Boreal owl within reaching distance!

[AlaskaDenise]

I just have to share my experience, I was SO excited.

Going outside this morning, I found a Boreal owl sitting on my porch railing. I went back inside to take photos. It was intently watching the area under a bird feeder, which is frequented by some very fat and happy mice. I went outside to replace the bird feeder, placing a chair and myself within 2-3 feet of the owl. He just sat and watched the whole operation. I stood and talked to him from about 2 feet away, walked beside him several times, and nothing would motivate him to leave his perch.

According to bird sites the Boreal owls are noctural, very elusive, and rarely seen. Obviously he didn't read the books.

I wasn't home today after replacing the bird feeder to see if he also follows the books and eats small birds.

 

[mixin]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

Does it appear to be well? That's unusual behavior for a wild bird.

When I was the local news reporter, a woman called me to share her story of her *baby* owl. She said it lived in a woodpile and ate catfood from her hand. When I saw it, I realized it was a small adult and something was obviously wrong with it; but it really was wild and really did trust her enough to eat from her hand.

We called a bird rehabber and when I did a follow-up call, they were speculating it had a brain injury... not good news. I didn't call again to see its final outcome. I always hoped it had a happy ending.

Looking forward to the pics :applause:

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

I wondered the same thing. I will call wildlife folks tomorrow.

He was either very hungry, very smart, or very stupid.

They hunt according to hearing and can hear rodents under the snow. However, recently we had a major meltdown and there is a very thick layer of ice everywhere, sealing off hope of retrieving food under the snow (covered with ice).

We'll see what tomorrow brings. Meanwhile I enjoyed the treat.

My DIL came over while I was gone and couldn't get him to move despite waving her arms, etc. She's new to the state and knew that some owls attack people - especially if they're wearing a fur hat (or hair that looks like a furry animal) - so she kept her distance.

What a joy to watch him "listen" by tilting his head and having infinite patience.

It was tempting to see if he would sit on my hand, but if he objected - what a pain he could inflict. Also, my MO is to let the wild animals stay wild.

.

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

What a nice little owl!

May be the owl just is not afraid of people.

In our horse stable sometimes an owl (long-eared owl) is watching quietly what we do.

I also remember some other birds from nothern scandinavia who come to Holland sometimes (waxwings, grosbeaks) who are not afraid of people.

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

I just took a close look at his beak in all 9 photos I took. We've had a widespread (in southcentral Alaska) mysterious affliction in our Chickadees which produces defective beaks - they grow extra long, curve, and make eating very difficult. To my knowledge they have not solved the mystery. It has spread to a few other species. It is possible that this owl may have that problem and is unable to eat normally. His beak appears thinner than other photos of Boreal owls, so that could present a problem.

.

 

[kiwibird]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

What a precious meeting. Regardless of the reason it is always uplifting to have close encounters of the natural kind. lol

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

What a nice little owl!

May be the owl just is not afraid of people.

In our horse stable sometimes an owl (long-eared owl) is watching quietly what we do.

I also remember some other birds from nothern scandinavia who come to Holland sometimes (waxwings, grosbeaks) who are not afraid of people.

It's always possible.

An Alaskan birding site says they're rarely seen, except if you follow their noise, then you may see them fly from treetop to treetop.

There was a TV recent program describing how various species are adapting to the human environment & it would make sense that smart owls will learn to perch near bird feeders. The TV program describes how swallows have learned to fly in front of the motion sensor of a Home Depot to open the doors so they can fly in and out to their nests which are inside!

.

 

[mixin]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

What neat pics!! That species of owls is really cute.

I'm glad you have decided to call a rehabber; its behavior is highly unusual and its patterns are those of the sick or injured. That it refuses to move is worrisome. Sometimes young birds especially have a really hard time surviving their first year.

 

[tropical]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

Congratulations A.D.

Hopefully the owl would be in health.

"#1: According to bird sites the Boreal owls are noctural, very elusive, and rarely seen. Obviously he didn't read the books.
#3: They hunt according to hearing and can hear rodents under the snow. However, recently we had a major meltdown and there is a very thick layer of ice everywhere, sealing off hope of retrieving food under the snow (covered with ice).
#7: of a Home Depot to open the doors so they can fly in and out to their nests which are inside"


Maybe your #3 explanation are the reason if in good health.


