Tag archives: owls

Owls, a New York-based string quartet collective, wooed the audience at the Music Academy of the West’s Hahn Hall with their original, visceral performance, part of UCSB Arts and Lectures. The entertaining foursome, which unusually included two cellists rather than two violinists – Gabriel Cabezas and Paul Wiancko, violist Ayane Kozasa, and violinist Alexi Kenney […]

Given its members’ history and the quartet’s “inverted” composition, it’s no surprise that Owls has been called “a dream group” by The New York Times. Featuring a distinctive instrumentation variation of the traditional string quartet that trades the second violinist for an additional cellist, the individual Owls are also no strangers to our area. Cellist […]

The prominent sandstone rock outcropping was riddled with gritty alcoves, clefts, lofty ledges, and shadowy caves. As I scanned with binoculars for any feathered occupants, I found five barn owls nesting in the upper reaches of this remote, sandstone cathedral. However, there was something else that caught my attention while attempting to conceal themselves 20 […]

The nameless dirt road turned out to be a nighttime buffet for a squadron of opportunistic burrowing owls. It was all about the crickets and grasshoppers, a menagerie of entomology living in the tall grasses and the cunning eight-inch-tall owls gobbling down as many as they could before taking a break. As I inched forward […]

Owls have long lived in my most favorite category. Their stoic demeanor. Their wisdom. The intensity of the screech owl’s screech, the trills and lonely melodic resonance of the great horned owl’s “hoot hoots,” and the barn owl’s hissing rasp. Twice this week the California Highway Patrol rescued owls hit by a car along Highway […]