Great-horned Owl Fun in 2018

[centrarchid]

I also isolated some game stags today placing them into their own pens. Tonight will be critical for them not to panic of owl harasses them through wire. I will intervene if need be.

 

[cmom]

I do have a yard light that is on all night. I have seen the owls and have had them fly over me when I have gone out to check on things. I know we have owls. I have them on my game camera videos. I have several game cameras all different makes. Most take good pictures. I bought one awhile back and it has a fair picture. It was cheap and had some decent reviews. I wouldn't buy another one of them but there are some quite good inexpensive game cameras. A friend bought this one and said he was pleased with the pictures. I have one that looks just like it but is a different make, I might give it a try. This one takes a regular SD card but the one I have, that looks like it, takes a mini SD card.
https://www.amazon.com/APEMAN-Hunti...&qid=1532915974&sr=1-11&keywords=game+cameras

One of the cameras I have looks like this one but doesn't take as good of pictures as my other cameras do.
https://www.amazon.com/VERSION】APEMAN-Camera-Hunting-Upgrading-Protected/dp/B01NAGLAMJ/ref=sr_1_4?s=hunting-fishing&ie=UTF8&qid=1532916239&sr=1-4&keywords=game+cameras
This is the same spot but with two different cameras.

 

[centrarchid]

Your landscape is totally different than mine. I have mowed paths with the balance ranging 2 to 25 feet tall with most in the 4 to 6 foot range. Bamboo is the tall stuff. I will be looking for different game cameras in the future. One is already down with respect to infrared flash.

 

[centrarchid]

Things are getting dicey now. As we were putting last of juveniles up for night one of the GHO's came in. My 5 year old daughter got all excited saying owl is here and it is going get the chickens. She also noted the small bird (Northern Mockingbird) chasing the owl as it flew over our heads. I told her to talk to the owl which she did while armed with her butterfly net. Owl perched within 100 feet of us riling adult birds. Juveniles we were trying to police up quickly hunkered down between pens in barn and in the feed sack pile. Daughter learned a lot. We had to run back to house for her brother and flashlites so we could make certain all birds properly penned. It is likely owls will start coming in earlier each evening now, even more than you would expect with shortening day length. Larger prey getting harder to catch as vegetation getting taller.

We are having fun!

 

[centrarchid]

It has been a while since an owl caused actual trouble around chickens. Weather changing to cooler promotes owl activity here. Dogs did not respond at first; pup on duty and she is not up on alarm calls associated with owl walking on about.

I myself detected disturbance when doing nightly visit to porch. I could hear the game cock in bark doing a low intensity cackle that was being blown away from house by cold wind from east. Hard to hear. I could not see pirp with spotlight, but could hear a banging sound when cupping hand to ear. Went back into house to get shoes which got adult female dog stirred to action. She ran straight barn causing owl to flush when she got within 50 feet barn. Owl was trying to get at 4 juvenile games in a rabbit cage. "Banging" sound appears to have been owl trying to bite through or pull on wires of cage. Dog sniffed area heavily around that cage. Contained birds very scared so I covered cage with feed sacks to break owl's line of sight. Also re positioned game camera.

 

[centrarchid]

Owl did not return to same pen although based on activity of dogs it did probe poultry area further. I will get more aggressive with penning as season proceeds as this is likely to be a year when owls will be going after chickens hard. Two juveniles, even though not working together can be a real nuisance.

One Missouri Dominique cockerel pushing 6 lbs is roosting in a Bradford Pear. He is last being left out overnight and that will cease once the tree starts dropping leaves.

I am not seeing many mice although there is an uptick in vole sign in areas that where under mobile pens about a month ago.

Would be nice to have some sort of owl outside of Great-horned working poultry area. The GHO's are getting boring because largely figure them out.

 

[Trish1974]

I walked past an open window last night around 9:30, and heard what sounded like a hawk screaming. A few seconds after it stopped I heard some type of owl - it started off as a single hoot but then turned into a loud long trill. Nothing after that. Can owls make a hawk like sound? GHOs moved in this time last year, pushing out the barred owls. I did hear barreds a few evenings ago. Not sure if that's what I heard last night. I know in the spring the barred's calls can get pretty theatrical, not sounding like their typical call, especially when 3-4 are calling at the same time.

 

[centrarchid]

Owl going rogue on me. Went after two chickens in one night. Pulled tail of a pullet roosting solo in barn and pulled a bunch of secondaries of a cock roosting to close to side of his pen. Dogs, and I, on alert. Pullet penned. Everybody else needs to figure out that roosting least 12" from side of pen is the smart thing. We will work on owl to run it off every time it comes in. Moon full making so chickens can see it clearly.

 

[centrarchid]

Real owl fun now! Think two pairs are squabbling over turf in trees about 100 yards to east of house. Loud and close.

 

[centrarchid]

Thread below involves owl fun that at first did not appear to an owl, but it was.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/probable-raccoon-problem-nope-great-horned-owl.1279655/

After voting and eating out at out favorite Mexican joint, I got back to put birds up. Apparently I flushed owl out when pulling in with car. Owl back no more than 2 days after catching him / her in live-trap. Somebody also set both traps off so re-armed.