Denise, take a "social distancing" measure without feeding - for bird-flu protection ...

 

[kent nickell]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

One of my favorites I photographed my avatar several years ago in Northern Minnesota around the Two Harbors area. They were having a major owl irruption which included many Great Gray Owls and smaller numbers of the harder to see Boreal Owls. The sadder fact is that they appeared to be foraging further south due to a cyclical shortage of food supply and were quite stressed.

""I was doing some reading on this species in Handbook of Birds of the World Vol 5 (1999) which makes the comment that population estimates are largely conjectural, even in Europe, owing to species' elusive nature and mostly nocturnal habits, and primary association with relatively inaccessible areas of coniferous forest. European strongholds in Sweden (10,000-40,000 pairs) and Finland (8000-20,000 pairs). Russian population estimated at 10,000-100,000 pairs. Approximately 11,000 nestboxes have been installed in Finland from which fledglings are ringed annuallly. Fluctuations in breeding populations appear dependent on vole cycles and snow depth. Indirect effects of forest-cutting probably greatest human influence with reducing prey populations, removing forest structure necessary for foraging and eliminating nest cavities. Selective harvesting may allow tree removal while maintaining suitable habitat.""

http://www.greenbackedheron.com/search?k=boreal+owl

http://www.greenbackedheron.com/search?k=great+gray+owl

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

I knew he looked familiar!!!

Elusive, huh?

I've just spent some time looking very closely at photos of their bills online and comparing those with my little buddy on the porch. I believe there is a strong possibility he is suffering from a bill deformity.

This area has a far higher than normal incidence of bent bills. See:
http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/landbirds/beak_deformity/index.html
While reviewing their site, I noticed hawks among their photos, which I'd consider close to an owl. I had thought the deformity was confined to smaller and songbirds, but scavenger (ravens) and prey (hawks) and included.

I filled out their report form and forwarded a photo with a good view of the bill. I'll also call them tomorrow, as I know they sometimes want to catch these birds with a mist net so they can be studied.

His odd behavior is similar to other birds with bill deformities - they have so much trouble eating that they are forced into extraordinary eating habits, e.g., sitting below feeders waiting for what falls.

Thanks for the references.

.

 

[tropical]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

#11:
"Over the past several years, Alaskans have witnessed a startling increase of beak deformities among local birds. Large numbers of Black-capped Chickadees and smaller numbers of many other species of birds have appeared with grossly overgrown and crossed beaks."

...
"We are currently pursuing additional studies to determine where these deformities are occurring and why."
___

Bad indeed. Poor creatures.

And that include many various species.

___
A.D., have you up there toxic air streams from industry regions (some texts display usual air streams carrying air from industrial regions to North Pole) ...
or,
maybe, ... , becuse radiation is an deformity inducer, have you out there wore today your personal :nuke: dosemeter?

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

Where I live is certified to be the cleanest air in all of the USA - even cleaner than Hawaii. No industry, no radioactivity, etc.

We do love our birds and love to feed them through the winter. They've checked all the seed - it's okay.

Interesting fact - cancer is the leading cause of death
YOu hear all the usual stuff, but why should so many people who have lived clean lives in the pristine rural areas get cancer?

My latest theory, (which I hope to do some followup on this summer) is........backyard burn barrels. It's a tradition here in rural Alaska - burn all your garbage, including plastics, in a burn barrel. As the rural population grows, so does the habit of backyard burning of paper, wood debris, household garbage, construction debris, plastics, plastics, plastics = lots of dioxins!

And the birds may be victims also.

.

 

[tropical]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

Bad thing Denise.

From your last post #13 you maybe self-answered the deformity question.

"backyard burn barrels. It's a tradition here in rural Alaska - burn all your garbage, including plastics, in a burn barrel. As the rural population grows, so does the habit of backyard burning of paper, wood debris, household garbage, construction debris, plastics, plastics, plastics = lots of dioxins!"


