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.

Jan 9th

The cold weather has broken, at least for a bit. It has been below zero both day and night for the last three or more days. We ended up with close to 18 inches of snow on the ground, and a big pile of snow on the roof.

The weather of course was having a serious effect on the wildlife. The rabbits were helpless in 18 inches of powder that would in no way support even their weight. As near as I could tell, they were holing up under whatever Sage they had been sitting in at the time.

A sharpie took a stand on the solar pool heater for a while.

I had dug paths around the house and out buildings so that I could feed the critters. The Jacks soon discovered them and some really funny foot races between them and the dogs were taking place every time I let them out to pee. Even so Josie managed to catch another one of the Bunnies that live around the place. Oh well, added to the food supply.
.

A herd of about 100 Antelope came in and rested down on the creek for several hours. They eventually moved off up the hill towards the road. Hopefully the weather will break soon. They are having a pretty hard time. I doubt that all of the yearlings will make it. I saw one while I was plowing that was pretty weak.

 I had dug out the snow plow for the Quad and began digging out as much as I could. It was pretty tough work, but the snow was so dry that it plowed out pretty well. Then it began snowing again while warming a bit, and we had some "snain" Not quite snow and not really rain. I worried that if it continued all that fluffy powder would turn into a frozen mess that we wouldn't be able to navigate at all. I dug out my stuff and started trying again to punch a hole in the surface so that it would not be too much to plow. Somehow in my travels the last time, I managed to punch a "nail"? hole in one of my front tires. I used a tubeless repair kit that was at least 10 years old. It worked and I was able to keep air in it. The visibility was so flat that I plowed the road mostly by Braille. I absolutely could not see where the road was. I wandered off at least twice, but eventually managed to do a semblance of a plowing  job on the road out. Then as feared it began to start warming up, with a little bit of rain.

I began to worry about the snow on the roof, but really had no way to get it off. I tried a rake and rope setup but it was ineffectual. With the roof being metal, I wasn't worrying about leaks, only the weight. It stayed above freezing all night and when I got up this morning it had fallen off. Now the worry was that the snow melt would seep in under the walls. We had problems with that and flood waters in prior years, and I had tried to seal the area where the walls were cemented to the floor. No way to tell if it was water proof until it was too late.

 So the only recourse was to start digging. It was really heavy and I was glad to have it off the roof. I took my time and got it cleared away from the house. Now we will see what happens when the rest of it begins to melt. We are supposed to have a couple more days of warm, then it is supposed to start snowing again.

Today is Karen's and my wedding anniversary. We married 52 years ago.

Jan 4th, 2017

We had a severe storm warning starting last night that was supposed to run through 11 PM tonight. Most generally these things fizzle, and go around us. Not this time however. We actually got some snow. Quite a lot for here, a piddly amount for most people in a snow zone. We have about 12 inches on the flat here now. We have been here 11 years so far, and the most we have seen on the ground is perhaps 4 or 5 inches.

While it will make for some "tough sledding" for a bit, it will actually benefit the desert quite a bit. The snow melting will have a chance to soak into the ground, rather than run off. I once heard a local rancher say that a good snow fall was worth several rain storms.

Karen and I are very lucky in that there is really nothing that we have to do other than decide what we are going to have for dinner tonight. Don't get too uppity about the frivolity of that. Its harder than you might think. While Karen has always claimed to be passive, I had better make the right choice.

Brick, our male Brittany, has been indicating that there is something on the back porch. I set a live trap thinking that we had a Pack Rat back there. For three days there was nothing in it, which I found unusual. This morning while I was lying in bed waiting for my brain to wake up, I could hear a tell tale tinkle from the trap. I got dressed, leaving the dogs in their kennels, and went to see. Instead of a Rat, I had the house bunny. After calling Karen and showing her, I opened the door and he jumped onto the side walk and in over his head in the snow. He finally made his way around the house and down into the cover for the pool mechanism, where he normally lives.

I started a pot of coffee and shoveled my way out to the woodshed, brought in a load of wood, then had my coffee and breakfast. I shoveled paths to the shop, woodshed, pigeon house and Chicken house. Its a nice and light fine snow that one cannot make a snow ball with. So it shovels easy.

