Crow Harassment at Piper Creek

    Today around three PM I was on the middle foot bridge over Piper Creek. I was going to watch for a few minutes to see if suckers or Rocky Mountain Whitefish were spawning. 


    I noticed that nearby crows were doing what crows do best...harassing something.  They were about 100 m away and down in some spruce trees. as usual they take turns flying at something. They yell and scream so that their buddies from miles away come to join in the action.


    I decided to try and get  little better look at the action because it's quite often interesting what you find. I had walked about 30 or 40 m towards the racket when I was surprised by something furiously beating  out of the spruce thicket. I had time in the 1 or 2 second flight to realize it was an owl with deep wing beats and light brown striped vertically. I had a camera in my hands but had no chance what soever for a photo. I would think it was a short eared owl. I have often heard the crows harassing something in this area. I hope it wasn't this same owl. 


     So again crows wee doing what their good at and a very unhappy and frightened owl was looking for cover.