Looking Into an Owl

 It was, if not an exactly typical morning in our household, not a terribly unusual one. Bill had just left for work when the phone rang. I know this means there's something to report, whether a turtle saved or a rare bird spotted or a fox crossing, or a roadkill that mustn't be missed. It turned out to be the last one.

 A barred owl had gotten hit while flying across the road not far from our house. Bummer, big bummer. Bill knew I'd want to examine it, and I did. I threw my camera over my pajamas and grabbed Liam, who was home from school for parent-teacher conference day, also in his PJ's, and jumped in the car. Time is of the essence with roadkills, because you don't want them to get any squasheder than they already are.

We were pretty late, by which I mean that owl was flat, and so was the pickerel frog he'd been carrying when he was hit. 

He had to have gotten the frog earlier, because it had been a dry night and there was no way a pickerel frog would have been moving out on the road. So I guessed that he'd just swooped too low as he crossed the road (owls do that) and gotten hit.

As soon as I started moving the owl around, looking at it, louseflies swarmed up out of its plumage, looking for a new, preferably live, host.

These bloodsucking flies found on raptors are flat and hard and quick, and they have excellent eyesight, being attracted to motion. The quick, rather than the dead. One landed on my arm and I couldn't blow it off--I had to grab it and throw it, and it circled and came back. Ecccch. It can't live on human protein, but it was hungry. Lousefly don't care. He's hungry.

Now, here's where it gets kind of gross, but fascinating. So if you're easily grossed out, and don't want to find out what the owl had been eating, just quit with this poignant feather photo and email a friend who also reads this blog to ask what the owl had been eating. But I know you're gonna look, because if you're that easily grossed out, you've either just started reading this blog and don't know what to expect, or you've left me a long time ago. Because the nature I know and love isn't all soft and pretty. And the stuff that isn't so pretty is usually more interesting, and it's what makes my canary chirp.

Ready?

I turned the owl over and found a bunch of what looked like plant material. My first thought was that the poor late owl might have been starving, because louse flies are usually more numerous on a bird that's otherwise compromised. Owls don't eat grass. What is all this green stuff? Huh?

I leaned closer, gagging a little, and yep, it looked like grass. I couldn't make heads or tails of it. But I knew I had to move the carcass off the road. And as I picked the owl up and slapped at the darn louseflies, a bolus fell out of what had been the stomach.

 Weird. More grass. More plant parts. What could be going on with this bird?

Being a Science Chimp, I had to know. So I picked at the stuff and what do you know? A praying mantis foreleg (far right) appeared in the mess.

 And then it all made sense. This owl had been eating praying mantises, and probably a lot of katydids, both of which are at peak abundance right now. And the green I was seeing was their wing covers, and the amber stuff was their membranous wings. Wow. That is a LOT of praying mantises. I'd guess 30 or 40 based on all the wing covers and legs I found.

 With delight, I imagined this beautiful little owl (it was very small, probably a male) swooping low over the goldenrod tops, picking off mantids and katydids with its yellow feet. And I wished hard that he was still doing that. But this owl had made his last big mistake, so I dropped him off into the weeds well off the road to return to the meadow and turned for home, with one thoroughly agog eleven-year-old who decided he would not be having sausage and eggs for breakfast after all.

Instead of getting soft and pretty, my day got weirder, but that's another roadkill post, isn't it?

An Arabesque Orb Weaver, hanging in the guardrail, made me feel a little better about it all. If life gives you roadkill, look at the stomach contents. You might learn something.