Conclusions to earlier supposition concerning Owls

This is my second post for the day. I guess I should have waited. Patience has never been any of the things that I am good at, so a follow up is necessary.

                              There are four nest boxes across and four deep. They measure 12x12X12.

I admit that the study of Owls by me has been merely accidental. I am quite sure that if there was a measurement, I would fall somewhere close to ignorance of the subject. My knowledge has come from mostly incidental and bad experiences. That has also mostly concerned Horned Owls. Horned Owls are a real pain. They have a tendency to try to eliminate any and all possible competition for Prey species. If that happens to be a semen donor Peregrine, Or a perched Goshawk, tough luck.

Great Horned Owls will kill every Pigeon that moves or makes its self known in a Pigeon house. They will kill a full grown Chicken and eat only the head. They regularly kill house Cats that are not cautious enough to avoid them.

Barn Owls however are generally known as the good guys. They eat a tremendous number of Mice and Rats each night. Apparently they are quite capable of adjusting to extreme conditions when necessary. I think you will recall that I was telling you that the weather here was putting the wildlife in danger. A danger that they are not used to, since the weather this year is a lot colder and snow many times deeper and longer lasting than is usual. This "global warming" is kicking our butts for sure.

The snow is heavily crusted now and there is no reason for a Mouse or Vole to ever have to come to the surface. The Harriers compensate by turning their hunting pressure on the Quail, and they are relentless. Apparently the Barn Owls are turning to other food sources as well.

I mentioned the reasons that I didn't think my predator on the Chickens and Pigeons was a Great Horned Owl. It appears that it has been this little guy at the top of the page. The Chickens that I have been losing have all been Old English which is about the size of a big Pigeon. My confusion came because if it had been a GHO it would have been a slaughter. This was precision.

I found the Owl this morning and he was sitting where he was in the picture above. I decided to leave him in there and release him this evening. I went out at dusk to do just that and he was not where I had left him. I looked better and found him to be in one of the nest boxes trying to eat a frozen Squab. That explains the cache's that I noticed earlier. I opened the Door expecting him to bolt out to freedom. Nothing happened! I looked harder and could see his back in one of the nest boxes. I had to go in and pat the side of the box to get him to leave.

I had been dropping a solid door down in front of the Pigeon access each night. When I would let them out the next morning I had apparently been locking a predatory Owl in with them a lot of the nights. He would have just sit quietly in one of the corners or nest boxes with his back to the door where he would not be seen. Normally I would not have opened the big door at all.

Life just got tougher for him, the Buffet is now closed. There are no more Pigeons and the Chickens are under wire.

Jan 14th, 2017

The days and nights are still cold as can be. We are currently in a recurring fog situation. I was surprised to see that the humidity was 84 percent this morning. Summer time is generally under 17 percent.

This time last year the temps were in the high 40's. It is warming up but slowly. We still have a lot of ice and snow and the temperature this morning was 3 degrees. It will pass and fairly soon if things are any where near normal. However normal keeps changing.

I did find the weight that Hope no longer feels that she needs to step up on my fist, or let me pick her up when she does get to go out to her perch. I had a couple of days that I could put the birds outside, and Hope forced me to scoop her up by her leash. I decided that was not what I wanted so I put her on the scales. Apparently 1265 was just a bit too high. Keep in mind that when I got her she weighed 874. There was nothing wrong with her manners, she just didn't want to come to me. She still went on a reduced food plan however.

I have made a few changes since I last posted. The Chickens began to try to roost in the wood shed due to the depredations of a Horned Owl. Apparently he was coming in during the reduced light conditions with the snow and cloudy days.  I relocated him as soon as I discovered what was happening, but the Chickens, lead by their Rooster were still trying to stay out. I have decided that I prefer the eggs from the Old English hens to regular Chickens, so I gathered up two of the Old English Roosters, and all of the surviving hens no matter the breed and locked them up in the enclosed Chicken pen. The rest of the Roosters ( about 7 ) I left locked in the other pen. As soon as the weather permits they will be cleaned and put in the freezer. This includes the Rooster that lead the rebellion.

About 12 of the Pigeons also were sleeping out. I examined the possible uses of Pigeons and realized that the only use they have is for food for the Hawks. I no longer trap, and I have never used them to train my Hawks, so there was really no reason the even have them. I had been closing their "trap" door at night, but I soon discovered that something had been going in there killing and eating what it wanted and leaving again through the pigeon trap door. I end up feeding about 100 pounds of pigeon food a month, and only getting what surplus Pigeons that I can keep from the Raccoons , Horned Owls, and the Prairie falcon that cannot resist them. I decided it was not worth it, so I closed the trap and quit feeding outside. It only took a day for them to go into the house for the food there. I put 18 Pigeons in the freezer for the Hawks. I also left the trap down to perhaps see what was going in there.

Imagine my surprise when I found this fellow in there this morning. I cannot say for sure that "he" has been going in there and dining in leisure or not, but it is suspicious. There were parts of bodies that were obviously been eaten by a Raptor, as well as uneaten parts stashed in a corner. Horned Owls do not operate that way. They kill every thing they can and generally eat only heads after the main hunger has been satisfied, and they are not smart enough to exit a small hole in an other wise wall of screen. So I am reasonably sure that a Horned Owl was not the culprit.

The Quail were the most hurt by the Chickens and the Pigeons being locked up, and they were scrambling to make up the outside Chicken food loss.

So I will continue to put food out for them as long as the weather stays bad. We probably have a flock of 60 to 100 here on the creek. Apparently they make up a rather large portion of the food supply for the Harriers that hunt and live here.

I noticed a Prairie Falcon hanging around waiting for the Pigeons to come out to play today as well. I am not sure that she has ever been what you would call successful on a regular basis, but she seems more than willing to try.

The weather has to moderate soon, and I can hardly wait.