Witt’s End

It’s most often the small things in life that get birders excited. A small increase in temperatures, say from 28 degrees in the morning to 50 degrees by noon. Or, the rare visit by one of the nation’s smaller owls, say, the Northern Saw-whet owl. Such was the serendipitous intersection of these two phenomena, recently, at the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve.

The weather is—the weather. The owl, however, is something else, again. The owl is on the move between its breeding grounds on the other side of the pond we refer to as Lake Erie, and warmer winter habitat farther to our south; probably heading back north since climate change has all of us confused. It’s a small bird, average height is seven inches, give or take, and weighs only a few ounces. They prefer conifer trees and are often found at eye level.

Such was the case with the bird we encountered. Occasionally, he opened an eye to check the paparazzi, but mostly he wanted to sleep.