This after noon I was sitting in my room reading when I heard this strange chipping noise I had heard it the day before as well but did not find the bird.I sat up and looked out my window to see if I could see the bird that was making that noise. When I did look out my window I did not see the bird but it did look like the the birds were not happy at all with something in the yard. They were hopping around in the trees in the back yard and the blue berry bush in the back yard like there was a cat or something that was a predator in the back yard so I sat there looking out the window waiting to see if I could see what ever they were angry at and after a few minutes and bird flew up in to a tree. I looked at it through my window and I was thinking it was either a merlin or a sharp shinned hawk (I was not even thinking that it might have been a northern pygmy owl) so I got my camera and I let rowan know that it was out there and she said she did not want to come and look at what I thought was a merlin or a sharp shinned hawk so I went out side in the snow and the bird was still in the tree I got my camera out and was getting ready to take some photos of it when it flew to a pine tree that I had my tree fort in. I went around and found the bird again and started to take some pictures of it when I realized at it looked like a northern pygmy owl and that it was a northern pygmy owl so I ran back in side and told her that it was a northern pygmy owl so we both went back out there. It had flew to a different tree but we found it and rowan was just getting ready to take some photos of it when it flew higher up in the tree and we lost sight of it so she said she was going to go back in side while I went to the road and looked for it from there I found it again and went and told rowan that I had found it and by the time that rowan got back out there the owl had moved back to where it had been before rowan had went in side and rowan was just getting ready to get some photos of it when it flew again thankfully it just flew up one more branch and we could still see it. We watched and took photos of it eating a dark eyed junco that it had caught in our yard then it flew up one more branch but we could not see it that good so we went in side. It was really exciting to see the northern pygmy owl in our yard that was just about the last raptor that I was tinking was going to show up in our yard.
- Question what bird was making that chipping noise?
- Question when did that northern pygmy owl get the junco?
- Question where did that northern pygmy owl come from?
why was the northern pygmy owl the last raptor you thought you would see in your yard? Are they unusual to be in Sitka? Do you think it was the owl making the chirping sound or another bird doing a warning call? When it was flying around did it take the junco with it?
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I thought it was the last raptor to be in our yard because partly because I have only seen them one other time and partly because I did not think one would stop by our yard because mostly it seems that they hang out in the forest more then in yards. The chirping noise was being made by a golden crowned sparrow I found out later in the day. The owl did carry the junco around with it but it looked like it was having a fairly hard time moving it though.