 Owls in the Neighborhood
Very
late one night this spring, I heard the merlins’ alarm call.
Padding outside in my nightgown, with a flashlight, I had gotten as far
as the kestrels’ cage when I saw a barred owl sitting about 6' away
from me. He flew to a nearby tree, but then threw himself at the
merlins’ cage again, this time from the side. The merlins were
understandably upset and vocal about it.
I have no idea why that cage seems to attract neighborhood predators,
but last year we had a similar problem with a Coopers hawk. The
hawk was so intent on getting to the merlins, that he had squeezed
under the rippled plastic roofing and was crawling around on top of the
wire roof! That hawk readily grabbed a dead quail I tossed his
way and flew off with it; he visited again the next day, and snatched
up a rat ... then we didn’t see him for a week or so.
So, when the barred owl’s attack so upset the merlins, I made a quick
trip to the clinic, got some food and tossed it in his direction..
Wham! No hesitation at all. Interesting, I thought! Neither
barred owls nor Coopers hawks are typically carrion eaters and what I
tossed at them was clearly dead.
We didn’t see the owl again for a few weeks, but then suddenly he
was there every evening - an ominous presence (according to the spotted
owls, outside whose cage on the edge of Spencer Butte Park’s Ridgeline
Trail the barred was usually to be found) that didn’t even move as we
came to within a few feet or pointed him out to visitors and school
groups. It got so we could depend on the spotted owls announcing
his arrival, which came earlier and earlier each day.
It was obvious that he had to be a bird we’d released, given his lack
of fear and willingness to take what would normally be unfamiliar food
for a wild bird. When I tossed a couple of mice on the ground, he
would often go for the white one first! We were assuming he was
‘Usiku’ - a barred owl who had been transferred to us as an education
bird in 2003, with an elbow injury, which then resolved so well that we
released him last year, after 4 years in captivity. Staff and
volunteers were excited to think he’d made it through his first wild
winter and kept trying to see his toes to confirm his identity - he was
originally from Texas and did not have the feathered toes of the barred
owls from further north. We didn’t have the right-sized leg bands
for him when we released him, so we decided to try to trap and band
this visiting owl - for confirmation that it was indeed Usiku but also
for further tracking.
Clearly, we hesitated to keep feeding him - the last thing we wanted to
do was encourage a dependence on us for food. Not that we minded
sharing the groceries, but we work very hard to be sure we don’t
release ‘tame’ or socialized birds for fear they will try to approach
other people for food and end up getting hurt. And it was a bit
of a mystery why he was looking for a handout, assuming this was Usiku
and assuming he’d made it through his first winter just fine. Why
now, then, would he need extra help? We had almost decided to
stop feeding him when I had a chance to watch him fly off with the food
- and heard youngsters begging!
We now assumed he had turned to us for food after the young hatched and
he was pressed into constant foraging to feed those growing mouths ...
we knew what level of resources it takes to raise youngsters, as we do
it every year! At the peak of their growth, they will easily eat
twice what they do as adults. Every day.
But ‘Usiku’ proved very wily and hard to catch! Kit and Laurin
tried a bal chatri (a classic falconry trap which basically consists of
a rounded wire cage with fishing line nooses all over it) ... But he
ignored the trap, only to have the mouse escape and the owl grab it
before Kit could! I tried the bal chatri, as well, but he briefly
landed on the trap, didn’t catch the mouse nor get tangled, and then
just watched from the side until he got frustrated and gave up.
Kit tried a combination of bal chatri and a net ... it all basically
made him less willing to pick up food from the ground.
In our education programs, we often find ourselves expounding on the
fact that owls are not designed for speed; that they ‘sacrificed’ speed
when natural selection moved them towards soft, fringed feathers
designed for silent flight .. but HAH!, we now say! This
bird was really quite fast. Not, of course,
peregrine-falcon-200-mile-an-hour-stoop fast but definitely faster than
we were with a net. Excellent reflexes, you might say! I’ve had
him swoop down, grab food without missing a beat and seem to be heading
straight for the wall, and manage between one wing beat and the next to
be going in a different direction. We also find ourselves saying, to
the audiences’ snickers, that owls’ eyes are so big there is not a lot
of room for brain, and that the ‘wise old owl’ reputation is just a
myth. Well, HAH! to that one, too. This bird learned really
fast and quickly showed no interest in the live mouse in the bal
chatri, and no interest in even a loose mouse if Kit was nonchalantly
sitting nearby with the net.
