[TN-Bird] Excerpt from AC Bent

From: K Dean EDWARDS <kde@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Tennessee Birds <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:11:42 -0500 (EST)
Below is an excerpt taken from the account for Great Horned Owl in
A.C. Bent's "Life Histories of N.A. Birds".  This is what I read
that lead me to believe we heard yearling GH Owls returning to their
parents for a handout.  The second paragraph describes almost exactly
what we heard.  Granted, 17 January is a good bit later than 23 October,
but... ya never know.  Haven't heard the screeching since that night
but I'm hoping to get out some more this weekend and see what else
I can find out.  I'll post what I find.

I know Wallace gets a lot of praise but it is well deserved.  I think
it is great that we have this forum to exchange ideas and information
about things like this.  I've already learned a lot about a common
species that I didn't know.  From getting the word out about Sage 
Thrashers and McGillivray's Warblers to the epic adventures of Old
Coot to trying to figure out what's going on with these whacky owls
in our backyard (or bragging about how many birds I've seen there :-)
anything goes and I LOVE IT!!!

Dean Edwards
Knoxville, TN



Excerpt from
Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey, Vol. 2
by Arthur Cleveland Bent

...

Clarence F. Stone, of Branchport, N. Y., tells me an interesting story of 
a pair of young owls that followed their parents about all summer, and 
even up to the latter part of October, in the vicinity of his camp. He 
writes: "Almost every night during the month of June 1932, just as the 
shades of night darkened the woods, two large owls, uttering harsh 
screams, the like of which I had never heard, came down through the gloomy 
hemlocks in the bottom of the gully and took perch on lumps of shale, or 
on the dead fallen trees still clinging to the perpendicular clifFs. In 
July they changed their route by coming around Chasm Lodge from the upper 
backwoods of pine and hemlock, where they took perch in the lofty pines 
and gave vent to rather terrifying and horrid screams. These two owl 
screamers traveled together, apparently hunting, and alternately uttering 
the loud, raucous screams that were evidently prompted by the urge of 
gnawing hunger. Almost nightly during this month, a pair of great horned 
owls came to hunt and hoot around the lodge. Invariably, a little time 
later, the two screamers gradually approached the hunting area of the 
hooting owls. Both the adult pair of hooters and the two screamers had two 
nightly sessions, first from just at dusk to near midnight and again just 
before the dawn of day."

Again, on October 20, he writes: "As it was very rainy all the fore part 
of last night, the hideous screamers did not come to entertain me as 
usual, but at 4:30 o'clock this morning, I was awakened by the booming 
hoots of adult great horned owls, and a few minutes later I was fully 
aroused when the two ferocious screamers suddenly began their harsh yowls 
in the big pines over the roof of the lodge." On the evening of October 23 
the four owls "went on a rampage" again, and he saw the young owls clearly 
enough to identify them as great horned owls, with well-developed ear 
tufts, and to see them giving their harsh screams "four to six times a 
minute." And he says, in conclusion: "In this instance, at least, it seems 
that the young owls of the year were yet, so late in October, partly 
dependent on, or at least following, the parent great horned owls about on 
their hunting excursions. At no time did I hear the adult owls utter 
anything but the hooting owl language. Only the young owls of the year 
shrieked the loud, harsh, blood-curdling screams. And I am inclined to 
believe that these harsh cries were simply hunger screams, characteristic 
of yearling great horned owls."

....
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[TN-Bird] Excerpt from AC Bent

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