Prowling for Owls

This post is based on one that originally ran on March 22, 2017, on the blog of New Jersey Audubon's Scherman Hoffman sanctuary. The NJA blog was significantly overhauled since then and the archives were deleted. However, I was able to keep a copy so this can again see the light of day.

In mid-March 2017, MH and I went on an "owl prowl" that took place at a Somerset County park. I have always been fascinated by owls because they are nocturnal and thus difficult to see or hear if you are a person who, like me, is more of sunshine lover.

But I have had my contact with owls. During the time I would have to rise long before sunrise to work an early shift I would hear great-horned owls, screech owls and the occasional barn and barred. Driving on a causeway in a marsh at dusk a short-earred owl flew over the car. A long-earred owl was reported at Central Park and I traveled a long way to find it, once a sympathetic birder told me which tree and another, sitting on a bench, pointed it out. 

Great Horned Owl (Photo by Joe Pescatore)

And then there was the snowy owl that came down to a NY pier one winter and just sat there, occasionally flying down to grab a ruddy duck (or so I was told; I didn't see it happen although we did travel to see the owl. We've seen other snowys during winter irruptions since then).

So I've seen almost all ones expected in NJ except for the smallest one, the saw-whet. But soon, I hope.

Here is some of what I wrote about the owl prowl:

Why are we so fascinated by owls?

Is it because some of them are very small and, with their round heads and big yellow eyes, look cute and cuddly?

Is it because we remember the Disney cartoon "The Sword in the Stone" where Merlin turns himself into a "wise, old owl" -- a Great Horned Owl -- to instruct the young, soon to be king Arthur?

Or perhaps we think of Hedwig, the Snowy Owl Harry Potter receives when he arrives at Hogwarts.

Or, maybe we are fascinated that these are birds of the darkness, which attracts and frightens us. After all, our human eyes lack the many additional rods owls have to see in the darkness and the asymmetrical hearing they use to hunt (depending on the species) mice, insects, rabbits, even other owls. (Great horned owls hunt skunks because the owls have no sense of smell.) There are many superstitions about owls, according to "Owls: A Wildlife Handbook" by Kim Long. For instance, the hooting of an owl is seen as a sign of impending death in some cultures.

Screech owl. As usual, someone had to point the bird out to us because
we'd never have found this ourselves. (RE Berg-Andersson)

There are 286 different types of owls around the world, from Iceland to the Falklands and across northern Europe and Russia down to Africa, but in the 950 acres that comprise the Somerset County (N.J.) Park Commission's Lord Sterling Park, which is adjacent to the federally run and much larger Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, the most commonly seen owls are great horned (GHO), barred and eastern screech owls.

And that was why 30 or so owl enthusiasts were standing in the dark, shivering on a subfreezing night, under a nearly full moon, listening to park naturalist Ben Barkley or Mike Anderson, director of the New Jersey Audubon Scherman Hoffman sanctuary (also located in Somerset County), try to fool a screech owl into calling to us by imitating it. We were a split squad and I was part of the 15 or so in Barkley's contingent.

"Why are we fascinated by owls? The darkness, and the cuteness factor," Anderson said before we headed out. An owl is cute, "unless you mess with it."

As he prepares us inside for the Owl Prowl outside, Barkley's enthusiasm is infectious. When he was a high school junior, in 2010, he and Mike Anderson identified raptors during the Scherman Hoffman hawk watch on the platform of its education center. Less than a year on this job now, he can watch and listen for birds as he walks to work. "I am very lucky," he told me. (Yes.)

Before leading us into the dark he tested our owl knowledge. Who knew the 25-inch GHO is only 6 pounds? He showed amazing video of a Serbian long-earred owl (LEO) roost where at dusk 140 birds flew out of one tree. He amused many in the crowd by showing how "cute" some owls -- such as the 11-inch burrowing owl and the 6-inch elf owl -- can be.

Don't be fooled, however. Just like the turkey vulture and the redtailed hawk that hunt by day, owls are raptors. They have sharp claws for killing and sharp bills. They will eat prey whole and then regurgitate the inedible parts in a hard pellet. Some owls hunt by day -- snowy, northern hawk and great grey owls are birds of the northern tundra where they can hunt in many hours of daylight in summer. In winter, if food supplies are scarce, they will frequently fly south in what is known as an irruption. Many "night owls" hunt at dawn and at dusk, such as the barn and short-earred owls.

But they are, in the main, creatures of the darkness, emitting eerie sounds ranging from the "Hoo-Hoo-Hoo" of the GHO to the weird barks and "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?" call of the barred to the hissing of the ghostly white barn to the whinnying and one-note tremolo of the 8-inch-long eastern screech.

Snowy owl we almost missed at Island Beach State Park
during a winter 'irruption.' (RE Berg-Andersson)

It was the screech Ben was trying to fool into calling, a process known as "pishing." But no owl was responding. Either it could see we were a group of humans (very possible with all those rods in its eyes) or the cold wind kept it at bay.

The West Observation Blind loomed over us. A pair of canada geese voiced their displeasure at our presence from nearby Branta Pond. Trails I've walked many times now looked ominous. Owls are very good at hiding themselves when they roost by day. They are even better hiding in plain sight at night.


As it turned out, the only owl MH and I saw that night was at dusk when a GHO (or perhaps a barred) hunting, likely to feed its owlets, flew over the road ahead of us when we were almost at Lord Sterling. But for me it was enough.

Waiting for Timberdoodles

This post is based on one that originally ran on April 19, 2017, on the blog of New Jersey Audubon's Scherman Hoffman sanctuary. The NJA blog was significantly overhauled since then and the archives were deleted. However, I was able to keep a copy so this can again see the light of day. 

