Rusty Squawks and Emphatic Hoots

What the heck?!?  Who knew Great Horned Owls made sounds like this??

The squawks and emphatic hoots Rusty is doing here are a very uncommon vocalization given by Great Horned Owls.  I think Victor is the only other GHO I've heard make this vocalization, but I haven't heard him do it for a few years.

I've seen Rusty do it a few times, but generally there's absolutely NOTHING going on and Iris is snoozing when he does it.  Victor did it the night Rusty and Iris moved in.  Rusty seemed to have given up on hunting when he did it here. So what does it mean?  No idea.  I still need more and more observations to help figure it out.

Thanks to the people who reported it, otherwise I would have missed this important vocalization!

The Owlets' First Live Prey

With all the playing the owlets were doing, it was high time they got started on live prey.  Hein and his friend Jeroen finished the rat barrier (to keep the rats IN the flight pen), so all was ready.

This morning we made a trip to get our first live rats from Monster Breeders.  We got about a dozen just weaned rats, and Matt, the owner, sent us home with a cage to keep them in, bedding, and food.  We wanted to start with really small rats to give the owlets the best chance of success, to build their confidence.

The feeding was scheduled for 7 PM, but it was delayed due to Ustream issues.  But I finally got the cams up and running and put two live mice into the flight pen, along with some dead gopher (but less than usual.)

One rat went right behind a stuffed animal under the food tray.  The other ran along the side of the enclosure and then froze.  We had the pan/tilt/zoom cam following the action, but we missed both kills!

For the first one Rusty flew down near the rat.  He walked over near it and when it ran, he grabbed it with a foot.  How dramatic.  LOL.  He kindly gave the rat to an owlet.

The PTZ also missed the next action.  (Easy to do with 5 owls to keep track of!)  The rat was along the side of the pen and one of the owlets flew down near it.  The rat ran a bit, then the owlet did a defense display to the rat.  Ha!  Iris came running to the rescue (literally on foot) and caught the rat.  The owlet did a defense display again to that scary little rat.  Iris clucked and eventually gave it to another owlet.

Rusty was totally in hunting mode then, so I delivered another live mouse.  This one, however, hid and stayed put.  Time will tell who gets the privilege of that rat.

Flight Cam PTZ Installation

Today was a good day.  Hein woke up and after breakfast said "It would be great if Ace called today and could put the ends on the cables at 9 AM."  A few minutes later Mike from Ace Communications called and said he wanted to come out and put the ends on the CAT 5 wires!  Hein said he's put on his pants and be ready by the time he got here.

Ace donated alllll the wiring we've used for the cams in the Great Horned Owl breeding project.  Hein runs the wire, then someone from Ace comes out to put the ends on, since that job requires tools and some skill.

Right after Hein got off the phone with Mike I called Alan Stankevitz, our tech guru who installs all of the technology for the project.  He was willing and able to come over shortly after Mike was done, so we were in business for installing the new pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) cam for the flight pen, and for hooking up the new wire for the cam who's wire got chopped when the PTZ wires were run.

When Alan arrived he went to work doing some soldering to put the correct jack on the microphone.

Then we unpacked what looks like R2D2 here--the PTZ cam.  We took out the packing materials and put in the moisture absorbing strips.

We freaked out the owls by shooing them into the breeding pen and shutting the door to the flight pen.  Alan then put a new end on the extension cord that Hein had strung into the flight pen for the PTZ cam.

Then I went up into the ceiling of the pen after Hein removed a few boards and we bolted the cam into place.

Then it was Alan's turn on the ladder to work his magic with wires and install the box for all of the connections.  I went inside to verify that things worked.  We had video, but no audio.  Then Alan remembered we needed a stereo jack instead of a mono jack for the mike.  Thankfully we had a stereo jack so he just did a little more cutting and soldering and we were in business.  Woo-hoo!

Hein spent the rest of the day finishing up the rat-proofing so we can release live prey into the flight pen.  He removed the ladder to the hatch door and installed a fold up ladder that the rodents can't reach but us humans can.  Then he put metal over the entry door, the last bit of metal needed to keep mice and rats from climbing up and out.

So enjoy the new views of the flight pen, and seeing the owls up close!