Day 1 - The day from hell . . .

One hundred-thirteen miles by car, none by foot, three and a half hours of frustration.

As I was evaluating my options while standing in front of a gate across (what I thought was) a public road, two log trucks pulled up to the gate. The driver of the first truck kindly gave me directions to my destination that was free of private property restrictions. Unfortunately, his directions detailed a thirty-three mile detour to a destination that was just 3.9 miles from where I was standing.

When I turned toward my car, he asked "what's so important to you up there?" I said owls - he laughed and said "you don't want to repeat that to anyone else you meet up here". After I thanked him, he put his hand to his head and told me "be careful, that road is really heavy with trucks, we won't drive it in our rigs, and if they hit that (glancing at my car) they'll just keep on goin, and they ain't goin slow".

I was just seven miles into my detour before I turned around because of a too-close encounter with a fully loaded log truck racing downhill.

Lesson one, be very thoughtful when passing through areas where people are operating heavy equipment and are in a hurry to make a living.

On the way back down, I got the bright idea to explore another route that I remembered seeing on one of maps I was looking at the night before while enjoying a glass of wine.  

All hell broke-loose a few miles later as I approached another gate. My car was swarmed by a bunch of angry dogs. By angry, I mean frothing at the mouth angry. If they weren't slamming head-long into the driver's-side window, they were latching onto and wrenching against my tires as if they were trying bring down bull elk. It shook me up.

Lesson two, avoid alcohol while planning trips into unfamiliar areas.  

Jill didn't believe most of my account of this first day out until she overheard my telephone call with the sheriff's office about the (potentially illegal) gate and then the dogs. She is now convinced that I am convinced that what I experienced was real.  

The silver lining to the awful events of this first day is the website I found afterwards which shows public and private land ownership in Oregon. Below is a screen-shot of the state-level map. Blue and green areas are public lands:

It is possible to zoom in and click-on a precise tracts of land to get the ownership record:

Day 2 - Happy I got back on the horse . . .

One hundred-nine miles by car, 3.8 miles by foot, 7.5 hours of fun 

Having completed my first day in the field, I am relatively confident that I am going to need a heavy dose of good luck to find strix occidentalis caurina. 

I hoped I would be able to effectively cover two hundred acres per day. Not the 33.5 acre grid that my 3.8 miles over moderately-sloped terrain yielded today. I am imagining that if I get in better shape, and plan my routes more carefully, I might be able to cover 60 acres a day without hurrying. Which is not a lot of ground when you learn the home range of spotted owls living in the cascades is reported to be about 3,000 acres.  

The good news is that the preferred habitat of these owls is really very beautiful. Large trees, near water, providing a dense canopy overhead and open space underneath. I think the trick, if there is one, is to locate suitable nest trees. Which are big trees with deformities like broken-tops or cavities. Spotted Owls do not build their own nests, they depend on naturally occurring nest sites or nests built by other animals.

I will be very happy if I get to have lunch near a stream like this everyday:

I  did locate one large tree with lots of whitewash at its base, and one very small downy feather (along a nearby stream) that I hope turns out to be a good clue.

Other posts in this series:

Spotted Owl Adventure - Introduction