[mou] Barred owl foraging story

[Karen Schik]

I thought I'd share with the group a very interesting observation we 
had the other day at our house in Scandia.  We often have a barred 
owl at our place and lately we've seen it almost daily.  Two mornings 
ago we noticed it was moving around the edge of the woodland pond, 
and was always near the ground, which seemed odd.  I had to leave for 
the day, but my husband watched it for a while and saw it fly low 
over the pond, then plunge its feet in and carry something off.  It 
went to a nearby perch where it proceeded to eat a frog!  The owl 
seemed to be taking advantage of the fact that there was a skim of 
ice on the pond, so the frogs were apparently congregating around the 
small open areas.  Pretty cool eh?

Karen