Great blog shout outs to this blog!

Sunday, April 25, 2010

While I continue to watch the owls and their owlets but not get enough blogging done, I've been lucky to have people blog about the owls and me! Here's a rundown with links to these blogs included.

Karla Kinstler is a ceaseless owl enthusiast and expert. Not only is she the director of The Houston Nature Center in Houston, Minnesota but she also lives with Alice, a female Great Horned Owl who Karla studies closely (along with other wild and captive owls), she blogs about Alice, blogs about owls, and by no means lastly, she founded and started the annual International Festival of Owls. I hope to attend this festival soon and perhaps even present about my observations of Charles, Sarah and their progeny.

During the winter I was concerned about some different vocalizations and behavior of Sarah's while she was nesting. As she was nesting, I was also concerned about the well-being of her youngsters. I reached out via e-mail to several owl experts and Karla was at the top of my list especially as she has published a detailed study of vocalizations of Great Horned Owls. I was able to read this study the other day and it was excellent. I look forward to re-reading it and absorbing it even more. I was quite chuffed when she wrote back to me immediately. Karla helped allay my concerns and she even forwarded my e-mail to another owl expert. During our correspondence, she expressed an interest in delving into my blog posts to learn more about Charles, Sarah and family. With that in my mind, I was happy to see her post recently on her general owl blog about my blog and the videos I have taken of these amazing owls. You can find this post here. Many thanks, Karla!

One of the great things about Edward Crim and his Forest Park 365 photography project was how he linked people who were passionate about the park with other like-minded folks. I met Mark Axe, an avid cyclist, naturalist and photographer, via Edward. I was out in the park one day and I ran into Edward and Mark was with him. Months later, I ran into them again watching the owls as I made my way into the owls territory. Since then, I have seen Mark in the park a few more times. More recently I saw him in the owls' territory and I met his family; his wife, Anne, and their son, Dan. A few days after that, Mark and Anne stopped by the owls territory and with some help from me they were able to see Charles, Sarah and two of the owlets. Mark wrote a really nice post about this visit and added some great photos on his blog. Many thanks, Mark!


Back in September 2009 I wrote a post about an owl prowl with a new owl friend Deepa Mohan which included a link to her blog post about our owl prowl. Deepa is a keen naturalist and photographer and her energy and enthusiasm are palpable. Since then, Deepa and I have remained in contact even when she returned to her home country of India. Deepa returned to St. Louis a few months ago and we have done a few owl prowls since then and she has also gone looking for them on her own. Recently she has written not one, not two but three excellent posts about the owls and owl prowls with some great photos. Many thanks, Deepa!

Great event with the great Forest Park photographer!

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Fear not, I am working on some long overdue blog updates about Charles, Sarah and their owlets. Needless to say there has been a ton going on with the owl family including branching, fledging and relocating and much more.

In the meantime, I wanted to give a heads up to a gallery exhibit opening by friend, Edward Crim. As many of you know Edward is a photographer of immense skill and artistry. In 2009 he went to Forest Park every day of the year and took photos of what he saw: people, animals, plants, architecture, you name it. He posted his photos everyday along with writings that described what he encountered in the jewel of St. Louis on his great website Forest Park 365.

An exhibit of his work will be held at Norton's Fine Art and Framing in Maplewood, MO. The exhibit open's next Friday, April 30 and Edward will be showing his photos and reading some of his writings and more. Read all about it here. Wendy and I will be there and we hope to see many of you there. If you can't make the opening, do your utmost to stop by the gallery before the exhibit ends at the end of May.

I was lucky to get an e-mail from Edward a few months into his project. We met for an owl prowl and became fast friends. His enthusiasm for the park is boundless and I am glad that he got a good case of owl addiction. He often featured owl photos on his site and even a few photos of yours truly. The only one that I was not overly keen on was this one, where I look I'm starring in "The Owl Man" musical and I'm being played by the actor who played Friedrich in the film version of "The Sound of Music." I don't know, maybe it's just me.

Bravo on the exhibit, Edward! I look forward to seeing it and you!