Wednesday, November 17, 2010

New Perches



Rusty and Iris have been here nearly a month. They haven't gotten themselves all settled yet, as owls are slow to adapt to change. Iris took up the habit of flying around and hanging on the coated chain link fencing, and Rusty would occasionally follow suit. I thought they might settle in and get over it, but they didn't, so it was time to figure out a solution.

So the question was...how do you get inside an owl's head to figure out what it's thinking? Kind of a difficult thing to try to do, but since I've lived with a Great Horned Owl for 12 years, I have a bit of an idea. They were obviously stressed and not settled yet, and the chain link provided an easy opportunity to vent that frustration.

There were two main spots the owls hung on the wire: the east end of the cage above the bath pan, and the west end of the cage near the nest. They always hung on the highest part of the wire. Two possibilities came to mind:

1. Cover the upper four feet of the outside of the cages where there was chain link with a double layer of shade cloth so they couldn't see out. They still could hang on the chain link and it would seriously cut down on their view, so this wasn't my favorite choice

2. Put perches across the places they hung on the wire most so they physically COULDN'T hang on the wire in those places. This is the route we chose.

I called up Roger Meyer, the man who designed and built the cages. He came over, I showed him what I wanted, he took some measurements, he went home and found some branches that would do the trick. He pre-drilled them and put screws in so they could be hung in a jiffy.

Roger came over this morning to hang the perches. First we opened the door between the two cages and kind of shooed Rusty and Iris into the other cage so they wouldn't be so stressed with all the commotion in the cage. It took a bit of doing, but Iris went first and with much coaxing Rusty finally followed...after the guys started working!

First Hein and Roger set up ladders on the west side of the cage and put up a perch just to the left of the nest. The perch crossed right through the middle of the 4' tall by 2' wide wood frame segments, effectively blocking a Great Horned Owl from being able to hang on the wire there. But the perch was close to the wire so the owls couldn't hit it hard and couldn't jump at the wire from the perch.

Next they did the perch near the bath pan. Same deal...across the middle of the 4'x2' sections, 10 feet off the ground. Didn't take long at all.

In the meantime I cleaned up pellets, washed out the bathpan, and refilled it after the guys had their equipment out. Then I shooed Rusty and Iris back into their breeding cage. Again Iris went without much trouble, but Rusty was slow to go. Then I shut the door between the cages.

They were understandably nervous about all the morning's commotion. They flew around but guess what? They mostly just landed on the new perches! Awesome!!

We realized, however, that although the perch above the bath pan can be seen on camera, the perch by the nest is too high to be seen on camera. So guess where they spent the day? On the perch where we couldn't see them.

The infrared illuminator gives enough glare that you can't really see the perch above the bath pan at night, so we have to do some thinking there. And I think I'll mess with the other camera angle, but again we'll be facing glare from the infrared illumator. So perhaps we'll move the illuminator. More to think about!

27 comments:

  1. Are Iris and rusty actually mates, or are you just hoping? I thought owls would choose their own mate, but I suppose they don't have a choice, except to reject each other.

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  2. Thank you Owl People who are helping the species!!

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  3. I live in the high desert East of San Diego, CA. We have a pair that hang out on the Power poles going through our area at night. Love it! I would like to make a nesting area for them. Is it really a platform that you put up? Where can I find clear info to put this in their habitat? They also hang out in one of our Eucalyptus tree's...but too close to our small dog play area and I don't want them to be disturbed during the day with the playing and barking.

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  4. YTQ- Rusty and Iris did pick each other in a way. They were at a rehab facility together with other owls, and they chose to hang out with each other. So we're hoping.....

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  5. Great Horned Owls aren't easy to attract with an artificial nest. That being said they've used everything from terraces to big flower pots to used tires up in trees for nests. I followed plans for a GHO nest from Woodworking for Wildlife by Carrol Henderson. I didn't get owls...but then again I put it in my yard. You can check it out at http://alicetheowl.blogspot.com/2005/10/artificial-nest-for-neighbor-owls.html.

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  6. thank you, Karla, for the answer. I hope it works too, for them to mate. It is such a wonderful thing you are doing, and it would certainly make it worthwhile for you personally, to have owlets! regards
    Diana

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  7. Why are the camera's off?. and no info at all on why?.

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  8. Sorry...my tech guy is on vacation. Worst case scenario we'll be back online Dec. 11. Best case scenario within a few days.

