LONG-EARED OWLS IN WILLISTON

by Carl Runge

In the spring of 2009 the residents of the Golf Links neighborhood in Williston witnessed a most unusual event, the successful rearing of a family of Long-eared Owls.  On June 4, Corey Forrest of Tamarack Drive heard a strange sound in his yard.  A diligent search revealed five squeaking owlets at the edge of an old squirrel’s nest in a pine tree behind his house and a silent adult in a maple tree nearby.  When Corey’s wife Shelly noticed that the adult had prominent ear tufts, she went to the internet to identify her new neighbors.  While the adult had some resemblance to a Great Horned Owl, the babies’ squeaks were more compatible with Long-eared Owlets.  When Shelly took a closer look at one of the adults, she noted a medium-sized, slender owl with long ear tufts, and a tell-tale bark-like pattern on its breast, very different from the barred pattern of a Great Horned Owl. The babies also had a prominent white streak from forehead to beak, characteristic of Long-eared Owlets. Sure enough. This was a family of Long-eared Owls.

Within a few days of their discovery the fledglings were seen hopping from branch to branch near the nest.  By June 13 the youngsters were all capable of independent flight and could be seen landing on the Forrests’ backyard swing set.  As the weeks went by the five young owls ventured farther afield under the watchful eye of their parents, always in the evening, returning to their pine thicket to rest during the day.  By early July we could hear the young ones during the night hunting in the fields behind the neighborhood.  They became harder to find during the day, the best neighborhood spotter being the Forrests’ young son Evan.  After July 10 we no longer saw the young owls.  They had presumably moved on to better hunting grounds, hopefully at the Catamount Outdoor Family Center just to the east.  While they were in the neighborhood, the Forrests were kind enough to show the owls to many neighbors and birders.

Long-eared Owls are widely distributed across North America but are rarely seen in our area. Data from the Records of Vermont Birds from 1973-83 and the first Vermont Breeding Bird Atlas Project from 1976-81 disclosed only 15 adult Long-eared Owls and only three breeding confirmations, in Sudbury, Waltham and Brandon.  The second Atlas Project from 2003-07 noted only one breeding confirmation in Charlotte, two probable breeding  pairs in Vergennes and Snake Mountain, and three other observations in the Champlain Islands and Northeast Kingdom.

Two Blue Breakfasts

by Alison Wagner

Blue is not a common color when I think of food.  Likewise, this particular day was unusual as I witnessed a scene I might never see again. And although it will always be memorable for me, it may have been just another normal day for a certain predator.   Welcome to Ali’s Bed and Breakfast for the Birds.

The day had just begun as a hint of light filtered through the trees.  It was late November, when snow occasionally blankets the ground and the sun makes an appearance late in the morning.  Climbing the basement stairs, I shut off my I-pod.  So why was I still hearing birds?

I had been listening to my Birdjam, an I-pod downloaded with thousands of bird songs.  I use this to study species.  This strategy works well because it’s too hard for me to identify birds by sight alone.  Birds hide so well and foliated trees in the summer can make it even more challenging.  Add to this, my visual memory isn’t a personal strength and the binoculars I used to use were crummy.

But…I had shut off my I-pod.  Why was I hearing the raucous shrieks of a party of Blue Jays?  I could tell by their tone that they were upset.  Under the birdfeeder, in a few inches of snow, I found the answer:  A Merlin.  She was barely visible, matching the drabness in the faint light of the morning, and at first I did not see her.  She appeared to materialize right before my eyes. But a Merlin is a small falcon, not a magician.  She was brown on her backside, with drab streaks on her belly, and wide bands of brown and gray on her tail.  A dark eye-stripe made it appear she was wearing a mask.  She’s a bird of prey, a surprise visitor at the Bed and Breakfast, moving from her summer residence to warmer climes for the winter.

Or is she is a magician, the way her lightning speed made her appear out of thin air, tricking an innocent creature that let its guard down just long enough…For under the Merlin, pinned to the ground, as if engaged in a wrestling match, was a Blue Jay.  I imagined the jay was at the birdfeeder and the opportunistic hunter dive bombed and struck the jay down in a surprise attack.

Indoor Birding

By Bruce MacPherson

Once in a while the weather in Vermont becomes so forbidding that birding outside is impossible. On these occasions one is forced to pass the time pursuing indoor birding. Curling up with your favorite birding book or the latest issue of Audubon Magazine are possibilities for birding indoors. Thumbing through the big Sibley’s or listening to Birdjam on your i-Pod to hone your birding skills are others. But here is an alternative you may not have thought of. Consider visiting a display of decoys or waterfowl carvings.

Waterfowl decoys represent a uniquely American form of folk art with distinctive regional characteristics. Although the use of decoys to lure ducks, geese, and shorebirds into shooting range dates back hundreds of years to ancient Native American cultures, the “golden age” of decoy manufacturing occurred after the Civil War, when expansion of the railroads opened new, urban markets for commercial hunters and new opportunities for “sports’” to indulge their passion for duck hunting. This era closed just after World War I with the implementation of the North American Migratory Bird Treaty that effectively banned the sale of wild ducks and geese and outlawed the hunting of shorebirds. The rafts of decoys used by commercial hunters became redundant artifacts and disappeared into attics, cellars, and wood stoves.

Seizing this opportunity, Joel Barber, an architect from Connecticut, became the first collector to recognize the artistic merit of hand-carved decoys. In his seminal book, Wild Fowl Decoys, Barber aptly referred to these carvings as “floating sculpture”. Soon Barber and a few other energetic collectors inspired by him were scouring the Atlantic coast, buying decoys and other hunting paraphernalia for pennies from their original owners. Barber and his friends William Mackey and George Ross Starr amassed huge decoy collections, which today would be worth several million dollars. At the same time Barber, Mackey, and Starr collected stories from the original decoy makers and their friends, many of whom were bay men or boat builders, who described a life spent on the water that has long since passed into memory. Mackey summarized his collecting experiences in an influential book, American Bird Decoys. Likewise, George Starr wrote a colorful and beautifully illustrated book, Decoys of the Atlantic Flyway. All three of these books remain available today through on-line booksellers such as Amazon.com.