Barn Owl Release

These owls never get old.  Thanks to Lee Pauser and Valerie Baldwin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM69xI5oVGk&feature=youtu.be

Thought I'd Seen it All

I received a call on the course earlier this year from our birder Lee Pauser and he says to me, "Do you want to see something you've never seen before?".  I set myself up to be disappointed on my ride to meet him, but I've go to say; I've never seen that before.  

Bobcat on top of nesting owl box

 

Olive the Barn Owl

During this past summer, Valerie Baldwin with the Silicon Valley Wildlife Center released "Olive" at Cinnabar Hills after being rescued.  She was in pretty bad shape when she got her and it didn't look like she would make it.  She was taken back to the wildlife center to find out that she had guardia.  I just received the pictures below of how she is doing now after treatment.  It's pretty incredible that she survived.

Bird Box Clean Out

This past week, Lee Pauser and I cleaned out all of the large bird boxes on the course.  When I say we, I really mean Lee cleaned them out. It was something like 8 barn owl boxes and 4 American kestrel boxes.  This year in particular seemed especially dirty.  When I say dirty, I mean full of small rodents discarded in the form of pellets by the barn owls.  If you’ve been to Cinnabar this year, you know the small rodent population is abundant.   

While out cleaning the boxes, we were discussing the addition of 2 or 3 barn owl boxes.  Cinnabar is a great location for barn owls and the more the merrier in my eyes.  

Early Season Bird Activity

American kestrel eggs

Our "bird man" Lee Pauser has been out recently and he's noted a lot of bird activity this season.  It's probably more like normal years of bird activity, but the drought has had its impact on the birds too and their activity has been down the last couple of years.  Lee reports that "5 of the 8 barn owl boxes have barn owl activity. Of the 5 active boxes, 3 have hens on eggs, and the other 2 have roosting hens".  Lee also shared a picture of two American kestrel eggs in one of the boxes.  It took a few years to get kestrel activity, but they finally seem to be here.  

Early season bird action

Our birder Lee Pauser was at Cinnabar yesterday doing a preseason check and things were very positive.  For the past few weeks I have noticed a lot of barn owls flying around the course in the pre-dawn hours.  Lee noticed one female in a box and another barn owl flew out of a box as he was approaching.  Lee also had a first for Cinnabar Hills and that was the siting of an American Kestrel on top of a kestrel box.  He has heard them out here many times, but they have never taken up residency here.  Maybe this is the year.  

Why We Love Our Owls

Last week our birder, Lee Pauser, put up a camera to watch the owl box that has 7 owlets inside.  He grabbed some amazing photos of why we started this program two years back.  You'll see the hen bringing in either a gopher, mole or vole on three separate occasions.

Despite the help from the owls, my gopher guy's have caught 1,100 exactly year to date.  We are experiencing the worst rodent season by far.  Maybe it is time to get the gopher tunnel blaster!

Barn Owl Video at Cinnabar Hills

Our resident bird expert, Lee Pauser, has collected another great video (could only work it in IE) of our newest owlets at Cinnabar Hills.  Lee pointed out to me to pay attention to the sound because you can barely see the owlets under the hen, but I noticed something completely different.  I saw about 5 pellets as the camera entered the box and at least three fresh gophers sitting in front of the hen.  That is 8 less gophers I need to be worrying about and I am sure there will be more.  We do have another hen on eggs and those eggs should be hatching in the next week or two.