I wasn't the only one to be excited that my friend Richard found a dead California Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus pacificus) in his backyard in Palo Alto's College Terrace neighborhood this afternoon. We ended up taking a gang of five children over with us to check out the poor deceased bird -- only to find five other kids already there.
Because we saw no signs of damage, and because the owl's tail feathers were in pretty bad shape, the general (and sentimental) opinion was that the bird had simply succumbed to old age. We were all thrilled, though, to find that it had been living nearby.
As a gardener plagued by squirrels, I was especially delighted. I'd known that Great Horned Owls were the only local owls that will take a squirrel, but had though they much preferred wooded areas to suburban garden landscapes. Not so, I guess. That's good news for us and a warning for the squirrels to perhaps move on, I rather hope.
