During the 70s I was working at Brigantine NWR in New Jersey. We were going to do a Christmas Bird Count and I had a group of volunteers to help with Leeds Point, our segment of the refuge. We decided to do a dry run on owls two nights before the count to locate a lot of them and save time during the count. We met at dark at Leeds Point and then split up from there and agreed to meet back in 3 hours.
Leeds Point is named for the Leeds family who settled there. The legend says, Mrs Leeds, pregnant with her 13th child, cursed the baby, and it was born with bat wings, cloven hooves, clawed hands and a beasts head. For a century or two, stories circulated around the area of sightings and livestock being killed by the "Jersey Devil".
The night of our pre-count, we all met back at the starting point to compile and map our owl findings. One of the guys came in laughing so hard he had tears rolling down his cheeks and could barely get a word out. Finally, he calmed down enough to say "I saw the Jersey Devil."
Then came the story, he was walking down a two track trail in the moonlight when the Devil passed him from behind. He said it was surreal. A Great Horned Owl, carrying a live kicking rabbit by the head. The owl was going straight down the road with the bunny, unable to get much altitude. He said in the dark it looked just like the Jersey Devil running down the road flapping his wings.
Pete
