Last Sunday, one of the Riverside Park Owls went after Sweet Gum Balls, behavior I’ve never seen before. It was lots of fun to watch, however in the middle of the play, an Owl Tour leader started playing recordings and interrupted the owl. The owl left to investigate, circled around the tour and then flew south out of sight.
These images were taken on December 5th. This evening, the Barred Owl went after cavities near its roost looking for squirrels and cavity roosting birds. It must have gone to at least six cavities and squirrel dreys. It was a nice night with lots of post fly out activity.
These photographs were taken on December 2nd of one of the two Barred Owls that have been in Riverside Park. On this day, the owl was over a sidewalk right next to the street. The owl was respectully watched at fly out by folks in the neighborhhod. On some nights this owl is easy to watch after fly out, but not on this night. I quickly went off into the darkness.
Unlike my last few visits, the Barred Owl made one brief stop before going off into the night. It was impossible to track this evening. All was not lost as it gave some nice looks before flying off.
The Great Horned Owl, which has now left The Ramble of Central Park, engaged in some wonderful behavior with a branch on December 1st. The leaf sticking out of it’s mouth made me think it was a Hillbilly Owl.
I wanted to see the impact of the New York Times article had on the owl, last Friday night (11/20/20), and see what happens on a Birding Bob Owl Walk, as one was scheduled.
The owl location which I already knew (the old fashioned way via crows and bluejays), had already been reported on the Manhattan Bird Alert, and when I arrived at 2 p.m. there were 20 people watching the owl. While they were generally quiet, visitors were rustling leaves (which owls are very attuned too), and many owl watchers went within a few feet of the owl to take pictures with their smartphones. The owl was being woken up time after time. I left and went birding and returned around 3:30 to watch the owl from a distance, to see it wake up, stretch and then fly out.
With all of the press and excitement over this owl, it would be nice if the core followers of the Central Park Barred Owl started to think about what rules would make sense to minimize the impact visitors are having with this owl, now that it looks like it might stay the winter. This owl is a guest in our park, and we should roll out the red carpet. Simply deciding as a group to not arrive until after 3 pm, so the owl could be undisturbed during the morning and most of the afternoon would be a great start. Plus a reasonable boundary around the roost would be helpful. If everyone truly loves this owl so much, they should make sure they nurture and respect it.
Surprisingly, I didn’t see Bob DeCandido at the fly out. I’ve seen him do this before. I’m always surprised that he doesn’t do simple reconnaissance before he leads an owl walk. Or at least have someone, help with the reconnaissance so his tour could start in the right location.
Birding Bob’s tour started at 5 p.m. and around 5:20 I started to hear owl recording be played in the Loch. The tour had about 35 paying attendees (which at that number requires a permit), who at $10/head I estimate earned Birding Bob, $350.
After about 30 minutes of tape playing and then shinning a flashlight all around the Loch, the trip moved on to the base of the Great Hill. More tapes were played, and the trip continued up to the Great Hill. At this point, I stopped observing the group. They may have eventually caught up with the owl. But I hope not. The owl didn’t need to be treated like a circus animal and be asked to do tricks.
