First, apologies for anthropomorphizing in my last post and saying the owl in the North Woods was lonely.  She’s clearly just advertising her availability.  Calling her lonely is just me projecting my concern that she won’t be able to find a mate.

Last night she called at least three hours.  I gave up watching her at that point, as my feet were near frozen!  She called constantly pausing between calls from 15 seconds to 3 minutes.  She’s clearly making sure any nearby male will find her!

For those who don’t know the history of Eastern Screech-Owls in Central Park, they were reintroduced into the park about ten years ago.  The program didn’t result in reestablishing a self sustaining population.  Deaths due to car traffic may have tipped that balance against the owls, but there were other factors as well, poisons, geographic isolation, cavity contention with squirrels and other birds, etc.

So, Central Park now has an owl who has a low chance of finding a mate.  Moving her would be politically difficult and introducing a mate would just perpetuate an unproductive situation even longer.

That said, I will miss watching owls raise their offspring in the park.

Tonight was bitter sweet.  The park’s resident Screech-Owl was back in a spot she has used more frequently in the fall.   She looked great and I was happy to see her in good health.  (Screech-owls generally switch between a few cavities to roost, and I haven’t been able to find her alternative locations over the past few weeks.)

After fly out, she called almost immediately and continued to call for over an hour.  When I left she was still calling.  Now is the time she would normally be starting to brood, but without a mate she was just calling and calling.

The three Long-eared Owls are continuing to roost in Central Park.  Tonight after a very warm day, high winds at dusk made owl watching and photography difficult.  Most of my exposures at fly out are about half a second long, so I had blurry picture after blurry picture!  Lucky some made the cut.

A group of four owls was found rousting in an Austrian Pine on Cherry Hill on Saturday morning.  When I arrived in the afternoon, only three were visible.

A squirrel decided to harass the owls, soon after I arrived.  It broke off small branches with pine needles and dropped them on the owls.  Eventually, the squirrel got two owls to move to other trees.  One to a tree in the open, and one to another nearby pine tree.

News of these owls has spread, so I’m posting these pictures.  If you go see these owls, remember that they are day sleepers with very good hearing.  Let them get some shut eye, if you visit them.

Long-eared Owls (LEO) are a special treat in Central Park.  They sometimes are found during spring and fall migration, but usually they arrive mid-winter for a few weeks when there is dense snow further north.

This Long-eared Owl was very accommodating.  It was in a section of a tree without too many branches near its perch. It spent about a week in the same tree and has now moved on.

As we curse all of the recent snow, remember that it can bring Long-eared Owls to Central Park, Bald Eagles to Fort Tryon and Inwood Hill parks (there have been sightings this week), and Hawks to various backyards and fire escapes thought the city.

(These pictures are from January 27th.  I delayed posting them to protect the Long-eared Owl.  It was in a very public place, and would have been harassed if news about its location had been made public.)

After using an alternate cavity for a few days, the park’s last Eastern Screech-Owl was sunning in her usual spot today.  She flew out fairly late and slowly moved through the North Woods.  We were able to track her for thirty minutes and about 250 yards.