Posts Tagged ‘owls’

Come on People, I’m Not Cute!!!

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Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
Great Gray Owl

Great Gray Owl by Josh Haas

Let’s just bring it right out in the open: everybody thinks Owls are cute. The funny thing is, the cuteness typically ends at their face. While some Owls have this persona of “cute,” hopefully all of us can see through it and realize they are actually tenacious hunters at heart.

This blog brings to the table a story of a person who came upon an injured Great Horned Owl on the road. She thought the Owl looked at her with a “call for help” and they were immediately bonded. Because of this, she couldn’t believe this Owl could ever hurt her. After proceeding to ride in the car with the uncovered bird in her lap to the Rehabilitator, lucky for her the lethargic wild animal didn’t fully come to. For this situation, timing was everything. Luck was in the air as the bird stayed in a coma-like state just long enough. It wasn’t until about 30 minutes after the Rehabilitator had the bird that it finally came out of it and showed its true inner beauty of pure strength and power. Thank goodness the bird didn’t come out of it in the car with these folks. The Rehabilitator couldn’t believe how lucky they were and tried to ensure they learned from this experience.

Great Horned Owl

Great Horned Owl by Josh Haas

As humans, we are very lucky in many ways. We have a different way of understanding and adaptations that have made us superior beings. For some, this means we owe it to animals and nature to step in from time to time. This is a great attitude to have but keeping it in perspective is important. In some cases, Rehabilitators rarely see much money for their efforts and a lot of what they do is their own dedication of time and resources. Think about donating or volunteering with these folks and help them continue doing what they are trained to do.

It’s wonderful to have folks that want to help, especially in situations where human impact was to blame and not Nature but remember that any wild animal needs to be approached safely and by those with experience. For me, Owls aren’t cute. I’m always inspired by their incredible senses and ability to hunt with grace and power. Remember, behind that cute face is a wild animal that does one thing and one thing well: hunt!

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A Bad Winter for Rodents

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Friday, January 27th, 2012
Great Gray Owl

Adult Great Gray Owl © Brian E. Small/VIREO

It’s been a very mild and almost snow-free winter in Manitoba so far this year. Good news for us. Bad news for mice and shrews and voles. They rely on a thick blanket of snow to survive the winter.

A couple of years ago as I watched a Great Grey Owl along a road in the boreal forest east of Winnipeg, it suddenly left its perch on a hydro pole, swooped over the road-edge, and plunged, talons-first, into the thick snow. It immediately extricated itself and flew back with a small, squirming rodent.

Wow! I wondered. How’d it do that? I knew that owls had great hearing. But the snow was at least a foot thick. That, it seemed to me, was like me hearing a pin drop a block from my house.

Meadow Vole © Rob & Ann Simpson

And what was a rodent doing in a snow-bank? I thought they hibernated all winter or found a warm place like my basement to hang out.

That’s when I first heard about pukak.

Pukak is that small space under the snow and above the ground that forms when the snow piles up more than a foot or so and when the earth’s warmth melts the bottom layer to form passageways for insects, rodents and tiny mammals.

Cinereous Shrew © Audubon Guides

Mice and shrews and voles use these passageways to seek out seeds and grasses and bugs left over from the summer and fall. At irregular intervals vents form to allow gasses to escape. Owls listen to the tiny noises that emanate from these vents.

House Mouse © Rita Summers

With barely three inches of snow on the ground this year, pukak hasn’t yet formed. That means the rodents can’t leave their winter hideouts. They don’t have to worry about owl attacks, but they are in danger of starving. The thicker the snow, the better their chances of surviving the cold.

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Posted in Entries by Gene Walz | 1 Comment »

El Chickadee

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Friday, January 6th, 2012

High on the list of “familiar birds” are the chickadees. Chickadees are common feeder birds and so friendly and trusting they can become tame enough to feed from the hand. But there are seven species of chickadees in the U.S. and only two, the Black-capped Chickadee and the Carolina Chickadee are widespread and well known. The Mountain Chickadee and the Chestnut-backed Chickadee are found in the Western region on the U.S. Another the Boreal Chickadee is found across the boreal forest in the U.S. and Canada, but two species, the Grey-headed Chickadee and the Mexican Chickadee are rare enough to require a special trip to add them to a life list.

© Brian E. Small/VIREO

I was lucky enough to travel to Alaska in 1996 for a float trip down the Canning River on the north slope of the Brooks Range. At one of our camps we found chickadees in a grove of stunted willows. Around the evening campfire we mentioned seeing probable Boreal Chickadees and our guide immediately said, “I’ll bet those were not Boreals!” A search the next day turned up not only Grey-headed Chickadees (then known as Siberian Tits) but the first known nest in North America as well. We watched as the adults fed young chicks in the nest – in fact it was the begging call of the young that first drew my attention. At the time of the sighting, we didn’t realize the significance and none of us thought to take a picture of the birds.

