GrrlScientist is an evolutionary biologist, ornithologist, aviculturist, birder and freelance science and nature writer. A native of the Pacific Northwest, she relocated from Seattle to NYC with her parrots after earning a BS in Microbiology (emphasis in Virology) and PhD in Zoology (Ornithology) from the University of Washington. In NYC, she was the Chapman Postdoctoral Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History for two years, pursuing part of her "dream" research project by reconstructing a molecular phylogeny of the parrots of the South Pacific islands. GrrlScientist and her five parrots are currently relocating to Germany, where she will continue writing her blog while also writing a book and learning German. (Meanwhile, her parrots will continue to nibble on her extensive personal library.) If you appreciate GrrlScientist's writing, you can help pay her living expenses by hiring her to "blog" your conference, speak at your club or write articles for your publication (or by clicking on the Paypal button below). If you read an essay on this blog that you especially enjoyed, please nominate it for inclusion in 
Ghost owl.
Dustprint on glass of an Eastern screech-owl, Megascops asio.
Photograph appears here with the kind permission of the photographer, Dave Rintoul.
Click image for larger view in its own window.
Dave writes;
The image is a dustprint that an Eastern Screech-owl left on a sliding glass door. The bird was pursuing a moth (the dustprint of which is actually visible in the image) and smacked into the door. I presume that the components of this image, like those of the Shroud of Turin, might be mysterious, but I hypothesize that it is dust, or feather dust. At any rate, the owl was not seriously harmed; according to the owners of the house, it flew away without visible damage. The moth may have met its demise...The owner of this house called me and told me about it, and I thought it might be interesting to see if I could get a picture. That was quite challenging, since oblique lighting was required and setting that up took a bit of doing. But I got the picture. And my significant other, Elizabeth Dodd, a poet and a professor in the KSU English department, was inspired to write the poem appended below.
Impression
by Elizabeth Dodd.
She shines the flashlight
sideways so the beam
obliquely meets the
windowpane, as if she's
looking elsewhere, off across
the grass, or towards
the V-shaped tree
that holds, in the quiet
tuning fork of its branched trunk,
an empty nesting box.
Just so, just so, attention sweeps
the dark, familiar places.
There-a shadow-print,
an apparition of the owl
that smacked against
the glass in flight.
Its primaries, like
feather-bones, are cast
in fine, exquisite dust.
It's a fossil of the air,
the crushed percussive
moment where the dreaming
psyche strikes, falls back
gasping, as you wake
and grasp at-
silence, nothing, what
the waking mind
will only later, with
the day-lit urge toward
stasis, try to frame.
.
If you enjoyed this poem, perhaps you will also enjoy a book written by Elizabeth Dodd, Prospect (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003)
[Disclaimers: I have not read the book, nor am I paid anything to say nice things about it here. I am merely sharing a poem and a photo with you and letting you know that there's more good writing where this came from].
Comments
Thanks for the amazing picture.
Posted by: Dave | May 25, 2006 12:32 PM
The screech owl "ghost" is an amazing and beautiful picture. I have to wonder, though, if the owl really was unharmed. I have read that window collisions sometimes result in internal hemorrhaging that is not immediately apparent but will kill a bird later.
Posted by: Dendroica
| May 25, 2006 8:25 PM
Dendroica
I'm pretty sure that the bird survived, although it probably had at least a headache! The bird in question roosted in a nest box in the yard, about 100 ft from the house. It was seen in the days and weeks after this incident, and was still there this last winter, more than 3 years after its interaction with the glass.
Glad you enjoyed the picture!
Dave
Posted by: Dave Rintoul | May 25, 2006 10:33 PM
Greetings--
...and to think that all this unfolded right in our neighborhood!
Wonderful photo. Luminous poem.
Thanks for posting,
Dave Redmon (via Eye on Kansas e-zine)
Posted by: Dave & Ann Redmon | July 13, 2006 11:11 AM