I've spent a week and a half visiting my parents who live in Alberta, Canada. I'd given my mother a list of birds that she was supposed to produce for me while I was up there. At the top of the list was a Great Gray Owl. Someone at the Wildbird Store connected us up with a gentleman who has been banding owls for the last 11 years and he was kind enough to let us go along with him to see a Great Gray Owl nest and also a Saw Whet Owl nest. He was going to band the babies while we were there. After meeting him at the specified place on the highway we drove for another hour to an area around Opal, where there is some very good birding territory. We didn't have time to stop to do much birding since we were on the owl quest, but I'll definitely be going back.
After we crawled through some very dense underbrush and brambles for quite a way, we finally came to the Great Grays' nest. Friday there had been three babies in it, but today (Tuesday) it was empty. Not a problem according to the bander. We were instructed to look on every "leaner" tree in the area. A leaner being a fallen over tree that was leaning against another and hadn't fallen completely to the ground. The baby Great Grays can't fly for a week or so after they jump out of the nest and they use these leaners to crawl up into to get off the ground. Within just a few minutes, my brother, Chuck, had located 2 of the babies who had crawled up the same leaner and were about 15 feet off the ground. The bander used a 20 foot stick that he found to carefully lift the babies, one by one, down from their lofty perch. About this time Mama flew in to see what was going on. I expected to be attacked, but apparently these owls are very tame. The babies did not seem to be frightened at all and did not attempt to struggle or try to bite. Mama just perched on a snag about 10 feet over our heads and clacked her beak at us and intermittently issued a soft whoo sound. The babies clacked their beaks too and occasionally hissed. I could not believe that I actually got to hold them. They are just like giant puff balls and softer than you can ever imagine!
They were still fairly covered with down, although their wing feathers were coming along nicely. The bander says that when they are out banding in the winter and it is -35 degrees out, they have to take off their gloves to put the bands on and they place their hands up in the belly feathers of the owl to warm them. He says it's like a heater in there. The little owls (they weren't actually very little) were very tame. The bander said sometimes they get so relaxed that if you put you head down beside theirs they will start preening your hair. He never wears gloves, even when banding the adults. He explained how they capture the adults too, and again, they aren't very afraid of man, plopping right down beside him to catch a mouse that he uses for bait. He says this method of capture can only be used once though, because the owl will remember and not plop down that close a second time.
After we were done banding the first two babies we carefully placed them back up in their "leaner" by using the 20 foot stick again. They will not let go of the stick even if they lose their balance (which one did) and fall upside down. They just cling there upside down until they can right themselves again. The third baby was too high up in his "leaner" and the bander did not have the special belt he uses to shimmy up tree trucks with him so he was going to have to return to band that one. We heard a Connecticut Warbler on the way out of the woods but didn't have time to chase it so I never did see it. It would've been a lifer for me.
Click here for Great Gray Cuteness
Copyright © 1997 by Cheri Pierce and
Richard L. Becker
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