Washingtonians

[Ogress]

http://www.owlpages.com/owls.php?genus=Strix&species=varia



I have been listening to owl calls since this morning with DH & THIS is the one, actually it is at least 2 and it IS their breeding season............BIG wingspread (50" for fe) and small body (2 # ?) this is one bird that can sail/glide very well.
Sometimes it sounds like there is 5 or 6 monkeys up in the trees !!!
I do not think they will grab a chicken, I don't think they would need to here, and what a great blessing it will be to have the mouse & rats problem taken care of !

Listen to their calls on this link...awesome weird noises they make !

Cool! You have yourself some Barred Owls! Listen to them here:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Barred_Owl/id/ac

Sounds like a jungle out there!

 

[Chickielady]

I used to call Spotted Owls for the forest service (spotted are usually 4 or 5 short and then a long with a little hoot at the end - but the females can bark like an angry Chihuahua up in a tree. Maybe the males can too). Go out at dusk or dawn, grab a branch and using a small alligator clip, attach a live mouse (not a white one) to the branch, then make that same call you heard, repeat every minute or so and the owl will fly to a nearby tree to check you out. After a couple of minutes, it will swoop down and grab the mouse. If it stops there or in a nearby tree and eats it, it has no young. If it flies off with the mouse, that usually means he has a nest and is bringing the mouse to his mate or his chicks. He will keep returning to you for more mice throughout the night if this is the case. And if you worked as an owl caller, you would be running around the forest at night with a pouch full of mice as you try to find the nest. Invariably, the owl will play games with you, flying up and landing in trees on either side of a steep, narrow canyon with no trail, scary drop offs and all sorts of stuff to trip over as you are trying to keep your eyes on the owl and not the ground. The owl will manage to steer you through a patch of poison oak, even though it is nowhere near the nest site. (thankfully I'm immune, but my calling partners were not).

This time of year, many owls that are usually living in he mountains will have migrated to the lowlands for the winter.

This is a great website for bird calls: (Cornell Ornithology)
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Spotted_Owl/id/ac

Oh my what a funny story....
This is most definetly the Hoot Owl we have here.
Cannot believe the Huge wingspread on these birds!
In Northern CA at Grandmother's, we had hundreds of small owls that made the most awful Screetch & gumbled cocaphony of wierd hair raising noises all night for years that Grandpa invited his sons to come one week end & 'thin' the population.
I was just a small kid, but remember the screaming & odd noises were constant, all night long.
The family of birds lived in 2 big Oaks in Grandpa's yard...and we could spot what seemed like hundreds of pairs of owl eyes in the trees at night............
I do not remember much else.
But the population was thinned.
And the recordings of the screetch owl and not a screetch at all, but a soft tweet type chirp noise.
These birds that screamed so aweful it would raise every hair on your body & goose bumps all over as if ice water had been dribbled down the back must have been Barn Owls.
Imagine, walking softly, flash light in hand, into a big huge old creepy spider-web covered barn...and hearing that !!
Scare the day lights right out of ya !!!!!!!!!!!!

Listen here:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/barn_owl/id/nc

Makes me goose pimply all over !!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chickielady]

And of course we came home from Seattle & forgot to stop at the Montesano feed Store & get the Rat Zapper.................so maybe we do not need it after all !!!

 

[Chickielady]

Now, if we could get Jack used to the Monkeys in the trees all night, then maybe we could get some sleep !!!

 

[ReiMiraa]

For the last 2 nights, maybe 3, we have had jack barking all night long, thinking it was deer or elk, which we see on the wildview cam.
But last night I just had had it & went out to find a pair of Owls have taken up residence over my coops.
Very destinct hoots,
4 hoots with the 3rd longer, a bit higher in tone, and almost purr-like

hoo-hoo Hooooooooooooo-hoo
I knew they were there a few nights ago & had fun hooting back at them & wish I can spotlight them....but now I realize they are a pair & sticking around I decided it wasn't such a good idea.

Not knowing what kind of Hooters these are...anyone know of a web site that has owl voices on it ?
And do ya think these owls would fly during the day & snag chickens ?
I do not have all my pen nest back up yet, and we do free range a large flock a day.....
Stupid question, huh ?
Why couldn't an Owl grab a chicken during the day ?

