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Community Corner

Owl-Watcher Wins Green Award as 'Unsung Hero'

Jo Julin, who for six years vigilantly watched barn owls in San Anselmo's town hall tower, inspiring others to do likewise, has been named a Green Award winner.

The Quality of Life commission unanimously voted during a recent session to give barn-owl watcher Jo Julin the award, aimed at “unsung heroes” who have benefitted the town without expecting recognition.

It will be presented at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 8 at the Town Council meeting.

Julin, who’s lived in San Anselmo since 1976, remembers “keeping a log of every barn-owl sighting, the weather, their time of arrival and departure” — and doing artistic sketches of chicks and adult birds.

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She also recalls helping inform curious residents about the owls, which have white heart-shaped faces, white underbellies and mottled light brown backs and wing tops.

Julin led an informal group of 10 watchers nicknamed The Owlers, and she playfully labeled some birds “Owlivia” (females) and “Owliver” (males).

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She “gave her heart and soul to the study,” says B.J. Snyder, “summarizing in notebooks what she and others sighted.”

One year, Snyder recollects, the owl watchers even marched in a town parade “wearing aprons that had owl things on them, including a picture of the tower and sayings such as ‘Owl be seeing you.’”

More than 15 years ago, Julin wrote a credo: “Life is all around us and in us. Live gently on the Earth.”

She’s lived up to that standard.

“Jo,” contends Ron Ratchford,“is one of the hallmarks of San Anselmo.” Studying and protecting the owls in the tower, he adds, “meant that somehow we had not completely exiled nature and the circle of life from our fragment of civilization.”

Bev McIntosh, an ornithologist in the group, notes that Julin’s interest in nature predates her owl study: “She was very instrumental when she lived in Mill Valley in saving Bothin Marsh.”

And she helped establish, in the early 1970s, the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, which preserved acres of land.

In the ‘90s, Julin served on the San Anselmo Planning Commission, and she’s still on the town’s Board of Review. She’d also been a member of the Marin County Planning Commission — representing Ross Valley and portions of Larkspur and San Rafael — for more than a decade.

Sara Loyster, former San Anselmo librarian, reminisces about Julin “raising everyone’s awareness of the owls by getting out there with her binoculars.”

The owls, she elaborates, were “quite a sight, one that always made my day. I remember the hungry babies, all fluffy, would make a racket until the parents would swoop back with mice for them to eat.”

Rose Wager, former town employee, gives Julin credit for motivating her “to watch the young owls at night learning to fly.”

The award-winner, she says, “gave an awful lot to the community. She attended a lot of council meetings to keep an eye on things, not as a gadfly but as a thoughtful observer.”

How did Julin’s interest in natural phenomena start?

According to her son Kent, when she was 27, she was just learning to drive. “An instructor told her, ‘Never swerve for birds, they’ll get out of the way.’ Mom was a good rule-follower so when a flock of pigeons got in the way, she plowed into them. Feathers flew. She got upset, and that started her caring for birds and the environment.”

Jo Julin will become the 23nd winner of the Green Award.

Earlier citations were given Jake Luria, Anna Frost, Brian Crawford, the team of David Fox and Sheila Mutter, Jeff Hvid, Dick Miner, Conn Rusche, Charles Kennard, the team of Steve Reinertsen and Scott Weeks, Sita Khufu, Rohana McLaughlin, Joyce Brown, Larry Nilsen, Matt Eakle, Ted Bakkila, Christine Dietrich Cragg, Bob Mellin, H.G. Von Dallwitz, Denali Gillaspie, Jonathan Braun, Dan Goltz and the husband-wife team of Janet Byrum and Bob Fleming.

Nominations can be hand-delivered or mailed to: Quality of Life Commission, c/o Town of San Anselmo, 525 San Anselmo Ave., or e-mailed to voodee@sbcglobal.net or  townclerk@ci.san-anselmo.ca.us.

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