I'm very surprised that up there in such an mostly clean environment (apart the atmosphere mixings coming from the lower industrial regions),
people don't understood what they done to themself and the pure nature.

Burning plastics there!

Of course that it gave you dioxins into the whole enviro. chain, water, soil, etc. Search for a field lab to measure the quantities.

See at the dioxin "Seveso" episode in Europe/Italy.
It was from a plant, but all the near town contaminated soil was skinned, and bonificated.
There were illnesses, and deformities because of dioxine.

Probably existed other hotspots, but start an anti-burning initiative.
To be burned securely are only true natural materials (wood, and similar).

One big eye must be porged to the cancer question.

As usual, the epid. "studies" layed into the pockets.

Health don't came back if ruined.

 

[canagica]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

Hi AlaskaDenise-

It's hard to tell anything about the bill from the pictures you posted--any chance you could post another (or link to the ones that you sent to USGS)? I actually worked on the bill deformity project for a Spring back in 2003, and the range of deformities is so striking, as is the ability of chickadees to persevere and survive despite them--I don't think it's been reported in an owl before, so it would be useful to have an image of what it might look like (they have such short bills!)

As far as the owl behavior goes, it's relatively common for smaller owls to be fearless around people. I've had lots of run-ins with screech, saw-whet, and pygmy owls out west that were similarly unconcerned with my presence, as well as a boreal owl that would hang out near the deck (with a bird feeder) near where I stayed in Anchorage (up in Hillside)--though I've never had the pleasure of being *so close* to such a cute boreal! A friend working on pygmy owls even caught one by hand once. However, your description of its unwillingness to move would suggest that it is in poor condition either due to the crummy weather that you mentioned or injury.

There are also some great videos of this species over at the IBC and sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Macaulay Library.

In any case, I look forward to hearing what the USGS folks think-thanks for posting.

I knew he looked familiar!!!

Elusive, huh?

I've just spent some time looking very closely at photos of their bills online and comparing those with my little buddy on the porch. I believe there is a strong possibility he is suffering from a bill deformity.

This area has a far higher than normal incidence of bent bills. See:
http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/landbirds/beak_deformity/index.html
While reviewing their site, I noticed hawks among their photos, which I'd consider close to an owl. I had thought the deformity was confined to smaller and songbirds, but scavenger (ravens) and prey (hawks) and included.

I filled out their report form and forwarded a photo with a good view of the bill. I'll also call them tomorrow, as I know they sometimes want to catch these birds with a mist net so they can be studied.

His odd behavior is similar to other birds with bill deformities - they have so much trouble eating that they are forced into extraordinary eating habits, e.g., sitting below feeders waiting for what falls.

Thanks for the references.

.

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

USGS was very helpful. First, they don't think that because the owl is staying on the porch indicates it's ill. If he has other odd behavior, that could indicate illness.

Regarding the bill deformities, the person I spoke with had not seen my report and photo. He said there are now 32 bird species impacted by these bill deformities. He has never heard of an owl with the deformity.

Should they decide to catch the owl, after reviewing the photo, they'll come out and catch it.

We had a long conversation about the causes. They really don't know for sure yet. When I mentioned the dioxins coming from burn barrels, he mentioned that while there were detectible levels, they didn't think it was high enough to cause the deformity. BUT they don't know which of many contaminants found may lead to the problem. They are doing further testing on contaminants and they may yet be proven to be the cause. I asked if they had looked for epigentic changes and he referred me to the team member who specializes in genetics.

The burn barrel issue is something I hope to work on soon (I have several other reasons to be in Anchorage over the next month). I plan to contact the major statewide newspaper and see if they'll do articles. We really need to pass & enforce laws to protect all impacted life forms. At the very least, the newspaper could be an avenue to educate the public about the dangers of indiscriminate burning.

The USGS researcher agrees that inappropriate burning is a problem. He says the laws regarding municipal burning are also inadequate.

Regarding the owl.......... he was a no-show today. One of those very fat mice could keep him full for a few days. However.......... all the small birds that frequent my feeder (chickadees, redpolls, etc.) were also almost no-shows. Normally I'd have a very high visitor rate and today about 2 or 3 braved the owl's territory.

