Valsdad; Good morning Geno, I trust life is at least as much as possible as you'd like it to be down in your portion of the planet.
Thanks for reading the story and the comment.
My late father used to walk to and from a taxidermy shop owned by a friend of his and their son and Dad would help them do work on whatever was happening that day.
He said he'd always had a fascination with taxidermy, that it helped him stay sharp learning new things in retirement and as well he got to pick up road kill on the walks which he'd then often mount up for display in their house. The grandkids from other parts of Canada really liked seeing the pheasants, the yellow bellied marmot and especially the Pygmy and Saw Whet owls.
As I understand it Geno, there was a fairly tough permit process to do the owls and it's even tougher now, nonetheless when first Dad and then Mom passed, we inherited the taxidermy including both owls.
It was therefore a wee bit of a "bird spotting Holy Grail" with me to see a Pygmy Owl and when either parent was alive I just never did.
Looking back it may well have been the year Mom passed, regardless I was up in a mulie spot where we used to hunt sheep as well, when I saw what I first thought was BC's fattest chipmunk.
When I pulled up my binos, low and behold it was a Pygmy Owl!!!
Then it gave a call like in the video and it dawned on me that I'd heard them reasonably often, but didn't know what it was making that call.
Oh also, while the video doesn't show it well, they're small enough to fit into an average coffee cup, not a big one Geno, just a regular old coffee mug like we all have on the shelf.
Since that initial sighting we saw one more taking off from the old skidder trail ahead of us going into the same area looking for sheep when my buddy had been drawn for an LEH hunt there.
Thanks again and all the best to you all this Easter.