“The woodcock is a living refutation of the theory that the utility of a game bird is to serve as a target, or to pose gracefully on a slice of toast. No one would rather hunt woodcock in October than I, but since learning of the sky dance I find myself calling one or two birds enough. I must be sure that, come April, there be no dearth of dancers in the sunset sky.”  -- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac 1949

American woodcock (free photo courtesy National Park Service)

I expect certain things in late March. I expect daffodils and other early bloomers to start poking up through the leaf litter, which means I have to remove said litter for the daffodils to grow and be seen better. I expect to see and hear more robins as the snow melts and the exposed, softened ground allows them to pick off worms and other things trying to get away from the rising water table. I expect to start seeing the first reports of early migrants including phoebes and pine warblers.

And then there is the American woodcock. This time of year is when I expect to start seeing reports of this odd-looking ground bird doing its mating peent and acrobatic flights into the dawn or dusk as it tries to interest a mate. Those reports just started this week. The woodcock's mating season here in NJ should last into April.

Within walking distance of my house, on the former Greystone property, there are brushy areas where a male woodcock would display well. I just need to get out of the house into the cold to watch for them. However, about two years ago MH and I learned of a place where many woodcocks were being reported and a woodcock walk was to be held. MH and I attended and my report of our visit, for another blog, is below:

The sun goes down as a warm early-April Sunday that begins to chill thanks to a clear sky. We're on a damp path near a small pond - Esox Pond, to be exact, in Somerset County's 950-acre Lord Sterling Park - looking at a brushy field and waiting for an American Woodcock to start its mating call.

From late February to about May, these plump, Robin-sized, land-based shorebirds, whose brown, mottled covering helps them blend well in cover, do something very unusual as they attempt to perpetuate the species.

Pine warbler - not yet, but soon (RE Berg-Andersson)

To eat they probe for earthworms with their long bills in brushy fields, near wetlands, which is why Lord Sterling naturalist Ben Barkley and Mike Anderson, director of New Jersey Audubon's Scherman Hoffman sanctuary, have led a dozen of us to this spot, where Barkley knows some males like to congregate. According to Barkley, there could be as many as 30 Woodcocks at Lord Sterling, while Scherman Hoffman has about a dozen, including two males heard within the last few days from the fields by the Vernal Pool, according to Anderson.

As the sun goes down and we wait, we see Great Blue Herons, a Cooper's Hawk and Wood Ducks, among others, fly over as they look for a good place for the night's roost.

Robins are calling. As the darkness spreads, male frogs - Wood Frogs and Spring Peepers, at this time of year - begin a loud, continuous chorus as they try to attract mates.

In the middle of this cacophony, at around 7:30 p.m., we hear the first nasal peent of the Woodcock. We have been led here earlier to get the birds used to our presence, ahead of the hoped-for show.

One peent leads to another and then six more before there is silence. No one makes a sound as the sky gets darker. Then the peents begin again, this time from another direction. And then another. Soon there  are four or five male Woodcocks calling.

But that is not what we are there to see.

When I have seen an American Woodcock, it is usually when it is almost literally underfoot. Because they blend into the leaf litter so well, you frequently don't see one until it flies up at your approach - as one did a few years ago near the entrance to the Scherman Hoffman yellow trail along the Passaic River- or scurries away, its crunching of the underbrush the only way I could find it.  I've never been able to photograph Scolopax minor, even on the very early morning a few springs ago when a Woodcock was peenting from the roof of my house!

At dawn or dusk during breeding season, the Woodcock shows why it got its other name of Timberdoodle.

Imagine a 9-inch elephant (as seen sitting from the back) sprouting small wings, taking a giant leap into the sky - 200 to 300 feet - and then coming back to earth in a zig-zag pattern while its three outer primary feathers make a twittering sound as it lands on or near its jumping-off point.

"There it goes," said Anderson. While I didn't hear the sound of the wings I did see the bird - once I realized it was not a particularly large bat flying where the little bit of remaining light allowed me to see it.

Lord Sterling Park at dusk, just before the Timberdoodle show.
(RE Berg-Andersson)

As with the calling, once one started flying, so did other males. One female flew in low to investigate. Once she and a male mate, she will build a nest on the ground and lay three to five eggs. She will sit on the nest for three weeks. The hatched young will leave the nest after two weeks.

According to Barkley, Woodcocks are considered a "resident" species in New Jersey, although individuals do migrate.

Woodcock is not an endangered bird but its life is not easy. According to the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife, the Woodcock can be hunted during migratory duck season in Autumn.  The state lumps Woodcock in with Rails, Snipes, Coots and Moorhens in its rules of what licensing is required.

According to Mike Anderson, overhunting is just one reason for the decline in the Woodcock population. Another is disappearing habitat. There are fewer brushy fields, and those that were around 40 years ago are becoming wooded areas that, in turn, are cut down for housing developments.

Places like Scherman Hoffman, Lord Sterling and the nearby federal Great Swamp, as well as other parts of the National Wildlife Refuge system, are managed to help the Woodcock population, Anderson said.

Meanwhile, in the darkness there are male Woodcocks flying around everywhere. One takes off in front of us and I follow it with binoculars as it rockets into the dim light and disappears, only to suddenly swoop down and buzz us about 10 feet away as it lands. Barkley puts on his flashlight and there he sits, the star of the show, the Timberdoodle, still as a statue, waiting for the light to be turned off.

But we don't want it off. We want to look at the mottling of its back and take a picture of this strange creature few of us see. Several of us grab our phones but we're too late when it silently takes off for the brush.

"Can't do much better than that," Barkley said. And so we leave to a mounting chorus of Woodcock, Wood Frog and Peepers calling in the cold darkness of a not-so-silent night.