[bristol-birds] owls, eagle and good birders

  • From: Wallace Coffey <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: 1-A Bristol-Birds <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 18:27:21 -0400

Hi birders:

The Eastern Screech-owls are beginning their breeding
season in the region and the Great Horned Owls have
been incubating eggs for one or two weeks.

Bert Hale and I walked fields and wetlands along the
South Fork of the Holston River (TN) today, checking 
Wood Duck boxes for screech-owls setting up spring
housekeeping.

Bert has a pair of red screech-owls, each roosting in
separate owl boxes in his backyard near Bluff City.
We're just nine days from Valentines Day :-)

They are drawing very near to a March egg laying 
date at his house.  He's had screech-owls nesting
in his boxes for more than 30 years.

Owls are not knew to Bert & Loraine.  They've had
several Great Horned Owl nests in the woods
across the road from their home.  They've walked
miles in those woods to find the nest, year after
year.  Their son climbed to them and the young were
banded -- sometimes being recovered dead in
Virginia as much as 11 and 12 years later.

The last full moon, just days ago, I enjoyed the long
serenade of a Great Horned Owl hooting in my
backyard, here in the middle of Bristol.  They've
been here for years.  One night, both the male and
female sat on my roof and hooted and one even
walked along the gutter on the roof of my front
porch while I sat in a rocking chair.  One year,
Ken Hale and I found a nest in a tall white pine
just yards behind my house.  He climbed to the
nest and photographed the two, nearly-round,
white eggs.

Today, Bert and I came up on Reece Jamerson
at the Weir Dam below South Holston Dam.  
Waterfowl is in slim pickings as we had found
along the river and Reece had found at the
weir.  We birded on to Musick's Campgrounds
but it was nearly void of anything -- 20+ 
Ring-billed Gulls at the best.

Still no screech-owls seen in the two boxes
that Larry McDaniel put up at Musick's six
years ago or so.  They've nested there and
Richard Lewis has banded young from the
nest.  Rick Knight, Jeff Larsen, Andy Jones
and myself caught and banded an adult
screech-owl from one of those boxes last
January.

There's an owl coming to your backyard.
I bet!

Wallace Coffey
Bristol







  


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