Great gray owls finding a home in Placerville
By Tom Knudson, Sacramento Bee
Flip through a field guide to western birds and you’ll discover the great gray owl occupies the narrowest of ecological niches in California: dense conifer forests next to moist mountain meadows.
But lately, the elusive owl has been spotted swooping through much different terrain: the sun-baked Sierra Nevada foothills where – surprisingly enough – it is thriving on land owned by the state’s largest timber company, Sierra Pacific Industries.
The bird’s discovery south of Placerville has startled wildlife biologists and bird-watchers who have long considered the exceedingly rare, brownish-gray owl to be a stalwart of higher elevations, a winged icon of the wilderness.
“It’s pretty exciting they are being found this low,” said Graham Chisholm, executive director of Audubon California. “It shows the resilience of these birds.”
