Urban Hawks

The Barred Owl seemed back to a relaxed roost after a few day of high winds and show. It was in a standard perch, did its normal stretches, and then made a few calls before flying out.

It made some quick long flights, and I was surprised we kept up with it as long as we did. It visited areas I haven’t seen it in before. It was in much higher perches than normal. I suspect after two days of snow, it was on patrol duty, rather than worrying about a quick meal tonight.

The Barred Owl flew out north tonight in a snowstorm. It seems to be doing fine with the snow, but while I saw it concentrate of hunting, it didn’t seem to be going after anything.

It called two times and I was able to follow it to three perches before it gave me the slip.

On about a third of the nights I’ve watched the Central Park Barred Owl, I’ve lost track of it. Tonight, I learned my mistake. It’s always about prey, not location.

The night started like many others. With the calmer winds, the owl was on a standard perch, and made one call. It took a few steps west and stretched, the standard one wing down, the other wing down and both wings back stretches before flying out.

The bird quickly made long flights west northwest, much farther than I would have expected. But once the owl got to its final perch to hunt I understood why. This section of the park the owl uses as home base, has three people who feed lots of food to birds, squirrels and sometimes raccoons. Each feeding location, due to the excess food, also has colonies of rats.

I’ve always ignored looking around tonight’s hunting location because it is brightly lit and has lots of foot and electric cart traffic. I thought no owl would want to be out in the open in the bright light. But for the owl this location is a buffet, and in the trade off between privacy and food, food clearly was winning.

So, I’ve learned my lesson. It’s all about prey.

The photographs all used the lighting that was there. The street lights, two electric cart lights and the focus assist light of an older DSLR being used by another photographer. I didn’t add any.

The Central Park Barred Owl was on a very low branch today. It got sunlight and being next to the trunk wasn’t being blown in the wind. Two squirrels gave it a hard time before fly out, but otherwise we saw then normal stretching and preening.

The owl flew southwest and hunted near where a man feeds pigeons and sparrows, and indirectly rats. We hear a noise that was hard to find. But the owl located the source, a squirrel at the top of a dead tree limb. It was the next stop for the owl. After a few attempts to catch the squirrel, the owl then flew west and we lost track of it.

After the snow changed to a drizzle, I went out to catch the Barred Owl fly out. The owl was tucked deep into the Hemlock, and came out to a more open branch ten minutes before fly out. It made a long flight to a low perch and then went 25 feet north to a higher perch. It called six times in a row before flying west out of sight.