the Way of the Turtle

A NIGHT FOR OWLS
5.5 Mile Snowshoe in the Pine Bush
Wednesday, January 13, 2010

I ended up running most of the Albany Running Exchange's Brave the Blizzard course from the past few years... don't know if they're using the same course this year or not. Snow conditions were basically the same as last week... snow on most of the trails but very packed down. The best snowshoeing was actually in the woods between the Pine Bush and Guilderland Elementary... no big surprise, not as many people go back in there.

Much like Monday night, I ran most of the time with no lights... the overcast sky was pretty bright and the snow both reflects enough light to make it easy to see the trail and smooths things out enough that there's much less to trip over. Running at night in the woods without lights is definitely one of the things I really enjoy about running in the winter.

I heard an owl twice tonight! The classical "who, who, who-who-who" that they always use on TV or in a movie for an owl call... I'm guessing a great horned owl from the calls on www.whatbird.com. Interestingly, every time I heard him call, a short time later I heard another animal calling in the trees as well - I originally thought it was some kind of nocturnal squirrel, though that didn't make a lot of sense to me, but listening to the owl calls on Whatbird has me thinking it may have been a short-eared owl. Very cool...

JMH