[TN-Bird] Cat Catchers and Sublet Nest

March - 2003

Hawks and Owls are nesting and raising young all around town. My pair of 
Great Horned Owls, right here in bustling Bartlett, have evidently gotten 
their young up to a point where they don't have to be brooded at night. More 
often than not around 3 AM, I am awakened by the male's low hooting just feet 
from my head. Here lately the female eventually joins him in the same tree 
and they exchange night views. He stays sometimes and hoots till 5:30, she 
has to go home to the kids.

Although I have not found the nest, the crows have been making it a point to 
raise a ruckus everyday around a large cedar tree and yesterday I finally 
found a well camouflaged Great Horned roosting up against the trunk. It is 
nice to see such a wonderful creature in the midst of the surrounding 
subdivisions. Their stealth hunting has rid my 2 acres and much of the 
neighborhood of cats since their return. Unfortunately the Screech Owl that 
had came back a couple of years ago has left, hopefully of its own choosing 
and not as a take out meal for the Great Ones.

Now subletting nests. Some years back, I found Red-shouldered Hawks nesting 
in a large oak tree in the Mississippi River bottoms. It was quite high above 
the ground and they raised young. The following year the nest went unoccupied 
but the location was good enough for a pair of Bald Eagles to build on it for 
two years before nesting and raising their own young. Since it has to be 
viewed from far away, it was hard to determine if anything used the huge nest 
the following year as the eagles moved out and built a nest that did not 
survived a wind storm and eventually built two other test nests before 
occupying the one where they are nesting at this time. 

The next winter a Great Horned Owl raised young at this location and now this 
year a Red-tailed hawk is tending young. All at the same high rise location 
but, just as some human habitats, for some reason this location has a high 
turn over rate. Such is life in an upwardly mobile society.

Good Birding!!!

Jeff R. Wilson
OL' COOT / TLBA
Bartlett Tenn.


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