Calling the bird experts

pmanton

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There is an owl living on our airpark. He (or she) has been photographed sitting on a post during the day. Last night I could hear the critter Hoo hooing. So my question is, where do owls stay when they're not hunting up a meal or making owlets? I'd love to get some pictures of it.

Paul
Salome, AZ
 
Owls don't really nest. They sleep in trees, often preferring densly overgrown areas.
 
Hooting is good. That is one way owls mark or claim this is my territory, stay out. Most owls are nocturnal and hunt at night.

If there is a mating pair of owls, they will hoot to communicate. Some owls make a screech noise to warn other owls to stay away or to ward off predators. Owls are one of the bird species that mate for life, or until death do us part.

How is the owl hooting? Is it like a hoot hoot hooooo..? That is normal for the Great Horned Owl.

As Flyingron stated, Owls sleep in trees, usually in a dense forested area. They can also stay in derelict barns or out buildings, hollow parts of trees or any small crevice in a rock formation.

One way to know where owls are roosting is to look around under the trees for pellets. Owls cough up something similar to a hairball. It consists of undigested material from meals. If you find one, pull it apart and you'll see bones, fur, feathers and possibly intact skulls of small mammals. It will give you a good idea of what the owl is hunting in the area as well as were it spends time after a meal.

Look for something like this:
main-qimg-6acbf575c4fce73ff65d80a072104f78-c


And be sure to post some pictures..!!! (of the owl)
 
There is a Great Horned Owl sitting nest on an osprey platform just to the NW of CDK runway. Hope to see owelets soon. Wish I had a telephoto lens.
<edit/addendum: from those of you who know of such things - is there a reasonably priced camera platform that is water resistant (kayaking) and can do moderate to mild telephoto that a newbie like me could manage? I'm just missing too many wildlife Kodak moments!>
 
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Great Horned owls are pretty cool, unless there's a nest near your bedroom window. Just sayin'.
 
In my opinion and experience it's the Barred Owl that makes the biggest brouhaha- sound like a tribe of monkeys when they really get going
 
They spook pretty easily. If you go looking for them, you’ll probably see them only as they fly off. We’ve had some that had a routine of hanging out in the trees near the house but they didn’t like it if we went out to look at them.

I had one fly into the the side of my car one night and knock itself out. I started to keep it til it healed up but figured there was some weird law against it and I’d be a criminal.
 
They spook pretty easily. If you go looking for them, you’ll probably see them only as they fly off. We’ve had some that had a routine of hanging out in the trees near the house but they didn’t like it if we went out to look at them.

I had one fly into the the side of my car one night and knock itself out. I started to keep it til it healed up but figured there was some weird law against it and I’d be a criminal.
They are protected raptors on Federal lands where I've had to deal with them. Rather startling to have one of them fly across the road in front of you at night.
 
Isn't cattery just a fancy word for cathouse? Wouldn't that be where they get their waitresses?
I've never considered "cattery" to be fancy...maybe with a nice Bearnaise sauce...this is getting slightly weird...
 
Is that how the French cathouses serve theirs?
The only time I was in France I did not visit either a cattery or a cat house, e.g. I have no knowledge of these things.
 
They spook pretty easily. If you go looking for them, you’ll probably see them only as they fly off. We’ve had some that had a routine of hanging out in the trees near the house but they didn’t like it if we went out to look at them.

I had one fly into the the side of my car one night and knock itself out. I started to keep it til it healed up but figured there was some weird law against it and I’d be a criminal.

I woulda ate it.
 

midlifeflyerFinal Approach
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this owl lived in the hangar,
he swooped down to the airplane,
he became impaled on an antenna!
he was alive when this pic was took,
i dont know the rest of the story...
 
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Last summer we went to a place to observe the bats when they came out of a cave. The park system has set up a viewing stand. (Bring a plastic rain poncho and throw it away on your way out.) Anyway, as the bats emerge at sundown, it is feeding time for the owls. They swoop in from the trees and pick them off one by one. Nature is so cool.
 
We have at least 3 barred owls on our block who generally get to hooting/cackling around 9pm every night. One usually resides in on of our oaks trees or our Southern Magnolia. Scares the crap out of you when they come swooping overhead when you didn't see them beforehand. It's always impressive how silent they are in flight. I've never seen any of the "hair balls" around, but we have at least one oak with a large hollow, and a black walnut that's got all sorts of hollows in the upper branches. Hell, we even had a wood duck in the oak tree one year.

We do have a number of bats that come out as dusk as well, but I've never seen the owls go after them. There's likely plenty of mice/snakes/etc. to go after being near a river and large acres of wheat/soybean/sod fields.
 
Next question--Do owls eat other birds? The non-pilots across the street feed the birds.:( The owl could be hanging around for for easy pickings.
 
Must be a couple in the woods behind the house,every night out there hootin'. I think it's cool.
 
Next question--Do owls eat other birds? The non-pilots across the street feed the birds.:( The owl could be hanging around for for easy pickings.

Some do. I had a Boreal Owl hit one of my windows trying to hunt the small birds that are always around my place. He recovered and flew off after about 10 minutes, but not until I got a really close look at him.

Earlier this winter watched a Great Grey hunting in my front yard. On the soft powder snow, wings completely spread out to hold him up on the surface, head swivelling slowly above the surface and then a rapid motion of his head & beak to sweep aside the snow and nab a vole below the surface.
 
The F as you put it, is that THEY do not generally nest other when hatching babies (can you read the context that I responded to, the poster specifically asked other than for child rearing). They roost, like most other predatory birds by just sleeping holding onto a branch. In fact, when they do nest as in your pictures, they do so in nests created by other birds.

Your points would be better made if you could do so civilly, without the resort to profanity, abbreviated or otherwise.
 
hmmmm...I don't think many birds nest when they're not rearing young do they?

Besides, saying owls do "This" or "That" is like saying "all fish do this or that"...there are quite a few species of each and they all do their own thing.

I've been shaking my head at your posts for years and I've oft wondered one thing:

Has anyone ever seen you and Henning in the same room?

:cool:
 
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