The outside Chicken pen is in a fenced corral. I noticed Brick bouncing around behind the Chicken House, and when I looked, there was a Jack back there. He ignored my commands to "get it", letting me know that he was a "Pointer", not a grabber, so I had to catch it myself. Since I don't have all that much of a "warm and fuzzy" feeling about Jacks, this one went to the "Hope and Jessie food fund".

My next chore was to feed Jessie and Hope. The weathering area is all weathered in so nobody got to go outside to eat today. When I finished, on the way to the house. I noticed Josie, our little female Brit, in the snow with an extremely guilty look on her face, and a dark spot in front of her. It seems as though she doesn't have as much of the "pointer" problem that Brick has. So now I have two weeks of food for both hawks.

Now that every thing seems to be under control, I guess I better get another cup of Coffee and make sure that the Hot tub survived the night. Sigh! its a tough job, but somebodies got to do it.

Its cold as can be- Happy New Year!

This is the view that I got this morning about 10 AM. It actually wasn't all that cold. It was 8 degrees when we got up at 0630. I had expected it to get colder. The fog while decorating the trees and weeds might have kept a bit of warmth from escaping the ground.

I tend to keep a close lookout on the area around the house, especially in the winter. The creek is a natural travel corridor for all wildlife, and the sounds of the Chickens and Pigeons are a natural attractant for hungry predators. I normally lock up the Chickens and Pigeons at night to try to keep temptation under control. Four nights ago I got sidetracked until quite late. I decided one night wouldn't hurt. I was wrong of course. Normally I let every thing out around 10 AM so that it can warm up a bit, and I can put the Hawks out and feed them. Doing all of my chores at one time.

I try to go out in the afternoon and put some more feed in the chicken trough. When I did, I noticed body parts and a partially eaten Chicken half buried in the duff. As near as I could tell they were all Old English Roosters. That is good as I have a surplus of new Roosters that haven't been culled out as yet. 

I found the results of the depredation to be quite confusing. To my knowledge the only thing that will bury its food is a Bob Cat, or a Badger. I checked the well tracked snow around that area, and could find nothing that didn't look like a Dog track. Of course the Dogs had been all over looking for rabbits.

Perhaps the thing that caused the most confusion is that it appeared that what ever it was, only killed what it needed to satisfy its appetite. Coons,  Badgers and Horned Owls will kill every thing that moves, eat what they want and leave the rest until the next night. Badgers of course will dig a den usually inside of the house, if they can, to wait to get hungry again. Horned Owls will kill all that moves and eat the heads, leaving bodies all over. The scene indicated a Cat more than anything else, but again I could find no sign. Cats run a set travel line over their territory, hitting the same spot only about once a week. They generally keep on the move. I did hear what I took to be a large cat in heat calling for a mate last week or so. The evidence points to a Bobcat. Time will tell.

Anyway as I was saying, I generally keep a pretty close watch out of the windows to see what is in the area. The picture above has a dead Coyote lying in it. I came into the computer room and to my surprise a Coyote was within 10 yards of the "Cat House" where our barn cats live.

To say that I was surprised is a bit of an understatement. I have two rifles that I use for varmint hunting. A 22-250 and a 17 HMR. I use 22 grain hollow points for the 17. I have tried the 17 grain bullets before and I didn't like them for anything as large as a Coyote. This is the second Coyote that I have taken with the 22 grain bullets and they seem to do quite well on close ones. This girl didn't move at all after I shot her.

Exit hole.

entrance hole.

The 22-250 is sending a 40 grain frangible bullet @4000 fps, and if you get a little off the large bones, you can blow a pretty big hole. So I use the 17 on the close ones, so I don't have to sew as much. I of course sell the hides each winter around the last of Feb. and the less damage the better.

The temps had risen to 13 degrees, so I put the Hawks out on their outside perch to eat, while I skinned the Coyote. After I finished I decided to check on Hope to see if the extra weight was keeping her warm. She was holding one leg up trying to warm her feet, so I put her in the shop again.

She gets bored not being able to see outside, but she stays alive, and that is what counts. As you can see she is still pretty cold, even though I had heated up the shop while I was skinning.

The weather is forecast to be below zero by a lot this next week or so. While am not ready to quit hunting Hope, I anticipate that I will be able to begin hunting for a bit more by February. If she begins molting then plans could change a bit.

Merry Christmas!

