I set out on my Surly bicycle from the Visitor’s Center at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge with the intention of seeing a Great Horned Owl. I rode a mile and a half along the caliche surface of Lakeview Drive and then took County Road north.
The last time I took this ride, at sunrise, as I pedaled on the somewhat smooth surface of the caliche, a large bird flew from a tree on the roadside, crossed the road and vanished over the thick thornscrub. That was a Great Horned Owl, I thought, and out flew a second large bird, a bigger Great Horned Owl that looked at me as it sailed across the road and over the brush.
I stopped at the tree that the owls had left. I saw a well-camouflaged nest about two feet in diameter, wedged between branches, twenty feet above the ground. An owl’s nest, I thought. I had seen a Great Horned Owl in the vicinity on previous rides, and I photographed one once. I suspected that each sighting was the same owl.
I didn’t know that Great Horned Owls do not make nests, but use abandoned nests that other birds, like hawks, have constructed, but I read about it in the online Audubon Field Guide. It was early February and I learned that the Great Horned Owls nest at about this time from the online Animal Behavior Archive.
I saw two owls, one bigger than the other suggesting a male and female, fly from a nest, or from a tree with a nest. I returned to the tree an hour later but did not see the owls again.
On February 27, 2024, as I pedaled north on County Road, I planned to see the owls. I stopped a quarter of a mile from the tree with the nest and looked through binoculars. I didn’t see anything in the tree. I walked my bike closer and closer, looking through binoculars for signs of owls in the tree. I arrived at the tree at sunrise and no birds flew out and I saw no owls in the tree. Maybe it was a coincidence that the owls flew away at my approach from that tree.
I continued my ride and decided to check again on my next ride in the area. I pedaled a few more miles and turned off County Road west on Newt Pond Trail. At the pond I watched some Redhead Ducks and White Ibises in the pond.
Newt Pond Trail is grassy except for tire ruts and bumpy. I rode a mile to Centerline Trail and took it north to Last Gate Trail and continued to Cayo Atascoso. I stopped along the way to admire hundreds of Yuccas topped with white, conical blooms.
I spotted three Nilgai Antelope and two ran. One walked across an open area to a brush line and followed the brush line toward me. Suddenly it noticed me and turned tail into the brush.
The wind pushed me about and at times felt as if it would knock the bike out from under me. It blew at 27 miles per hour with much stronger gusts. At Cayo Atascoso I took West Lake Trail south, dead into the wind, and made my way back to the Visitor’s Center. I finished a pleasant, yet challenging, 28 miles. The next time I’ll check that nest again.
Love your love of the refuge. With lack of access limiting the rest of us to experience it, we can still find pleasure vicariously:)
Thanks for taking the time to look at these posts, Cathy.