Back in the day, I worked extensively with boreal owls. Banded hundreds of owlets over the years. Their relationship with marten was rather one-sided, it appeared. Marten seemed to benefit, as the owls were indeed prey items, and occasionally the marten would use the nest boxes for rearing their own young.

Young owlet that had just fledged.


Adult.



Adult female re-entering nest box.

Owls are sure interesting birds.

I once saw a saw-whet owl while squirrel hunting. I walked right up to it, it was sitting at eye level. I walked all around it, what a neat little bird.

The photo of the female entering the box is very cool.

Love the pics Gulo, very interesting bird. Did you get many recaptures of the owlets coming back to nest in the boxes they were raised in?
I know here the guys who band Saw-wets say they don’t seem to home back to the area they were raised.

I’ll stick with the owl theme. Just a few of my owl pics over the years.

Awesome pics!

As usual, Tray, excellent photos.

I had adult females return and use the same nest boxes in subsequent years, and had young owlets use "nearby" boxes (within a mile of where they were reared). Most interesting, I thought, was seeing polygyny (one male taking care of at least two nesting females in different boxes) and polyandry (two males taking care of a single female and her nestlings).

Jack

Here's one I saw heading off the trail from Pioneer Peak in Palmer, AK

Owls are fascinating, but they sure are dumb.
They're about 99.9% instinct and 0.1% intellect.

Amazing shots, Jack, and Tray.

Love the owl with wings draped over the box....looks like a cape .

Tray, I loved seeing the burrowing owls in Ocala, FLA. They would sit on fence posts as I rode my horse around the area. They were so used to riders they wouldn't fly when we went by them.

Here, I enjoy my wee Pygmys. So cute. Love hearing the big owls in the woods too, day and night.

Here is my add to the owl theme. They do predate on marten trying to cross open areas on the way to other territories. In Trapper's Post , latest issue.

I don't have any owl pix but one winter day in 1974 I was checking traps on foot is some pretty dark woods. I was wearing a stocking cap with a ball on top. All of a sudden an owl (Boreal) hit me from behind and grabbed my hat off my head. He flew up to a branch and then dropped my hat. Sure glad it wasn't a great gray that hit me.


Nice Sharon !!

Those small boreal owls are a cool little bird.

I recall getting a head's up from you when I wear my new marten hat - I didnt think of that . Thank you , Sir Ken, for telling me this, and liking the owl art. I have learned they do look for those marten !

Here are a few Bitter Sweet pictures from this morning,Willow’s Last Retrieve

Here’s another picture from this morning hunt,my friends youngest boy Sawyer went on his 1st hunt while his older brothers were in school.Today’s hunt was A Beginning and a Ending,Willow is 12+Years old and Sawyer is 5.

Let's hope Willow gets to enjoy a long retirement. Great pics.

Great pictures Rick, love to see the kids and dogs involved.

Sweet stuff Rick !

Gulo, do squirrels compete for the nesting boxes with your owls? I ask because last fall I placed a dozen boxes out for Saw-wets and this summer when I checked pine squirrels were occupying all of them. I wondered if the owls could take the box if they wanted.

Good question Tray. For several years, I put out and maintained well over 200 boxes. A few of them would be taken over every year by red squirrels, but the use was much higher by flying squirrels. The boreals nest real early. They usually begin courting calls from the boxes in March. I suspect that if squirrels were using the boxes that time of year, they weren't yet with young, and the boreals were able to displace them. I certainly saw no indication that the squirrels could displace the owls. In a few cases, I did have marten preying on boreal owl nest boxes, and also a very few cases of marten usurping the boxes for their own nesting. As an aside, I also had nest box predation by lynx and black bears. On the other hand, I know definitively that if owls are not nesting in the boxes, periodically both red squirrels and flying squirrels used them for nesting (as did kestrels, northern flickers, and Barrow's goldeneyes). All of the boreal research was in Alaska. Down here in Idaho, we have a few owl boxes out, and use by kestrels, flying squirrels, and house wrens is relatively high. Also some winter use (for thermal regulation?) by red squirrels.

Jack

Jack, For decades I have been in the dark ( about a lot of things) about exactly what kind of critter is "the breakup bird". What is it and how do they make that noise ?

white17 -

You've really opened up the proverbial can-of-worms with that question, and it was only in 1947 that the question was fully researched and answered (Johnson, 1947. The Canadian Field-Naturalist). The "breakup bird" is actually a member of the woodpecker family (Picoides sinepagem), and is one of the few birds that has a huge, oversized phallus. The male apparently prepares a "dance arena" on the ice of a river, by first displacing snow through frantic flapping of his wings. It's usually about a meter in diameter. After being stimulated by a receptive female at his arena, he pecks a hole in the center of the arena about a centimeter in diameter and 6-8 cm deep. He inserts his penis into that hole for added stimulation prior to copulation. This is usually in the evening, and friction from his ministrations melts a bit of the ice in the hole. If sub-freezing OAT, the thawed water will re-freeze, and he's inadvertently stuck "with his hand in the cookie jar" (so to speak). The noise you refer to are his cries of pain and anger at his predicament.

I'm not sure if the moniker "break-up bird" is because this breeding scenario occurs during the annual spring breakup of ice, or if it's in reference to the fact that the female, once the male is "caught", usually departs the area, thus the "break-up".

All clear?

Jack

Thanks to all that shared the great pictures.
Mac

That is worse than joining the 330 or 220 club----ouch........jk

Cool pictures. Thanks for sharing

Got it !! That is obviously why the cited literature is from JOHNSON !

Some shrimp boats.