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.  

Hacking

I don't think I will be getting any grief from our newest members at Cinnabar Hills.  I am talking about the 5 new barn owls that we will be introducing to the
wild this coming weekend.  With help from our bird expert Lee Pauser, our site was selected to release 5 rescued barn owls.  The barn owls come to us from Ms. Valerie Baldwin who is a part of the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley.  The young barn owls were discovered in bails of hay and were trained to capture live prey in a flight cage at Ms. Baldwin's home.  Now that they are ready for the wild, 4 of the owls were placed in the barn owl boxes that we have. This process of introduction is called hacking.  The owls will stay inside the boxes for a couple of days being fed mice and gophers.  When deemed ready, we will open the doors and they will be free to come and go.  The owls have been banded by Mr. Steve Simmons (you can see the video here) so it is possible to track their whereabouts.

Has the Superintendent Gone KooKoo?

If you have seen the all of the bird houses on the course, you may certainly think I have gone Koo Koo. I have mentioned the bluebird houses already and now we have two larger boxes on the course. The largest box is for the American Barn Owl and the other is for North America's smallest hawk, the Kestrel. We have placed 8 American Barn Owl boxes on the course and another 6 kestrel boxes on the course.

Foreground: Kestrel box

Background: Barn Owl box

Close up of Barn Owl box

Both the Barn Owls and Kestrels are to help with our small rodent population. Particularly the moles, voles, gophers, and field mice. Last year was a year like no other for those particular rodents and I am doing everything I can to help control them this year. This 'organic' method of control has gained popularity in the wine country to help protect the vineyards from these harmful critters. For them it makes money on both sides of the budget; it is a cheap effective way of controlling pests and helps make them organic which attracts a lot of revenue.

We should start to see the Barn Owls to move into their boxes in the next month. The question has been asked by many, "how will they know to come?". One member suggested a mass email and after a good laugh I explained to them what Lee Pauser had told me. The birds are always looking for a cavity. That cavity could be in an old tree or it could be something artificial like our boxes. The cavity provides protection from other predators. Will there be 100% occupancy; I doubt it, but over time maybe we will gain a reputation of being a bird retreat.