Owl Tips 1: Owls Poop!

Since I need to get in the habit of writing more on this blog thing, I thought I'd start a series on finding Owls.  Roosting Owls in particular.  I'm sort of an Owl freak and usually have great luck finding roosting Saw-Whet and Long-Eared Owls in early spring migration, when they pop up most along the southern Lake Ontario shore headed north.  Think about the geography of the Great Lakes area to figure out why this is the best time:  when flying south, the birds will funnel through the narrow spots between or at the edges of the Great Lakes to avoid flying over the lakes, but when they fly north they fly up, hit the lakes, then stop and rest for a while before going around.   Since Long-Eared and Northern Saw-Whet Owls are the two main owls that actually migrate through my home town, I'll start with them since I'm most familiar with their habits.

Tip One:  Owls Poop!  Well, they actually vent a rather nasty substance referred to as whitewash.  This is a very good name!  Whitewash is often my first indication that I've found an Owl roost. Don't confuse whitewash with tree sap:  sap is generally a bit grayish in color, and because it drips so slowly it wraps around the branches instead of dropping straight down.  Whitewash is bright white, only eventually fading to off-white, and less viscous so it'll drip from one branch to the next in a sort of cascade.  Look for this substance on conifer branches especially - and if you spot it, look a bit higher to see if an owl is responsible.  Long-Eared Owls are a bit more fidgety and tend to flush from their roosts a bit more, so you may have only found a spot where an Owl has been...but if it's a good spot, you may want to check later to see if the Owl or another with similar roosting sense has returned.  Saw-Whets frequently stay nailed to their roosts throughout the day and even though they're tiny, they can put out some big amounts of whitewash.  One owl I saw last year kept coming back to the same roost site for days, and the base of that tree was just covered in white!  A few pellets, little gray lumps of coughed-up food remnants, also accumulated beneath this same tree.  Pellets are harder to spot than whitewash, at least for me, but if you find both  in the same area you know you've found a tree that at least one owl has liked a bit.  Keep an eye on that tree, you never know what you'll find!

Somerset Snowy

After a short walk in the Owl Woods (Chickadees only, but I love Chickadees so that's OK) I drove out to Somerset yesterday to get a look at the Snowy Owl at Sawyer Cemetery.  I checked out the fields along the way, turning up small flocks of Snow Buntings and Horned Larks on Foss and Marshall Roads.  No luck at my favorite Northern Shrike spot near Yates Town Park, though.  The Snow Buntings on Foss were fun to watch, picking at the bushes in the yard of the big farm house near the Amish school - they were contorting themselves into all kinds of positions!  I saw at least one Lapland Longspur on Marshall, but overall the flocks were quite small and largely lark-y.

When I got to the cemetery, I was dismayed to see a car in the ditch, watched over by a police car, right where I wanted to park.  I hope it wasn't a birder gone astray!  That section of the road was covered with blown snow and very slippery.  After a few passes, I saw another car turn around and park across the road from the cemetery on the north side of the road, so I pulled in behind and started to scan.  An interesting lump in the snow seemed to merit a scope view, so I hopped out and checked it out...yep, there was the Snowy Owl!  The car in front of me held Joe Stein and family, who also enjoyed some nice looks at this distant bird through my scope.  The Owl was sitting on the west side of the field, swiveling its head and occasionally preening.  It was nice to finally see a Snowy this year!

I stopped at Golden Hill State Park on my way home.  There was actually a little bit of open water there, unlike the ice-choked lake spots to the east.  All I saw was Goldeneye, Red-Breasted Mergansers, and Long-Tailed Ducks, however.  I hope we have a warming trend before it's time to do the Waterfowl count, since I'd like to report some decent numbers this time around!

Not a very birdy day, but the Snowy Owl and lovely weather made it a winner. :)