Not Exactly in the Garden, but I Couldn’t Resist

Every five years or so a rare boreal bird, a Northern Hawk-Owl, ventures south from its normal wintering grounds in Canada into far northern New Hampshire in search of food – usually rodents in farm fields. Completely immersed in skiing, we were oblivious to the existence of this bird, whose appearance is kept as secret as possible to protect the bird from harassment. Local birder Laurel Smith was in the know and convinced us this adventure was not to be missed. She was right!

The owl put on a great show for us. If you look closely at the photo above, you’ll see that it has a rodent in its beak – what a thrill to see!

When we arrived, we were happy to spot the owl right away (in red circle, left). We kept our distance in order to avoid disturbing it.

Then it came closer…

Then it thrilled us by starting to hunt right in front of us…

I love its intensity as it lands and listens for prey.

We really, really wanted to see it catch something. After an hour or so, cold and hunger won out over our enthusiasm, so we retreated to the car for sandwiches. At one point the bird flew into the fields next to the car, captured a small rodent, and quickly swallowed it. Thrilled with that and thinking it would rest for awhile digesting its prey, we went to leave.

But the owl must have heard something in our direction and was still hungry, so it flew directly at us, landing on a wire right above the car (pictures below)! This got us back out of the car. We watched it pounce on a larger rodent, carry it to a nearby perch, it tear apart and scarf it down. Finally, after 2 hours, cold but happy, tore ourselves away, so thrilled that we got to see this owl in action.