Speaking of urban owls, this Barred Owl spent about 25 minutes peering into my backyard koi pond at 5:30PM last Sunday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFlSkh3Pd20 We regularly get Great Horned, Barred and Eastern Screech owls as "yard" birds. Cheers, Bill Hull Cincinnati, OH, USA http://www.mangoverde.com/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/mangoverde/ http://www.youtube.com/user/mangoverde2 On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 10:29 AM, Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Dave as usual showed excellent birding instincts here, and the rest of > us ought to emulate. Both crows and raptors, including owls, have been > increasing in numbers in urban settings in recent decades. Winters are > warmer in the city. Shooting is forbidden. Food is easier to > find--everything from dumpster treasures, to feeders crowded with > smaller birds, to little Fluffy abroad at night. Tree stands are > maturing, and big old trees with cavities are more often allowed to > stand these days. > Crows are a lot better at finding owls than we are, and they do a > noisy > job of it, worth paying attention to. Here in Clintonville it's not too > hard to find screech-owls, great horned owls, and barred owls just by > listening at night this time of year, especially if you crack a bedroom > window. Long-eareds and saw-whets are much less often detected. There > are small numbers of nesting records of saw-whets in the city; in their > much more likely role as migrants these small owls are fond of thick > cover, tough to flush, and crows don't mind them as much, but we > occasionally come across them in Clintonville. > Long-eareds are even more of a mystery; they nested here when > open-country hunting grounds were available. We have records of snowy > and short-eared owls only from decades ago when we had more fields. Our > eighth species, the barn owl, has many old records here, but none in > recent decades, having suffered as well from habitat loss; in the old > days, it nested in hollow sycamores along the Olentangy with nearby > meadows, but no more. > Anyway, city-dwellers in older tree-dominated neighborhoods might be > surprised how many owls share the habitat with us...especially if we > don't press them too hard. > Bill Whan > Columbus > > p.s. Check out Bernd Heinrich's new book (Harvard Univ Press 2010), "The > Nesting Season: Cuckoos, Cuckolds, and the Invention of Monogamy"! > > > > > > On 2/23/2011 8:00 AM, Dave Horn wrote: >> >> Hello Ohio Birders, >> >> Timing is everything. While taking the trash to the curb this >> morning (7:15am) I was distracted by 50-60 crows mobbing my >> neighbor's spruce tree. After about 5 minutes an owl flew out and >> headed southward. I did not have a decent look at the usual field >> marks but it had the slim, long-winged look of a long-eared rather >> than the chubby barred owl silhouette, and it was too small for a >> great horned. (Barred and great horned both occur in the >> neighborhood.) >> >> I live on Arden Rd. in the first block east of High St. in the >> Clintonville area. The bird flew in the direction of East North >> Broadway on a straight course, with a few crows in pursuit. >> >> I'll keep an eye on my neighbor's tree, and other Clintonville >> birders might be on the lookout. >> >> Happy birding, >> >> Dave Horn Columbus >> >> > > ______________________________________________________________________ > > Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. > Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. > Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at > www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. > > You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: > http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS > Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask] > ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]