On our ravine walk yesterday we came across a man wearing a backpack, around his neck a camera, in his hand a sound recorder, alert to everything around him. The trees are now fairly well filled in, and we've seen that some birds have returned to the woods. We hailed one another, and he informed us he was looking for signs of the presence of owls.

My husband explained that at night, when he takes our little Riley out to the backyard last thing before we depart upstairs for bed, he often hears owls from the direction of the ravine, but we haven't as yet this spring been able to spot them. Often, a group of crows excitedly circling a tree will alert us to the fact that an owl is sitting there, studiously ignoring the crows' noisily abusive attitude toward its presence. We have even, on one occasion, seen a pair of cardinals taking loud exception to the presence of an owl, which sat on a limb unperturbed by the fuss taking place around it.

But this year, nothing yet, aside from the unmistakable night-time calls. Still, the stranger was excited to hear that we'd identified the presence of owls. My husband, in fact, recognized who he was. A very well-known local birder whose observations and name often appeared in the local news. We introduced ourselves and our chat became longer and more involved, we recounting for him the plethora of wildlife we used to see decades ago in the ravine, which had since gradually diminished markedly with the proliferation of new homes above and beyond the ravine, obviously cutting off natural wildlife corridors.

He was interested and asked many questions of us. And he confirmed that the flycatchers that we'd seen two years running that nested under one of the bridges had returned, though we hadn't yet seen them. He told us that one of the nesting places that the owls had used in previous years had been stuffed with sticks and he and other birders had surmised that perhaps squirrels had done that, to keep the owls from re-nesting there.

Difficult to believe, but perhaps possible.