Its obvious that hunting with a Harris Hawk is out of the question. Neither one of us would enjoy it all that much. Yesterday was high fog with the frozen flakes that accompany it. Every thing was covered in Hoar Frost and temps of 12 degrees did nothing to change the landscape.

This is the little Pine tree in our front yard.

This morning it snowed about an inch and half.

There is little sense in keeping Hope at flying weight as it will likely be at least two weeks before the weather moderates enough to even try to go hunting. So we both will keg up like we had some sense and start again when the weather moderates enough that frost bite has been eliminated from consideration. 

I have been having problems with a Pack Rat in the Chicken house for the last few days. They dislike sharing a food supply with others. They cram the feed trough with sticks, rocks and anything that they can find, so the Chickens can't get to the food. I put a live trap in there last night and today had my rat.

Josie took him for a walk in the new snow this morning. Unfortunately he didn't do all that well, so he supplied a nice casting for Hope. "Its an ill wind that blows nobody any good". 

This is naturally from this summer, but the result is the same.

I put this picture in my last post and while I liked the full color of the original picture, there was some question as to what was the distortion in the side of the picture. I lightened the picture so that the icicles are more visible. It was -13, -11 when the picture was taken.

Karen and I hope that all of you have a very Merry Christmas and enjoy your families like you never have before. We wish all of you the very best. Stay safe and happy, and throw another log on the fire for me.

At least two people are reading this blog.

The reason for the title is that two people wrote to wonder why I hadn't been posting. Worried that something might have been wrong. In short, its because nothing is happening that I consider interesting.

It has been cold! Most nights have been below zero. The coldest so far had been -11. We also had about 2 inches of snow with it. I have been keeping Hope in the Shop, and at least a couple of the days I didn't even put her outside, much less think about hunting.

I've kept snapping pictures of the various Sunrises for you.

even the dullest is worth seeing.

This one was -11 degrees.

Yesterday we had to go to town for a 2:30 Appointment. Man what a nightmare. It was 40 degrees in Jordan Valley and in the Treasure Valley with the inversion it was 19 degrees, and raining. It was 40 degrees above the inversion and the moisture was falling as rain. We managed to get back by 8 PM. Eleven hours of nerves on edge. The idiots were driving bumper to bumper at 65 MPH, with rain falling on 19 degree pavement. There were plenty of accidents, but we weren't one of them.

I went out to the hot tub to try to get some of the kinks out and was serenaded by either a Bob Cat or a Cougar in heat down on the other side of the creek. What ever it was it was far enough away that I could not see any eye shine with my spot light. I compared the calls online and either one could have been making the calls. I didn't stay in the hot tub all that long.

I weighed Hope when I got back last night and she was tipping the scales at 1000 grams, so I decided that if the weather stayed close to freezing I would take her out and we would give it a try.

This afternoon she weighed 987 grams and we trundled on down to Richard's place on the Whitehorse road about 25 miles South. Unfortunately the wind had come up and the temp was 29 degrees. The air was nicely clear and sharp so I took some views of the Steen's from a couple of different areas.

These two are from my driveway.

A couple Feral Horses grazing along the Hwy.

These are from the White Horse Road.

This one shows a well in the foreground with 

Coyote Lake in the Back ground. 

Hope, even at 987 grams is perfectly willing to try to catch Jacks, I just don't think that she is able to twist and turn as she would be at a lower weight. I assume that she would be able to survive the cold temps at a lower weight, but unfortunately I was over zealous in her feeding as usual. She tried her best on each and every Jack that she saw. She pulled hair from at least one of them. She had flown after a Jack that she missed and was sitting on a Sage Bush trying to find where the one she had chased had gone. She was slow to return to the perch, and was intently looking at this one bush. Finally she decided that there was something there. However she wasn't all that sure. She dove into the bush, the Jack that was actually there, jumped about three feet in the air over her head when she crashed into the ground where he had been. I am sure she did not find it nearly as funny as I did.

We hunted for about a hour or more, and I could see that she was getting pretty cold, so we went back to the car and on home.

With Antelope the Bucks have a black band under their chin.

On the way out a really large group of Antelope

ran up the valley towards the ranch. I guessed the herd at about 100 animals.

When I arrived back at the house I gave her a Jack front leg to hold her over night. If the weather stays near zero, we will go out again. 

The weather here in this part of Oregon improves drastically by mid January. When it does I intend to hunt her as long as I can this year. I am not going to get all that excited until the weather moderates.