My friend and coworker Rich Moncrief and I were visiting Bill Thompson and the staff at Bird Watcher’s Digest in Marietta Ohio yesterday. We finished our meetings by early afternoon and asked for directions to some likely spots to find birds. They sent us up the Ohio river to a place called Newell’s Run…a little backwater of the river where Newells Run (brook, river?) flows in. We enjoyed the ducks, grebes, and herons there, but then decided to head further up-river to see what we could find. When we came to the big yellow-brown bridge to St. Marys, of course we had to go across into West Virginia, just for the experience of crossing the bridge and the Ohio. We had a little one page guide to the local birding areas published by Back Road Birding, a small start up tour company that Kyle Carlson of BWD runs on the side, and about half way across the bridge Rich remembered seeing some spot mentioned in St. Mary’s. The Ohio River Islands Refuge. Bridge to an island. Trails and Tour Road. Sounded good.

We found the sign directing us to the bridge…which turned out to be the strangest and scariest bridge I have ever crossed…involving driving up the height of a 4 story building on the first segment of an abandoned bridge, taking a complete right angle turn, and driving down a kind of steep ramp to the island…all rusty iron and crumbling concrete and looking very elderly and frail. Still we made it.

We drove the tour road to its end, and stopped at the maintenance sheds where there is a trail out to a blind and had a good time with a whole bunch of robins and a Hairy Woodpecker, and then Bill Thompson called to see were we were and finalize dinner plans. I told him we had gone on up to St. Marys and the Island Refuge. “Oh great,” he said, “are you looking for the Long-eared Owls?” As it ensued, we had unwittingly stumbled right to one spot in the area where Long-ears were known to be roosting. I mean, what are chances? Kyle gave us detailed directions, and after two attempts we found the owls, right where he said they would be…ten feet into the woods and ten feet up the tree! What a treat.

They were your usual views of Long-eared Owls…tucked well back in a thick tangle of branches and brush, close to the trunk of a pine…photographically very difficult…but very satisfying in binoculars. If you have seen a Long-eared Owl on its day roost, you know that any view at all is a wonderful thing.

Still I had to try with the camera. With a lot of peeking and poking, I found a few lines of sight to the birds’ eyes.

I am always amazed that the auto focus on the Canon SX50HS can focus through such a tangle, and seems to know that I am looking at the bird, not the branches. It generally takes a few tries, half presses of the shutter button before it locks on, but it almost always get the results.

So, like I say, what are chances? And what a treat!

Canon SX50HS in program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Correction. –1/3 EV Exposure compensation. 1200mm, 1800mm, and 750mm equivalents. f6.5 and f5.6  @ ISO 800 @ 1/320-!/500th. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.