A bigger, meaner bird-the barred owl-now drives spotted owls from their turf. Nearly 20 years after Forsman's research helped the federal government boot loggers off millions of acres to save the threatened owls, nature has thrown the birds a curveball. Forsman wanted to reach their nest to see if this year's eggs had hatched-and survived.Įvery chick counts, because spotted owls are vanishing faster than ever. For years, he'd explained, this bird and its mate pumped out babies like fertile field mice, producing more offspring than other spotted owls in the range. Forest Service biologist zipped down one fern-slippery hill and up another. "It's the male," he whispered.īefore I could speak, Forsman was gone. Twenty feet off the ground, a cantaloupe-size spotted owl stared back at us. Then Forsman nodded at a scraggly hemlock.
Above the twitter of winter wrens I caught only the plunk of a creek running through hollow logs. I had come to see one of the planet's most-studied birds-the Northern spotted owl-with the man who brought the animal to the world's attention.įorsman stopped.
We were circling an isolated Douglas fir and cedar stand near Mary's Peak, the highest point in Oregon's Coast Range, scouring the trees for a puff of tobacco-hued feathers. Biologist Eric Forsman was delighted that a breeding pair of wild spotted owls he has studied for years did it again (their 3-week-old hatchlings on a hemlock in Oregon this past May).Įric Forsman tramped across the spongy ground with one ear tipped to the tangled branches above.