I'm as thrilled as a new pappy to announce that the owl box I built and erected last June, for the first time today was occupied by a red morph probably female EASTERN SCREECH-OWL! Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. She (I'm being optimistic there are more in the box) sunned herself all morning with that dreamy screechie look of smug satisfaction: ear tufts up, eyes closed (almost), bill hidden by soft feathers. As small as the entrance hole is, the owl is still clearly small enough to not be cramped. The impression is that she fills the hole due to the fluffiness but if you watch a bit you realize there is still clearance on either side.
I followed Kaufmann's plans but made a couple modifications. My mods were to hinge the clean-out front a couple inches below the hole, latch at the bottom; made more sense to me to be able to clean it more easily this Fall, than to hinge at bottom and have all the grunge land in my face when I opened it. Also, I shaped the hole into a small arch thinking the flat bottom would make a more comfortable perch. Finally, I bought (expensive!) aluminum flashing and completely roofed the top and top sides: I am pretty sure no squirrel can get a purchase on this. The box hangs about 15' up on a young cherry, on chains passed through short lengths of garden hose, so I can let them out a bit each year to avoid harming the tree, and faces East. I might rotate it when I clean it because while I can see the box from the house, I can't see the hole in that orientation. But we have several vantage points from a trail that circles that tree at about 30' so hoping we don't disturb Mom. She did turn to face us at one point, though with eyes mostly closed. We backed off slowly after I got some photos. The other thing that occurred to me is that the previous screechie visitor we had which I photo'd in daylight ( june 2011) was a grey morph. He (or she) was the direct inspiration to get that box built. We have heard the monotone trilling note many nights in the past two months, so I'm happy we have an apparent resident. Hoping for lots of little screechies! ChrisP ______________________ Chris Pelkie Research Analyst Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road Ithaca, NY 14850 -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
