Barn Owls

Started by sakorick, April 18, 2020, 06:04:18 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

sakorick

These great birds are on the watch list now. I saw one on the farm the other day and put up a Barn Owl box!
Talk to yourself. There are times you need expert advice.

sakorick

Almost forgot, John helped me!!
Talk to yourself. There are times you need expert advice.

gitano

Cool!

You guys don't have the winds that we do here but it looks to me like that thing would go over in a stiff breeze. Especially with the added weight of a owls, owlets, and a nest.

It's the peak of owl nesting up here. (Peak breeding was a month ago.) From the background, it looks like things are leafing out there.

That's clearly a 'commercial' nest box, where did you get it?

Here's a picture of a great gray owl (Strix nebulosa) in a tree across my driveway.


I had one of these when I lived in Missouri. (I had a federal permit for raptor rehabilitation.) Someone had shot one of it's wings off. I maintained a little mouse trapline to keep it fed. It was very interesting to observe its differential response to white lab mice vs wild mice. When I put a white lab mouse in its cage, (6'x6'x8'), it wouldn't even look at them. The the mouse walked over one of its feet it would grab it, kill it, and drop it. It wouldn't eat the mouse until it got hungry. With wild mice (Peromyscus sp.), as soon as I dropped the mouse in the cage, the owl would get very "attentive", focused on the mouse and very attentive, bobbing its head back and forth and up and down the way owls do when they are trying to get a 'fix' on a target. For its part, the mouse would 'freak out'. It KNEW what kind of trouble it was in! The owl would chase it down, kill it, and eat it immediately. What was it about the wild mouse that piqued the owl's interest? There was something and it wasn't the white color.

Good luck with the nest box!


Paul
Be nicer than necessary.

Tags: