Long-eared owlets make an appearance
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“The baby Long-eared owlet has fallen out of its nest, can we get a ladder and put it back in?” a follower of my column asked me over the phone. “We thought that it was the only one, but now we can see two other fuzz-balls peering over the edge of the nest.”
The workers at the ranch put it back in, but it disappeared a couple of days later. On Tuesday, I headed to the ranch to study the situation. I arrived there in the coolness of the early morning and my contact person met me at the nest.
We found the two newly-hatched owlets in the nest alone with the mom roosting in a tree about 50 feet from them. My contact had to leave and left me there to explore the situation, so I reviewed what had happened.
On July 17, I received an email from EastIdahoNews.com with a forwarded message: “If Bill is interested in seeing a nesting long-eared owl, have him contact me.”
I did, and a couple of days later I met my contact and got pictures of the female sitting on an old crow nest rather high in an aspen. I had seen several Long-eared owl nests and this one was further from the ground than any I had ever seen.
Long-eared owls are not nest builders. They use old raptor, crow, raven or Black-billed magpie nests, or even steal new ones from these birds. They seem to prefer magpie nests as they are usually six to 12 feet from the ground. Their breeding season is from May through June. They have a strange pheromone where they may lay one fertilized egg a week or two before the rest of their two to eight eggs. That egg will hatch about ten days before the others, and this happened at this nest.
About two weeks after my visit to the nest, my contact called to tell me that there was an owlet in the nest. I told him that I would wait about two weeks to allow it to start roosting on the edge of the nest. His phone call about it falling out of the nest happened about 10 days later.
Before heading up on Tuesday, I researched and I learned about “branchers,” these are the early-hatched owlets that are forced out of the nest as the later ones hatch. They are usually found in the branches of nearby trees, where they are fed and cared for, mostly by the adult male. They are clumsy and will fall off the branches and will use their beaks, developing wings and feet to get back in the safety of the trees.
On Tuesday while studying each tree in the vicinity of the nest, I finally located the “brancher” about 50 feet away from the nest, up near the top of a tree. After searching the grove a third time, I finally located the male hidden behind a serviceberry bush about six feet off the ground.
Male Long-eareds have the habit of pressing their feathers close to their body while perching erect, making themselves blend in with the surrounding tree trunks. They are smaller and lighter in color than the females, who are easier to spot when they are out of the nest.
I was only about a dozen feet from him and as I worked to get a clear picture of him, he snapped his beak and gave me a chattering warning, but he remained where he was. I moved about 100 yards away and watched the five family members for about an hour before leaving them.
I was surprised that all the owlets had survived thus far as three of their top predators — the Great-horned owl, Northern goshawks and Red-tailed hawks — use the same grove of aspens for nesting areas.
These owlets should fledge in the next week and will be hard to locate. Then as fall turns to winter, they may migrate to warmer areas, or they may join other Long-eareds that spend the winter roosting with up to 100 cousins. In years past, Market Lake and Mud Lake have been places for these congregations.
“I hope that we can find another interesting subject for you to join with us next summer,” my contact said as we parted ways. “This has been a rewarding and an enjoyable activity this summer.”
I hope so, too. In the meantime, I will be watching for groups of birds, like the Swainson’s hawks or the Mountain bluebirds, getting ready to move south. Some of the songbirds have already migrated and this is an exciting time of the year – enjoy it, safely. We have lost a lot of young adults in accidents this summer.