After all the ground trap attempts, I decided to try leaving some food
on a pole by the spotted owl’s cage, and I was barely more than 2' away
when he did a fly-by-and-snatch! Wow! Despite his
disinterest in the food on the ground, he moved in on the elevated food
so fast he accidentally grabbed part of the rope on the pole and had a
slight check in mid-flight! Luckily, he didn’t hurt himself, nor
did he drop the food. The next time he brushed my face with his
wing, I was still so close.
I decided that only I would feed him and only after everyone had
left. As much fun as we were having, I truly didn’t want him
coming down to just anybody. Already we had received reports from
hikers on the Ridgeline Trail that he would sit close by and let
anyone, even with dogs, get a good look at him. But it quickly
became too much fun not to share! He was so willing to come to
the elevated food station, that he grabbed my hand one day before I
even had the food balanced on the post ... so I started wearing a
glove. Then, just for the heck of it, I decided to just offer the
food on my raised, gloved hand. I cannot describe the wonder of
having this wild owl maneuvering through the trees, sometimes from
quite a distance back in the woods - moving his wings back and forth to
avoid branches, his head totally level, eyes focused on my glove, while
coming straight at me to snatch the food. I just stand there,
mesmerized.
We had to determine if this was Usiku - clearly, if not, it was some
other owl that had been raised by us. One of our volunteers, a
spotted owl researcher, came up at my request. This was the first
time the owl was asked to come to anyone else but me. Alexis
managed to snag him in mid-air on the second try! (This will act
as further education to him to not come down to anyone but me, I can
only hope!) This was NOT Usiku! This male had fully
feathered toes. We weighed, banded and released him within a few
minutes.
A few days before this, I had heard for sure the babies nearby.
The male always took the food from me, went to one of a couple of large
trees out over the hiking trail, maybe ate the head, then shifted the
food to his mouth and headed up the hill. The nest was somewhere
above and to the right of our large flight cage - but despite 2 people
searching, while I shouted from below "incoming!" as he headed in their
direction with food, we never actually found the nest.
And about three weeks ago, the two youngsters fledged. Uncertain
fliers at first, and terrible at landings, they have gradually become
more adept. I’ve only seen the female parent a few times - right
after the babies left the nest, I saw her come to the male’s half-way
point and grab the food from him; and once on top of the spotted owls’
cage. She is definitely not one we raised and is much more shy.
We hope the fledglings ultimately learn from her, but right now they
explore more every day and have learned they can watch activity at the
Center with some impunity ... except for all the cameras and "wow!"s of
visitors, volunteers, and staff. As soon as they left the nest, I
stopped feeding the male killed food - as I did not want to pass on the
tradition of me as a source of easy food. Instead, we started
providing live mice in a tub, with cover for the mice, so the offspring
would see him actually hunting (well, sort of ‘actually’ hunting - more
like shooting ducks in a barrel, as it were.) And then I provided
live mice without cover in a tub, and both youngsters were successful
catching live mice themselves. Now, I gently toss the mice onto
the lawn and they have to catch them in the dark and with some
cover. They no longer come every night, and are widening their
territory every day.
We are not providing food every day - there’s plenty out there!
And ultimately the two youngsters will be forced to disperse. We
do wonder if the adults are the same pair who were very present last
spring, hooting and caterwauling above our barred owls cage (where
Usiku then lived), dive-bombing a handler with a young non-releasable
barred on her glove, but who apparently had no nesting success
themselves.
I’m still convinced this had to be one of the two young barred owls
we’ve ever raised and released here, but it’s been several years since
either of them were released. And they certainly never returned
for food then! But all in all, assuming we’ve done no permanent
damage to their ability to support themselves, it’s been an incredible
‘hoot’ (couldn’t resist!) having this family in the neighborhood.
Except for our great horned owl, whom the male has attacked twice on
the glove and once flown against the wall of her cage, he 'dad' has
caused no problems since that one middle-of-the-night attack on the
merlins. For me, it’s been like a little miraculous glimpse into
the wild world after all these years of not really knowing how they do
once they leave
us.
Louise |
