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.