By day, I’m a journalist. And by evening, I hunt owls.
And by hunt, I imply deliberately head out at twilight to attain a sighting of a beautiful creature, to not declare them with my bow and arrow. I’m no Van Helsing.
Principally what I discover in my journeys are nice horned owls, although there was a spectacular sighting of a ghost-faced barn owl a number of years in the past at Fountain Creek Nature Heart, identifiable due to its distinctive scream.
Nice horned owls are probably the most quite a few and customary owl in our elements, stated Tyler Stuart, a board member for Aiken Audubon, the Pikes Peak space chapter of the Nationwide Audubon Society that encourages the love, research and conservation of birds within the Pikes Peak area. In El Paso County it counts as one among our 10 usually occurring owls, together with the Western screech-owl, barn owl, Northern pygmy-owl, long-eared owl and Northern saw-whet owl.
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For me, this yr has been wealthy with nice horned owl sightings. There was the mated pair whose hoots I adopted off the primary path and right into a wooded space on the aforementioned nature heart, the place I got here human face to owl face as she sat on a low department. We stared one another down earlier than she took a brief flight to a close-by tree holding a large nest. Her male accomplice (feminine raptors and owls are bigger) sat about 20 toes away.
Nice horned owls by no means construct their very own nest, says Stuart. They use nests constructed by different birds or nestle into ledges on cliffs.
Due to the time of yr I’d noticed the good-looking couple (February-ish), I questioned if A) there have been eggs within the nest, and B) if the reply to A was sure, would mama really feel threatened and dive bomb me?
Proper now, in late fall, owls are beginning to pair up and name to one another to determine territories, Stuart says.
By February and March they’re incubating eggs of their nests, with owlets making an look a month or so later, often round April. And sure, they could assault a human they noticed as a risk, Stuart says, a lot the best way a mama bear would shield her younger.
Seven weeks after hatching, younger owls are able to quick flights, although the whole nesting interval is three months. They dwell quite a bit longer at house with their mother and father than smaller songbirds, which have a shorter incubation and nesting interval. It merely takes longer to develop a bigger-bodied owl, Stuart says.
Round September, I as soon as once more took a sundown stroll on the nature heart and lucked upon one other nice horned owl, this time hanging out solo and silent in a bush. Sure, owls reside in different areas of city. I’m simply susceptible to my tried and true looking grounds. Stuart heard hooting just lately in Charmaine Nymann Neighborhood Backyard at Bear Creek Regional Park.
Nice horned owls may be discovered anyplace, minus dense forests. They’ll stalk your neighborhood, utilizing phone poles and streetlights as perches, hoping to attain dinner, which might completely embrace your cat or small canine.
“I’ve heard tales of nice horned nest screens discovering dozens of collars in nests,” Stuart stated.
“They wish to hunt in open areas. They’re so widespread. They’ll use something from Arctic tundra to deserts to woodlands. They’re such generalists. Very adaptable.”
My final sighting got here shortly after the brutal time change final month, after I obtained caught in Monument Valley Park after the solar set — not my most favourite place to be on my own after darkish. However as I jogged by the dry pond mattress north of the Horticultural Artwork Society Demonstration Backyard, I seemed towards the mountains and there he was, sitting on a naked department and completely silhouette towards the midnight blue of the darkening sky. He took my breath away. All of them do.
However maybe I’m one among few in my love affair with the good horned fowl.
“Amongst birders they are usually form of neglected or underappreciated as a result of they’re frequent,” Stuart stated.
“It’s wonderful how they will nest within the criminal of a cottonwood tree or within the purple rock cliffs of any formations we’ve got round right here or transmission poles and even deserted buildings. The number of locations they will nest and inhabit is spectacular. It’s a deal with we get to see them anyplace we’re.”
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