On our last four day fishing trip the weather was calm and foggy. We were approximately 40 miles west of Morro Bay when this owl landed on our boat the first day out. This picture shows his first perch. We had to ask him to move so we could deploy our swordfish gear. While we set, he moved to the rail that overlooks our back deck. We said goodnight and left him out in the cold. The next morning we hauled—under his watchful eyes. We decided he wasn't too concerned about us because he wasn't as flighty as the owl we had the week before.
Many birds take refuge on the boat when the breeze is offshore and there is thick fog. We've been host to an Osprey, a Peregrine, as well as most of the common birds that live along the coast. By the end of the second day of this trip we had two owls, one Snowy Egret, a black bird, and several little yellow finches. We were thinking that we would need to defrost some hamburger to feed the owls [which we'd fed to Burrowing Owls in past fishing seasons]. On the third day we had two owls, two Snowy Egretss, one bat, two black birds and several tweety bird parts. The owls had solved thier hunger issues .
The next morning we hauled our gear and ran in to Morro Bay, arriving around 4pm. The female owl jumped ship in the channel by the Rock and the male stayed perched on the freezer until after dark. While Diane brought the boat down the channel the owl supervised.