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  9. I POSTED LAST 2 COMMENT'S AND DID'NT SEE HOW TO LEAVE A NAME, DO NOT HAVE ANY SHOWN TO PICK FROM, DON'T KNOW THE ONE WITH (OOOP"S) cap's was on.name-url as have never seen that. my post is to see if there's any way to post on site for owl's and explain so other's know why the cam's are off, took me many day's to figure out how to find a way to contact you, did'nt know if any would. Thank you for reply.

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  10. I think the cam should be up and running tonight, if all goes well... Thanks for you patience. I'll give more details later...

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  11. Thank You Karla, Long day's waiting for word and not knowing if something was wrong. i would would watch the tech guy in case this happen's again. I have 4 out side cam's and am pretty good at fixing them when something goes wrong. miss the owl's.

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  12. That's actually Alice's egg from 2010...it's a photo on the computer desktop.

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  13. Anything yet on cam's. hope there is'nt an injured owl.. saw them last time on, hitting the side's really hard.. any info please.

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  14. The owls are fine and dandy. Snowstorm though!! More details in a couple of days... Sorry for the vagueness, but I'll explain later.

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  15. I was wondering if there was a clock next to the live video feed so that we would know what time to put on our comments?

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  16. Good question, Nina. There is actually a date/time stamp on the top of the video feed, but unfortunately it's too small to be legible. Not sure how else to do this, but I'd be happy to do it if there's a way! I'm in the central time zone, but if you just post what time zone you're in, I can figure things out from there.

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  17. Hello--

    Just some observations from this morning. Rusty (I *think* it was Rusty--white bib) was in the nest and repeating the same call from around 3:55 AM PST to a little after 4:00 AM (kind of a "hoo hoohoohoohoohoo Hoooo hooo"). Also, at around 4:56, there was some very emphatic sounding whistling (pretty sure it was from this cam and not the other owl cams I was watching at the time).

    Hope this is useful, or at least not annoying...

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  18. Oh...the previous post was made the morning of 15 December 2010--since the blog only does timestamps and not date stamps....

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  19. AWESOME OBSERVATION!!! This is the first time I've heard Rusty hoot!! I captured the video and posted in a YouTube. First you hear Alice hoot in the house, then Iris does a few emphatic hoots and staccato hoots, then Rusty starts up hooting...although it's a bit distorted since he's so close to the mike. COOOOOOLLLLL!!!

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  20. Hello again--

    Starting at around 7:31 PM PST on 16 December, Rusty started hooting again--same pattern as yesterday morning, only this time he was facing towards the near edge of the nest (from the camera perspective). His posture was interesting--head lowered, ear tufts raised, throat puffed out. Sounded like it was in response to someone hooting off-camera (not sure who that other owl was). He kept this up for about 2-3 minutes, then went back to just sitting and occasionally looking around (like he's doing now).

    Quite a character, that Rusty....

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  21. I was wondering if the cam is going to show the whole area like before? ,was great to watch them flying and getting food. hard to watch just a little corner all the time. I have only been checking off n on, as, i would like to see more and can't observe what is going on.

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  22. Thanks for posting about the hooting! It's exciting to hear them both hooting now. Alice hooted once in the house and it prompted Rusty and Iris both to hoot. I'll try to show the whole cage view more often...harder to see the owls, but you can at least see both of them (usually.)

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  23. Hello again again--

    Some more observations from this morning (17 December 2010). At around 4:15 AM PST, there was off-camera hooting - some very emphatic four-syllable hoots (Hoo Hoo HOO Hoo--is that Iris?) alternating with the hoot Rusty has made previously (Hoo hoohoohoohoo HOOOO Hooo), then going to just Rusty after about 4 minutes.
    Much fainter hoots were heard around 4:23-4:30 - sounded like Rusty, followed by sounds of wings rustling and talons scratching; flying owl visible at far right of frame (flying laps?). Rusty was back in nest sometime before 4:40; with Iris flying back and forth for a while (so much for owl flight being silent...). Neither one of them seems to be saying much from then on...

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  24. Thanks for the excellent observations! Yes that was Rusty hooting with Iris doing a 4-note squawk in the background. Very interesting stuff to record!!! Thanks for your help with observations.

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  25. How do I do this...I have never had a problem posting in the past. Now all of a sudden it is not happy with my URL????

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  26. My "Chat" and "nic-name' is Sparrow. I have posted here before; now there seems to be a problem. WHY? My name is BONNY. I live in Indiana. I love the Owls (and almost all animals, unless they are working on destroying my home. As a raccoon and squirrel

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