© Glenn Bartley/VIREO

I almost hesitate to call the next chickadee “rare”. Mexican Chickadees are common throughout the Sierra Madre of Mexico but qualify as a rare bird in the U.S. They are found in only two mountain ranges along the border and one of those ranges, the Animas in New Mexico, is a private ranch and not accessible to the public. That leaves the Chiricahua Mountains along the Arizona-New Mexico border as the only place for birder to seek out this bird for their life lists. Last summer, as a huge wildfire burned in the Chiricahuas for weeks, we feared for the island of high elevation habitat holding this small population.

© Bob Steele/VIREO

It was a relief for us to hear the familiar chickadee call on our first trip back to the Chiricahuas after the fires. Soon there were several chickadees mobbing a nearby Northern Pygmy-Owl in an area where the natural mosaic of a long-lived fire left the habitat relatively intact. Nature is resilient and that includes these tiny little birds.

© Rick and Nora Bowers/VIREO

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Owls Among Us

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Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
Snowy Owl In Flight

Snowy Owl In Flight

 

As the days are getting shorter, the mornings cooler and fall approaches, it will soon give way to snowfall in the Midwest.  The cold and wintery days in the Upper Peninsula mean one thing for us; winter finches, Grouse and most importantly, owls!

 
Why is winter better for owls in the Midwest?  It’s not necessarily about the classic Great Horned Owls and Eastern Screech Owls, or even the Northern Saw-Whet Owls.  When thinking of winter in the Upper Peninsula, for me it’s about Snowy Owls, Northern Hawk Owls, and the especially rare Great Gray Owl.  These 3 species of Owl will sometimes make their way slightly south and find themselves setting up shop for the winter in specific areas around the Upper Peninsula.  Above that, all three of these owls are mostly diurnal (meaning they actively hunt during the day).  This makes things much easier!  Snowy Owls tend to be in wide open flat areas while the Northern Hawk Owl prefers a few more trees with some open land around.  The tougher Great Gray Owl likes more forested areas with open hunting areas close by.  I haven’t met any new bird-watcher who didn’t want to see an owl.  These northern areas can be an easy way of claiming the bold experience of getting a “lifer” owl.

Aside from owls, there are also other birds such as Pine Siskins, Evening Grosbeaks and Bohemian Waxwings that can be found which make for quite a diverse list.  Winter doesn’t have to only be about the many Cardinals and Blue Jays at our feeders.  With a little knowhow and some searching, there are actually an odd amount of bird species around. By driving north, the Upper Peninsula can be a life-changing place for birding.  Trips such as this can also be an opportunity to frequent locally-owned businesses and have times of camaraderie with others.  If the thought of winter bothers you, think about birding in winter to relieve those days of being inside.  Remember, there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

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Posted in Entries by Josh Haas | No Comments »

Winter Owls

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Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

The great thing about winter owls is that in a good year they can be easily spotted. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been a particularly good year.
Once they come out of the boreal forest in the late fall, Great Gray Owls, Snowy Owls and Hawk Owls pretty much stay put wherever they settle for the winter. And they are diurnal – they hunt during daylight hours. So, if you get a report from someone that there’s a winter owl at a certain spot, you can bet that it’ll probably be there or nearby.
The number of Great Gray Owl reports near Winnipeg this winter is not very high, relative to previous years; I’ve heard that they’ve been seen, but I haven’t been able to get out to tick them off my winter list.
According to Dr. Jim Duncan, wildlife biologist and owl expert, low numbers of Great Grays in the past have coincided with years with thicker snow cover (>180 cm). That’s been the case this winter. Thick snow cover reduces the number of predators that ordinarily feast on meadow voles, their main prey. With their unmatchable sense of hearing, Great Grays have no problem detecting small mammals even under a thick blanket of snow. So, fat healthy (radio-marked) Great Grays are staying back in the boreal forest.
In my neck of the woods Snowy Owl numbers are low this winter as well. But if you check the electric transmission poles and fence posts on major routes in and out of the city, you can almost be assured of finding a couple. We’re nowhere near the record year of 2001 when one party counted 55 Snowies in one day southwest of Winnipeg. It used to be thought that these tundra natives irrupted when the lemming populations of the north plummeted. That simple theory has since been disputed, though there’s some indication that crashes in lemming numbers can account for early arrivals.
Hawk Owls are more easily found this year. They’re not as widespread as they were in 1996-97 when more than 50 were spotted and even I counted a couple of dozen on one outing. And few have ventured into my suburban neighborhood as one did a couple of years ago. I saw that bird every day on my way to and from work usually sitting on the bent-over top of a small spruce tree. Their long tails, big yellow eyes, and non-erect posture make them easy to identify.
Jim Duncan believes that Hawk Owls have clearly had a good breeding season somewhere within a 1,000 mile radius (their normal yearly range) of Winnipeg. That may account for their numbers. All the Hawk Owls he’s encountered thus far have Hatch Year 2010 birds, and they are in excellent condition. One Hawk Owl weighed a whopping 435 grams, possibly the heaviest he’s caught to date. So, they’re not coming here because they’re hungry.

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Posted in Entries by Gene Walz | 1 Comment »