calling all wild bird feeders!!

[Blooie]

You mean like this one that was in my backyard and let me walk right up to him?

 

[N F C]

What was he doing on the ground in the day time @Blooie ? I never see owls in the day time around here. Isn't that kind of odd?

 

[CanuckBock]

You mean like this one that was in my backyard and let me walk right up to him?

Not good woman!

http://www.internationalowlcenter.org/owls-humans/sickinjuredowls

What happens here is we have weather not conducive to young owls being able to get prey. Too much snow cover = no access to proper food like the mice.

Usually by the time you can actually approach an owl, it is far too gone. But there is always hope, get a large cardboard box with an old towel and put the owl in the box and take it to a wildlife rehab (calling your Conservation office is good too--worked at one decades ago).

I named our first owl find as Mouser...terrible year for too much snow cover and the parents leave the babes to fend on their own...this first winter is a huge trying time and many don't make it.

I took Mouser to the wildlife rehab immediately, but even then, the poor thing passed that night I was told.

Mouser - so far gone that when I found him, already too late.​

Second owl that we found here in Pear-A-Dice...put in a crate to take to the rehab for fixing.

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Offered up food...cat food (perfect food for a cat is a mouse so natural to offer a tin of moist c@t food, eh...that and raw bee liver, fresh water...sometimes electrolyte water is good too).

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Third owl Rick found in May coupal years back now...it was hung up on a barb wire fence by one wing...would have been hunting the ducks that were in the streams and ponds but screwed up and got one wing all tangled up in the wire. Poor thing...not sure how long it hung there but it was well screwed up if left. Stress will kill them...so the less handling the better and the less time stressing over a predicament, the better the survival of the incident.

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Called this one "Hoot!"...what a hoot indeedy.

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Yeh, if looks could kill eh...not a friendly gaze...hee hee...but great sign...this one was so extra feisty...

Ah, did I sustain a boo boo...hee hee...silly cluck!

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Even with leather gloves on, I still dunced myself and managed to allow myself to get clawed...hee hee...wild things...wilder the better...and never EVER grateful with your intervention

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Transported it in a crate home and housed (gender is hard to know in these owls) it over night in a large crate...to be taken first thing in the morn to rehab.

Come closer...yes, so I can BEAK you too! <<clack clack>>​

Love it...the big old hiss at me...yeh, thanks eh...not likely...telling me in no uncertain circumstances...no huggy the owly. Bwa ha ha...

My outdoors father has had many a GHO as friends...sit on his shoulder and take treats of raw meat.


We adore owls here. Absolutely love and encourage their presence. They come in the evening to lower the mice population and are very welcome! Have about five or six species and one little barn owl use to sit in the eaves of the pheasant cabin waiting for night to fall and the vermin to wander about.

LOVE Owls...bring on the creatures of the night.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[duluthralphie]

Are you saying there is no truth to the rumor owls cause zombism?

I know when I go outside I always wear a hat at night because I heard they can get tangled in a persons hair...

 

[Blooie]

What was he doing on the ground in the day time @Blooie ? I never see owls in the day time around here. Isn't that kind of odd?

This one had an injured wing. The wildlife rehab gal that came out for him said that juvies will sometimes bruise (not necessarily break) their wings at the shoulder because while they are very good at flying, they stink at landing in the beginning, smacking into branches and the like. He was on the ground right outside our bedroom window just few yards from the chicken coop. Our dog, Miss Molly, had slammed into a picture perfect point while Ken was out there and that owl was so well camoflouged that we didn't even see him at first. He just sat there, staring Molly down and Molly was so focused she was quivering.

I went back in for the camera and got these shots. Not the brightest thing I've ever done, granted @CanuckBock but the opportunity of a lifetime and I wasn't letting it slip through my fingers. He stayed right there, too....I got my photos while calling Fish and Game, who sent out the woman from the raptor rehab out. By the time she got here, a 50 mile drive from Cody, he had flown off but didn't go to far.

He was absolutely stunning. And I'm not so dumb that I don't know I was taking a heck of a chance. When Ken was a kid out running his trap line one year, he caught a full grown one and had to free it from the trap. The owl was at the end of the chain just caught by a couple of toes. He grabbed a blanket, tied a rope around one corner of it, and tossed it over the owl. He waited quite awhile, both letting the owl settle down and also to work up his nerve. Then he carefully reached in under the blanket and released the trap. He said there were two times in his life he was scared to death to do something and that was both of them! After he released the trap he got back as far as he could, all the way to the end of the rope, and then pulled the blanket off. The owl sat there for a few minutes blinking at him, then took off. Ken said it was almost mystical.

 

[duluthralphie]

Blooie did you ever consider Owl under glass?

I use to be a flight instructor, many of my students had problems getting the landing down right also.

I woud have taken the pictures too. I do not own a pair of gloves thick enough to pick up a raptor of any kind. But the experience would be great.

When we were kids (50 plus years ago) my brother found and hawk that had fallen from its nest. It was a VERY tall tree and no way to get it back up there. Being young and dumb we brought it home and put it in a corn crib and feed it white rats, dead at first then alive as it got better and bigger. I think we had it a month or two before we let it go. Most likely very illegal but an experience to remember for a lifetime.

 

[duluthralphie]

I have a different woodpecker today, kind of. A red bellied woodpecker. Otherwise it is just nuthatches and the regular visitors. The blue jays have almost stolen all the peanuts, I wonder if they hide or eat them.

 

[duluthralphie]

I finally have a decent winter bird here tonight!

A bright red Cardinal! They look so bright in this gloomy dark weather.

 

[bantiesrule]

I've had a pair of cardinals at my feeders off and on all summer. Is this common? It's the first year I've seen them come in the summertime.

 

[duluthralphie]

I had them occasionally in the summer, but normally they are a winter bird for me.