How to find owls: the barred owl, roosting owls, pellets

The Owl Detective
Following a trail of pellets, and listening to crows, to solve a mystery

eports one winter of owls appearing in numbers across much of the Northeast—primarily saw-whets but also long-eareds and even a few great grays—inspired me to find an owl I could call my own. Owls usually roost by day under the protective cover of evergreens, so one frigid morning I went to a coastal park in Connecticut and inspected each qualifying tree.

I trudged from one tree to another in ankle-deep snow, checking trunks and lower branches for whitewash. At the base of each tree I looked for owl pellets—regurgitated fur and bones from the small mammals owls eat. Owls also eat birds, and large owls prey on smaller owls.

In three hours I had found a little whitewash, no pellets, and no owls. Crisscrossing the park's woods, I hadn't flushed a thing. Under one spruce I found the remains of a bird, possibly a screech owl that had fallen victim to a larger predator, and near a big cedar I picked up an immature red-tailed hawk, frozen solid. With no visible wounds, the inexperienced red-tail may have died of starvation, cut off from its rodent prey by deep snow.

After a three-day thaw, I returned to see what the receding snow would reveal. Under the setting sun, 100 Canada geese grazed a large lawn bordered by a row of giant white pines. I had overlooked these pines during my systematic owl check. They stand in the open and do not offer the cover I would want if I were an owl, but in today's gathering gloom they beckoned, looking ominous enough to be a nocturnal bird's retreat.

The geese cleared away as I approached, murmuring their objections. At the fifth pine in from the park road, I struck gold. Only a birder could get a thrill from a clump of fur and bones the size of a fat thumb. A birder I know had recently seen a great horned owl in the park—a pellet this big had to come from that bird. Other pellets surrounded the tree, some broken apart by recent rain.

Looking up, I didn't see a roosting owl, but it was already late enough for a great horned to have embarked on its nightly hunt. I glanced at the geese. They ambled across the grass, here and there pulling up shoots. The Canada goose's large size does not guarantee it immunity from the great horned owl, whose hunting prowess is legendary. With their backs to the pine, the geese made tempting targets.

There was time enough before dark to check a dense stand of spruces, which one winter harbored a saw-whet owl. Below one tree, the ground now clear of snow, I found whitewash, small bones, and a feather. The bones probably came from old pellets—over time, snow and rain wash away the fur and scatter the bones—but the whitewash and the feather were fresh.

The next morning at the white pine, I pointed out the large owl pellet to another birder. He nodded solemnly. We noticed more owl clues under a different pine, and when we reached the bone-littered spruce, our internal owl Geiger counters were at full crackle. Any trees we checked, however, were deserted.

Noisy crows soon brought us to a halt. We listened carefully, because there are no better owl finders than crows. At night large owls prey on crows; crows seek revenge by mobbing owls that trespass into day.

Crows that catch a great horned owl abroad by day send up an alarm capable of summoning hundreds more crows, each intent on making the owl's life miserable. Crows will chase and scold and dive-bomb a great horned owl, their most hated enemy, until it is driven out of the neighborhood or back to its lair. Owls at their roosts, however, are not spared. If crows find a sleeping owl they will return to its bedroom door throughout the day to give it a verbal drubbing.

In the trees ahead of us, the cawing of the crows was not venomous enough for them to have cornered a great horned owl. They were agitated but not infuriated—perhaps 20 were complaining from the treetops about something lower down, which we couldn't see. My guess was that they were responding to a lesser threat: a red-tailed hawk.

We used the crows to triangulate on the target, pausing at the last moment behind a 15-foot "Barred Owl" by Louis Agassiz Fuertes spruce. If the crows hadn't fooled us, we'd find what we were looking for on the other side of this tree.

It wasn't a red-tail that we saw when we came around the spruce. It was an owl but not a great horned. Sitting in a deciduous tree, surrounded by crows, this was a barred owl, a bird neither of us had ever seen in the park. Leaning forward, it stared with deep brown eyes as we voiced our amazement. Then it shifted position and dropped off the tree, flying low and away from us, pursued by the tormenting crows.

At my inland haunts—in forests, along hemlock-lined streams, in the wooded swamp—I expect barred owl encounters, but on the coast this owl is rare, a winter wanderer. In March its forest chant begins echoing through the cavernous night—eight hoots, the last a descending hoooooawww! A large owl, the barred measures close to the length of a great horned but is much lighter and takes smaller prey.

Quintessential creature of the night, the barred owl has a somber visage, mud-brown puffy feathers, a large round head and no apparent neck, blurry streaks, and horizontal barring (which gives the bird its name). The owl's ghoulish appearance, noiseless flight, and a macabre vocal repertoire that includes maniacal laughs—all of this only adds to the bird's character. In the depths of the moondrenched swamp, the barred owl is where it is meant to be.

When this barred owl flew off, we let it go. The crows were causing the bird enough anxiety, and we'd had a long look. We had studied the owl for a good five seconds.

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A message from Robert Winkler

Jeff Brush/Connecticut Post (used with permission)

If you enjoyed this essay, I know you'll enjoy my critically acclaimed book, Going Wild: Adventures with Birds in the Suburban Wilderness (National Geographic), which expands on many of the short pieces I've posted here. Why do I write about birds? Because they represent the wild in all its glory. They're numerous, diverse, intelligent, talkative, and beautiful; their power of flight never ceases to amaze; and they're the most conspicuous class of wild animal—even in the suburb, they're just about everywhere. Whether you're a beginning or advanced birder, a fan of nature writing, a curious suburbanite, or a reader in search of that rare bird known as a good book, Going Wild could very well change how you view your world. So get your copy now, or buy one for your favorite birder or nature lover. Best deal on the Web: brand new, perfect copies $5 each (69% off) at National Geographic Books.

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