OAK HARBOR — Soon the visitor floodgates will open at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge (ONWR), but traffic was light on the trails around the visitor center on a weekday afternoon in late April.
While it was a bit too early for the big show of migrant songbirds that will peak in early to mid-May, birding enthusiasts were still trickling in, toting binoculars and heavy telephoto lenses. Most of the people the Toledo Free Press spoke with that day had a laser focus on spotting one species: Owls.
Ken and Bonnie Dickson were among the visitors ambling down a certain trail and halting at just the right spot to peer into the woods. They were rewarded with a glimpse of two white, fluffy Great Horned Owl chicks hunkered down in a nest at the top of a broken tree trunk in the distance. Ken Dickson snapped some photographs while his wife took a closer look through her binoculars.
The couple from Point Place in Toledo visit the refuge four days a week to picnic and hike the trails. “It’s peaceful out here,” said Bonnie Dickson. “We look at the owls.”…