finally getting a decent camera again and entering the visual part of the digital age.
The great trips to Crane Creek in May with Bruce and others and the strange birds we saw.
Birding the grasslands of Washtenaw County with Laurent.
My trip to St. Louis about which I wrote here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Getting a taste of fall migration.

And last but not least chasing after great shorebirds at Michigan's Point Mouillee in July and August, something I never found the time to blog about, and man, these were great trips...

Wow, it really has been quite a ride, I say!!

What will I miss once I am back in Germany? Hmmm, let me think, probably these guy here...



I will also greatly miss the amazing birdwatchers I met here and was lucky to spend a few days birding with, especially Bruce and Laurent.
Thanks a million for everything, it has been a great pleasure. Happy trails and I'll be seeing you again!

But what about my blog?

Well, darn, I am sorry to disappoint, but even back in Germany, I'll just keep on blogging!
Things will very much remain the same here at Bell Tower Birding, it's just going to be another bell tower and different birds I'll be writing about.
Of course the frequency of blog post might slow down for the next few weeks until we have settled down again in Stralsund/Germany, found a new apartment, arranged Internet access etc.
But I'll be around.
And don't worry, as soon as I am back, I'll make my reappearance known to you by flooding your own blog with comments.

Therefore, no need for a good bye here, just a see you later!

And I sure can't wait.

How to avoid selling your soul for a Bird Species

During Laurent's and my trip to Crane Creek on May 1st (see full report here), something very remarkable happened. So remarkable indeed that it completely changed my way of seeing the world, like turning from looking at something to seeing something, which is quite different.

Let me start where one always aught to... No, not at the Bar, at the beginning:

We all have our Nemesis bird, the one that always gets away because it is so busy showing itself to all the other birdwatchers in the world, and in my case, this is Owls (and rails, too).

I had however discovered a very effective strategy of getting a few owl sightings here in Michigan which was to
a) chase an Owl others have found and posted on the Internet
b) take Laurent with me.

This had led to nice observations of Snowy and Barred Owls but I somehow felt I should at least try and find one species all by myself to see if the curse of the Nemesis bird was still upon me or had finally been lifted. This one special owl species - I had decided - was going to be the Eastern Screech Owl.

There are some questions that would take a whole life of contemplating to answer and some questions we take to our graves, still unanswered, like this one:

Who did I think I was fooling?

Of course I soon realized there was no way I was ever going to find an owl species by myself.
Never.
But there was one question to which I finally found the answer:
Why was I not finding an Eastern Screech Owl?

In the deep and moulding vaults of the secret society called the "Owluminati" I discovered and studied a rare volume about the Eastern Screech Owl and the rituals necessary to conjure a sighting: To view an Eastern Screech Owl, a desperate Birdwatcher was to present the heart of a dearly loved one on the stairs of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan to Quetzalcoatl.

I do like owls. And I do enjoy a sacrifice or two to see a bird. But really, and even though this might disappoint many of my fellow birdwatchers, I was not willing to follow this ritual but had opted for a life without an Eastern Screech Owl instead.

Then came May 1st, and our trip to Crane Creek.
Well, Laurent was with me, so I should have guessed something like this was going to happen, but it was still a complete surprise.

We had birded the whole board walk and were in a bit of a hurry to get to Metzger's Marsh nearby for some shorebirds and waders. While passing two birders, I mentioned that there had been a Northern Waterthrush earlier at this very spot and they thanked us by pointing out that there was a Whip-poor-will perched close to the board walk a bit further on.
That's what I like about birders: knowing when it is time to shut up and enjoy a bird and when to chat and gossip with fellow birders.
So when we reached the next group of birders, we inquired about the Whip-poor-will.
A very friendly lady first tried to explain to us where it was but soon realized that a perched Whip-poor-will was unlikely to be found following a description, so she actually went back a few metres with us and pointed it out.
Now, don't ask me how I managed to mess up the focus on a perched bird, but here is the scene and the bird:




After we had marvelled a good few minutes, the very same lady casually mentioned, and this is a citation of her very words: "And while I am at it: anyone wants to see the Eastern Screech Owl?"

Needless to say, my answer was something along the lines of: "Well, yes, frankly, and if it is not causing you inconveniences, I might find myself inclined to welcome your help in receiving a glimpse of that very species you have just mentioned by closely following your guidance, but please let me assure you that this favour of yours shall only be asked for in case your time schedule will allow further delaying of your other certainly far more important issues."

It could also have been more like "What ... yes ... where ... please?!?", I can't quite remember.

And this is what we were shown a few metres further down the boardwalk, a tree right besides the path that we had walked by two times:

An Eastern Sigh Owl

So this was the trick: have someone else sacrifice the life of a loved one to see an Eastern Screech Owl and then just memorize the location where they found it, pass the information on to others and so on.
I am very grateful to the lady for showing us the bird but am not so sure what to think of the guy who first found the owl... Would I want to go owling with him at night alone?
Well whatever, one thing's for sure:

Life's great when you're a birder!