I'm moving this thread to another category visible to the public, due to all the interest.

Below is the photo I sent to USGS:

(photo removed to save memory)

 

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

Deformed bird beaks crop up on West Coast

Possible causes include fire retardants, toxic-waste sites, pesticides, and pollution

Published: Monday, April 07, 2008
VANCOUVER -- A mysterious syndrome causing freakish over-growth of birds' beaks is sweeping the Pacific Northwest.

Len Jellicoe of Abbotsford was birdwatching when he spied a rough-legged hawk with an oddly shaped beak. He zoomed in with his telescope, and was surprised to see an upper beak several centimetres longer than usual.

He posted pictures on a birding site and was contacted by Bud Anderson, a raptor researcher in Washington state. Anderson told Jellicoe what he'd photographed was not an isolated aberration.

More than 160 birds with "long-billed syndrome" have been spotted in western Washington and southern B.C., most of them since 2000.

Red-tailed hawks are the most commonly affected, but the deformity has also been seen in crows, chickadees, Steller's jays, northern flickers, gulls, woodpeckers and songbirds.

In Alaska, more than 1,400 chickadees have been discovered with overgrown beaks.

Vancouver ecological genetic toxicologist Michael Easton studied the Alaska chickadees for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Easton found that the birds with deformed beaks had damaged DNA.

The malformations began to appear around the time that scientists noted the accumulation of polybrominated diphenyl ethers, PBDEs, in North American women's breast milk. PBDEs are used to flame-proof upholstery and other consumer goods.

Alaska researchers found no evidence of disease, parasites, or vitamin or mineral deficiencies in affected chickadees.

PCBs, a toxic industrial chemical now banned in North America, were implicated as a possible culprit by Alaska scientists.

"PCBs were ubiquitous in chickadee eggs, nestlings, and adults, and were correlated with beak deformities in adults," said a United States Geological Survey report on the malformations.

Other possible causes of the syndrome include toxic-waste sites, fire-retardants, pesticides sprayed during a spruce beetle outbreak, agricultural chemicals and atmospheric transfer of persistent pollutants, the report said.

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=2fba3b32-bb58-44b1-ab16-8456f7ad2606

 

[tropical]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

As the name of an Metallica song: "Sad, but true".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCF19cBWb0I

So decades of pollutions finaly did it.

Genetical deformities in all Northwest Pacific.

Sorry for them/us all, now the chem. pestilence goes more south and reached the (previously) uncontaminated regions of Denise (and many others) landscape.

We are all drowning in human made toxicals.

And what we have now of the scientific studies "a posterior" which induced the "NOW baned", now when the damage is already done and pervaded all the ecosystem?

And what we do with the "atmospheric transfer of persistent pollutants" coming from elsewhere worldwide?

An realy modern science must turn the main flux of society behaviour BEFORE the irreparable damage is done.

Yes, quite the end of times the actual earth creatures are used to know ...


#17:
"Published: Monday, April 07, 2008
VANCOUVER -- A mysterious syndrome causing freakish over-growth of birds' beaks is sweeping the Pacific Northwest.

PCBs, a toxic industrial chemical now banned in North America, were implicated as a possible culprit by Alaska scientists.

"PCBs were ubiquitous in chickadee eggs, nestlings, and adults, and were correlated with beak deformities in adults," said a United States Geological Survey report on the malformations.

Other possible causes of the syndrome include toxic-waste sites, fire-retardants, pesticides sprayed during a spruce beetle outbreak, agricultural chemicals and atmospheric transfer of persistent pollutants, the report said."

 

[mixin]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

Thanks for the update. It's good to know they don't think it was ill.

In all my years of feeding the birds, I've had hummingbirds and nuthatches get so tame I can be within reach of them. The chickadees chirp when they see me at the feeders. But any fast movement causes all of them to scatter immediately; so the owl refusing to move, even with arm-waving, seemed very unusual.

 

[tropical]

Re: Boreal owl within reaching distance!

#19: "It's good to know they don't think it was ill."


Wrong, he is ill - "he is suffering from a bill deformity".

And he is full of chemicals through food, as the other creatures there.