Well, off to do chores & will be back later.....have a great Week end !

Where I live we have a family of great horned owls that live year round.
They might not be able to lift a large chicken... but they will kill it and eat on the spot.
The owls here are smart. they know when the chickens are out and if they are hungry and bored they will try dusk or dawn.
they know how to take them out of the trees when the birds roost for a nap.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

For the last 2 nights, maybe 3, we have had jack barking all night long, thinking it was deer or elk, which we see on the wildview cam.
But last night I just had had it & went out to find a pair of Owls have taken up residence over my coops.
Very destinct hoots, 
4 hoots with the 3rd  longer, a bit higher in tone, and almost purr-like

hoo-hoo Hooooooooooooo-hoo
I knew they were there a few nights ago & had fun hooting back at them & wish I can spotlight them....but now I realize they are a pair & sticking around I decided it wasn't such a good idea.

Not knowing what kind of Hooters these are...anyone know of a web site that has owl voices on it ?
And do ya think these owls would fly during the day & snag chickens ?
I do not have all my pen nest back up yet, and we do free range a large flock a day.....
Stupid question, huh ?
Why couldn't an Owl grab a chicken during the day ?  

Well, off to do chores & will be back later.....have a great Week end !

The answer to that is Cornell Bird Lab although a glance at the Great Horned Owl page indicates that the sound recordings are now subscriber-only, phooey. Great Horned Owl cry from You Tube. That's the male, I think, the female answers an octave lower "WHO WHO WHO."

And yes, they take ground birds in the daytime- in winter, especially, or at dawn and dusk in summer- my cousin lost a SLW hen right before Christmas. The male here is apparently specializing in birds right now, I found crow and scrub jay feathers while I was trying to get baby pictures this morning and signs that it either took a Redtailed Hawk or at least did some serious damage. It was a pair of GHOs moving in that took out the thousand bantie army at Margo's. They are also the primary predator of Bald Eagle juveniles. Scary blasted birds. They can be discouraged by netting, especially under tall trees, or by waiting until full light to turn birds out to free-range (a problem for my cousin, who like most independant contractors has to hit the lumberyard at 7am and the jobsight before 8am).

 

[Chickielady]

Oh boy, guess I better get my pen nets up soon....these Barred HOOT owls are alot smaller than Horned...and hopefully there is plenty else here for them to eat besides trying to take on my chickens.
I really think given the fight, my roosters would easily win over a barred owl.
The web sites say they are at best, 2 to 2.6 pounds, that be the larger females.
BIG wingspread of up to 50" though !
beautiful birds !

 

[ReiMiraa]

so what kind of antibiotics should i look for at the feed store? or the name of a "broad spectrum" type

 

[Stumpfarmer]

And of course we came home from Seattle & forgot to stop at the Montesano feed Store & get the Rat Zapper.................so maybe we do not need it after all !!!  

Yeah, I couldn't figure out why mine don't work anymore- and then noticed that we have a big, ugly female barn cat hanging around.

We have (or had, I think the nest got taken out in the ice storm) saw whet owls in the orchard and barn owls somewhere around the barn and the cabin, and screechies and GHOs in the oaks. Only GHOs are likely to be a problem with adult chickens, and we've had barn owls and nesting banties sharing the same barn without loosing chicks, barn owls being rodent specialists. Long Eared, Barred and Spotted Owls are also mostly rodent eaters, Saw Whets take tiny birds and big insects, and Screechies will eat anything they can kill, and can kill stuff twice their size, but are not active in any level of dawn or dusk. Short Eared Owls are active at dawn and dusk, and bird eaters, but not summer residents; ditto Snowy Owls. Only Ogress would have to worry about Great Grey Owls, but they are also mostly rodent-eaters, although I guess they'll take grouse or ptarmigan in nesting season.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Oh boy, guess I better get my pen nets up soon....these Barred HOOT owls are alot smaller than Horned...and hopefully there is plenty else here for them to eat besides trying to take on my chickens.
I really think given the fight, my roosters would easily win over a barred owl.
The web sites say they are at best, 2 to 2.6 pounds, that be the larger females.
BIG wingspread of up to 50" though !
beautiful birds !

It's amazing how little bird there is under all those feathers, with all owls.