Screech Owls

Our Hampshire Bird Club participated today in a Bird Festival at Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary, a nearby Mass Audubon refuge. Eyes on Owls, "an educational enterprise that brings wild owls" to schools and other venues such as this, displayed a number of owls, including these Eastern Screech Owls. They come in two colors, as you see; the gray owl in fact is missing his right eye, so that it is just as well that he is turned away. 

The Festival was great fun altogether.  I set up my laptop to cycle through a selection of 50 Massachusetts birds in the visitor center. But it was upstaged by a webcam displaying a nearby Eastern Bluebird nest--one of four blue eggs cracked open and the nestling hatched while I was there--fascinating to watch.