After being away for a week, and learning of continued harassment of the Eastern Screech-Owls by Robert DeCandido, I was eager to see how the owls were doing.

They’ve continued there shift south.  Both owls were in a tree twenty feet north on the northern edge of the North Meadow.  Just after I found them both, the male went across the ball fields towards the Recreation Center.  (That area has lots of cavities and rodents, so it will be interesting to see if this continues to be an area of interest.)

The female stayed close to where I found her, alternating between two trees, before after about twenty minutes, she flew north.

Happy 2010!

A search for cavities around the Loch at dusk, yielded an American Woodcock.  After dusk we found the male fishing in his normal spot. We looked for the female but couldn’t find her, so we left for the evening.

Luckily, as I was leaving the park, I found both owls on a high tree branch east of the West Drive around 102nd Street copulating. They then both went down to the Pool. I lost track of the male, but the female was very vocal in the trees near the large Willow on the east side of the Pool.

Dr. Robert DeCandido lead another “owl tour” tonight.  He spend 25 minutes loudly playing a tape of Eastern Screech-Owl calls.  The crickets heard on the tape were amusing with 12 inches of snow on the ground.

As usual, DeCandido played the tape without interruption, fifteen minutes before the owl’s fly out time.  He managed to attract a Red-tailed Hawk with his tape.  Luckily the owls must have learned to ignore the tape, or they may have become dinner tonight.

It’s really too bad Dr. Decandido is so heavy handed with these owls.  If he had just been willing to wait until they started calling naturally he would have been able to treat his tour to some wonderful sights.

But instead he made owl watching impossible tonight.  Decandido’s doctorate is in botany.  Why can’t he just go back to plants!

Tonight, no cavities were found and we only saw the male.  He called along the wood chip path and made his way north along the east side of the Loch. 

No sign of the female.  This didn’t concern me.  In past years, one or two of the owls has flown out late after a snow storm.

I couldn’t find either owl before fly out tonight.  Although frustrating, I’m happy that they’ve both found more private places to roost.  I had been in the teens the night before, so it’s possible that they roosted together.

After walking all around the Loch, I found the female near Glen Span Arch.  Then I found the male as well.  He was fishing for her, while she called to him. He’s gotten better at fishing.  He brought her two treats within about fifteen minutes.

He went off into the woods, but she stayed near the stream for another half hour.  After having been feed, I suspect she was in no rush to fly off.

The two blurry pictures in the set below are the male handing off his treats to the female.

A Great Horned Owl was in Central Park on Monday.  It was unclear if it was a returning guest from a few weeks ago or a new bird.  I found it around 6:30 p.m. and was able to keep track of it for over an hour.  It flew to various trees along the Lake’s shoreline from the Indian Caves to the Oven.   The owl seemed to go wherever there were groups of quacking ducks.

(This post was delayed for a few days to protect the Great Horned Owl.  A few weeks ago, the fly outs turned into nightly circuses, disturbing the previous Great Horned Owl.   So, it seemed appropriate to delay the news for the comfort of the bird.  However, one day in Central Park seemed to be enough for this individual.  It has not been seen since Monday.)