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| Great-horned Owl chicks - photo courtesy Sharon Milligan For more articles, click on the blue title For this week's field trip, go to the end of the article |
It has taken me three decades to see or even glimpse all of
our regularly occurring North American owls, but I would have to live at least
three lifetimes to say that I know them beyond what they look like and the
types of habitats they prefer. Any reader who has an owl on his premises,
either at a roost or actually nesting, is lucky indeed. Let’s put that in
perspective: there are over 180 species of owls in the world, 23 of which have occurred in North America, 9 of which have been found in Mississippi, 6 of which
have been found in the coastal counties – and only 4 of them are resident.
Owls are provocative creatures. To most of us they are birds
of mystery, inscrutable and elusive. Perhaps we like it that way.
Few sounds in the
bird world fire the imagination like the voices of owls.
They may rise out of the deepest woods and float across the
broadest fields – even disturb the peace of one’s own backyard. No matter how
expected, how often heard, owl voices are electrifying.
Authors use words like hiss, hoot, bark, scream, or whinny,
among others, to convey some of the vocal qualities that help to separate one
owl from another, but all transmit poorly in print. Unearthly owl voices in the
dead of night do not lend themselves to pat descriptions.
Owls are mostly nocturnal. Active at night. Their voices
carry far. Their eyesight and hearing are extraordinary, for much depends on
search and seizure in the dark. They fly silently, as if their wings were
velvet-fringed.
They sleep in nooks and crannies, or cloak themselves in
leaves and shadows – there, but unseen in plain sight.
Is it any wonder that owls rank high as birds of lore and
legend? Is it any wonder that even the birder who may have seen it all, or
almost all, never tires of owls.
Here on the Coast it is near the time when owls are most
frequently heard and most easily seen.
Most of our resident owls nest in winter and early spring,
at odds with our perception that all birds nest in late spring and summer. Early
nesting is quite an adaptation. It gives owls a great advantage. They have
their young at a time of the year that, not so coincidentally, sees the annual
population peak of small rodents, the mainstays of owls’ winter diets.
They will be hissing, hooting, barking or screaming, or
whinnying to the tempo of the mating ritual and the care of the young (where
many a hair-raising night-sound originates.)
They will be busy hunting, keeping a mouse or a mole ahead
of the demand, and therefore, more visible. In leafless trees, the Great Horned
Owl may be silhouetted against moonlit skies. On foggy mornings, the Barred Owl
may take to day-hunting in the bottomlands. On any day one may roust a Common
Barn-Owl on guard duty, or catch an Eastern Screech-Owl taking a yellow-eyed
peek at the world.
More owls are heard than seen. An owl voice may travel a
mild on a windless night. A screech-owl may whinny mournfully from twenty feet
away and still escape detection. If you have a wooded lot and no old woodpecker holes, an owl box should be on your want list (Christmas is coming).
In the most rudimentary breakdown;
The hooters are the Great Horned Owl (deep, soft, resonant 6-hooter)
and the Barred Owl (“Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all”)
The “hisser” is the Common Barn-owl
The “whinny” comes from the Eastern Screech-Owl.
(Additionally, one might look and listen for two rare
winter-visitors. The Short-eared Owl yaps like a small dog, but infrequently,
flies moth-like over open fields or marshes, often at dusk and dawn, and the
Burrowing Owl - seldom heard, but may chatter when disturbed and often perches
by day in the open (fenceposts, wires, sand dunes)
Hearing an owl, any owl, is a fascinating step in the right
direction. Seeing one could begin a hopeless addiction to night-time birding.
Judy quoted from one of her favorite poets, Thomas Gray, as
written in his “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”. She said “This verse
lends a certain mystique to any Barn Owl, which is, after all, the sum of pale
apparition, rasping shrieks, old church belfries and a romantic’s slant on the
subject”
"Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient, solitary reign”
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It’s Mississippi Coast Audubon Society’s last field trip of 2016, and it’s special. All are welcome, but spaces are going fast — Don’t “miss the boat”!
Saturday December 3, 2016 - Grand Bay NERR by boat, Jackson County
(Limit 15 Participants) Our focus on this boat trip will be waterfowl, shore, wading and marsh birds. This is a great time of year for birding in the Grand Bay NERR/NWR with a high species diversity guaranteed. Bring along some water/drinks and snacks appropriate for the field. Rubber knee boots or other footwear you can get wet and muddy are recommended.
Place and time: 8:30 AM – about noon. Meet at the Bayou Heron boat ramp at the south end of Bayou Heron Road (MAP - same road the Grand Bay NERR office is located on). The NERR/NWR office (6005 Bayou Heron Road, Moss Point, MS) will be open from 07:45-08:15 am so folks can use the restroom, fill-up water bottles, etc.
YOU MUST REGISTER FOR THIS TRIP and there is a fee of $30 per person. To register, contact Dr. Mark Woodrey (Mark.Woodrey@msstate.edu). First come, first served – capped at 15 participants, so sign up early!
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