Its not often I find one saw-whet owl, so I was a bit taken back when I found 2 on a walk. I even double backed along the trail just to make sure the first one hadn’t followed me. Maybe a pair, or maybe just a good year for them? No points for the challenge(solo walk) but exciting anyway.
Saw-whet owl #1,
Saw-whet #2 seen about 15-20 minutes later.
Score: 2 to 2
It has been a better than average year for snowy owl sightings so we took our first family walk of the season along a local beach and trails on a mild December day. Now my wife stopped to help out our youngest put some layers of clothes into a backpack and I casually walked up a head. My wife did not like the apparent cheating by me looking for owls while she was helping out. She quickly filed a complaint to the rules committee. The committee quickly sent out a ruling that this did not violate any rules and it was indeed a fair part of the challenge. This ruling would comeback to haunt me a little later on as I helped our youngest up the trail of a larger dune. My wife took the competitive advantage, scampered to the top to get a good view and quickly found 2 snowy owls before anyone else reached the top. We are now tied with 2 owl points a piece, but it seems like this year is a better owl year for us, as there have been plenty of owl sightings the were not counted as points. Especially barred owls seem to be around in good numbers this season. So hopefully more points to come.
First snowy owl, 1 point for wife.
Second snowy owl, 1 point for wife
the rest of these owls were not found with-in challenge parameters so no points.
barred owl (solo owl walk, no points)
This screech owl was in a hollow used last year, (no points)
another solo find, barred owl 
This barred owl seen with-in a couple hundred feet of the barred owl below(solo owl find, no points)
a saw-whet in a pine found on a solo owl hunt (no-point)
Owl Oasis Trail 