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Site 2 Sora!
what a fun morning! letting our dog back in to the house in the morning, I notice his head is buried in some hosta’s near our back door, sometimes when he has done this out pops a mouse or chipmunk scurrying for cover, this time a two legged creature came scurrying out…hey that looks like a rail…Grabbed the dog, put him inside. Relocated the little juvenile sora, at first it stayed in the cover of bushes and behind a bin that the lawnmower is kept. I sat still and it came out and foraged a bit in the yard, and under some blueberry bushes…now that is one backyard bird.
PS. Heard a barred owl a couple nights ago.
Owl CSI
An owl on mammal crime. The mammal looked to be a rabbit. The owl, a larger owl judging by the size of the pellet, about the size of a man’s thumb. Could it be the barred owl, that had been heard once in the fall and seen once in early winter. Or perhaps a great horned owl that have also been heard in the area, but not nearly as recently. Most likely an unsolvable case. The evidence did look a bit old, but probably with-in a month’s time frame.
pellet upper left, some droppings, and fur mainly towards the lower right part of the image, may be some rabbit scat?
Large owl pellet
Suspicion Confirmed Kinda
Back in mid January I did a post “There was a Mighty Duel” with some bird and mice tracks…I also mentioned that a larger “eared” type owl was reported to me on site. Every once in a while through out the winter there would be the some crows that would be mobbing an area with a mix of brambles, a large cedar, pine and spruce. Seemed like an unlikely, but decent long-eared owl roosting area. Today the crows were at it and found the culprit this time. A Barred Owl! was it mistaken identity previously? who knows.
Anyway, this is only about 850 feet from the screech owl nest site. Sound like a lot, but in bird terms that is only,what like, 15 second flight. Barred owls eat screech owls if given the chance. But thanks to a screen capture sent to me by Phil over at “owl and other of essex” blog, the male (red phased, paler in B/W) was seen in the box tending to the female. Just one more thing the pair has to worry about.
Barred Site
Barred Site 1
Finally got a scaled up Box,for the Barred owl, installed. It has ~14″ square floor inside (16″ square on the outside), since the roof is larger and longer, I think I went with a 38 degree slope on the roof (the screech box is a full 45 degree slope) The back is 33″ high, front 22″ to roof, 8″ x 14 ” slot entrance, 14″ front, leaving just about 13″ from opening to floor. plus a couple inches of wood chips. Its covered with the same material as the screech boxes to protect from raccoon and fisher predation. There has been sightings of barred owl 3 times in this location this fall and reports of a family being seen a couple years ago. It is fairly( = 45-50 feet) close to a house. So we will see how this site goes.
Barred Site 1
Owls = Reports of Family of Barred from a couple years ago, sightings of barred owls 3 times this fall.
Location = MA
Habitat = rural, woods, scatter houses, near ponds/lakes
Cavities = 1 predator resistant barred owl slot box
Nesting = reports of fledgling (being fed) a couple years ago
Barred while Biking
A buddy of mine was mountain biking and came across this Barred owl out and about, his friend had a camara phone, took this pic. I do have a scaled up screech owl box design for a Barred owl predator resistant box, but as yet it is still ‘on paper’ maybe next year I will add a couple test Barred owl Boxes to my ‘trail’
