The BARN OWL appears to have left this daytime roost.

On Sunday I casually took my wife down to see the owl at 3pm (as I'd
been mentioning it) and to our surprise there was a small crowd of
birders there. And quite a few came and went during the time we were
there. Ah, the power of TWEETERS!

Five of us stayed for the evening flight (two Alans, Wendy, my wife
and I). The bird was a little later than previous observations.

Waking at 4:50pm
Regurgitation of pellet from day roost 5:00pm
Moved over to flight tree at 5:15pm
Defecated and preened for fifteen minutes
Left around 5:30pm initial heading SW veering around to NNW (out over
Federal E).

I returned on Monday at 11am to see him not at the same perch but on
a branch higher with a bit more close cover. He seemed rather
restless. It had its eyes closed but he was moving his head (tilting
and rotating it). I'd not seen him move whilst asleep before even
when mobbed by crows.

A mixed species flock of mostly juncos came through that section of
trees and included a couple of nuthatches. One of which hopped up the
branch whilst cleaning insects only to see the barn owl 18 inches
away. It jumped off the branch. A little later another (the same?)
nuthatch appeared on the other side of the owl gleaning insects and
ventured a little closer for a look then left.

I didn't go up to the park on Monday evening to see him fly (too blas?).

On Tuesday it wasn't present on either perch. I search the rest of
the tree but no sign.

I bumped into a few birders though on my two trips to the park that
day. One commented that she had seen the owl being hassled by
squirrels the previous day and her son had seem a Barn Owl flying
above the SAAM museum a few weeks back.

A neighbor had walked his dogs at 4pm on Monday and said he didn't
see the owl on the perch when he went passed by but he didn't have
binoculars though he had seen the owl with the naked eye before. Not
sure if he checked the other branch.

Another birder, Kelly, checked under the roost for pellets and found
three pellets. We had a look at them. The pellets were of course dark
grey fur wrapping a collection of bones. On close inspection the
bones including a limb bone (joined at both ends with one hinge
joint) of about 30mm in length suggested to me that the owl was
perhaps eating rats rather than voles or mice (though I may be
mistaken) even though they seem rather large.

As I've seen the owl regurgitate one pellet from the roost and
suspect he regurgitated another before I arrived on Saturday.
Assuming one pellet per day and assuming he regurgitated a pellet on
Monday from the roost he perhaps arrived the same day the crows found
him. On Thursday and Friday he regurgitated a pellets from the flight
tree which have not been found.

After Kelly left the crows got into a big commotion: lots of vigorous
cawing; all the crows out of the reservoir and into the tops of the
trees especially the trees behind the Amphitheater. I tried to find
the center of mass of the mob to see what the crows were pointing at
but I didn't find the target of their attention. The timing of the
commotion was very similar to the one I noticed before with the owl:
rapid onset over a few minutes; full intensity cawing for 10 minutes
or so; then cawing and presence of the birds dropping off over
another 10 minutes or so. At one point a significant number took to
the air as if following a raptor but I didn't see one.

I checked the other trees along the holloway and behind the
Amphitheater without any success. I had a rather more Barn Owl like
view of the trees after watching him perched. For a roost it needs
enough room to perch (more than 18" gap to the branch above); a large
diameter branch to stand on; dense cover to hide from the crows; a
more open area on one side to enter and exit from. These perches are
rather less common than I had though. In fact the Douglas Fir seems
to be a very good tree for this sort of roost: big branches that are
well separated with dense foliage on them.

I returned at 5pm and stood at the intersection of E Highland Dr and
Federal Ave E (north of the roost) and looked south to see if I could
see the Barn Owl fly west from another roost in SW section of the
park. On previous nights it had crossed Federal Ave E. I waited until
5:45pm but did not see a large bird fly out of the park.

On Wednesday morning (today) I checked the roost again. No owl again.

So I conclude he's left the park.

Though I did catch a glimpse of an ACCIPITER flyby (probable COOPER'S
HAWK).

On Jan 12, 2009, at 9:30 PM, alan roedell wrote:

> Wendy and I visited Volunteer Park late Sunday afternoon and
> happily ran into Kevin Purcell who pointed out the glorious bird
> roosting in a fir tree. We, along with others, observed the bird
> for about 70 minutes while it slept, flew to a bare branch in a
> maple tree, and silently flew off to the west. Sightings this
> easily accomplished are rare, in my experience.
>
Thanks for the compliments, Alan.
--
Kevin Purcell
kevinpurcell at pobox.com