Short-eared Owl Afternoon

 I love the Ohio Ornithological Society's annual Raptor Extravaganza at The Wilds each January. It's a way to get together with friends in a lovely setting and collectively freeze your kiesters off. Together. It's a bonding thing.

Phoebe and Liam dine on fresh snow while we pound a pine grove for roosting owls.  I love taking our kids on this trip each year. Together, they're a unit of contentment, happy to look at what we show them in the scope, but equally happy to just be in The Wilds.

There are other kids who come, too; this one too little to stick up above the Lespedeza.

Part of The Whipple Bird Club. We were missing Shila, but Marcy's smile made up for it.

I forget what Mrs. Claus is supposed to be doing if it's snowing when the sun is shining. Do you remember, Steve?

Maybe best not to ask. Carol (right) obviously didn't get the memo that it was Dorky Hat Day. Shhh. Be vewwy, vewwy quiet. Steve and Mawcy are wooking fow wabbits.

I like to shoot pictures of people out birding. Dave looked great in the taupeness with the sunny snowflakes drifting down.

We feel so lucky to have a place like The Wilds less than an hour from our house. A place where you can see for miles and scan for raptors. It's hard to do that at home. Too many trees. 

No such problem here. You see, when the place was strip-mined in the '70's, they took away the soil that could support trees. The subsoil that's left makes stunted, twisted little things that look more like shrubs. So it's going to be open land for the foreseeable future. 

Which is a great thing for short-eared owls. SEOW's come here from the far north, and only in winter (though a few have tried nesting each year). They're looking for voles and mice. It looked to us like a great vole year at The Wilds, with dark little sausage-shaped food packets skittering to and fro on the snowy paths before us as we walked. Their tunnels and tracks were everywhere! That spells a fat winter for owls.

Largely crepuscular, a short-ear has no fear of flying during the daylight. They're tough birds. We accidentally spooked this gentleman from his ground roost right by the road and up he started with the classic mechanical mothlike wingbeats that quicken a birder's heart.

 Phoebe spotted him right away and she and I tried very hard to get a line of five slowly moving cars stuffed with birders to stop and see this wonder of the north. Everybody saw it well! I must've yelled SHORTEAR SHORTEAR SHORTEAR a dozen times.

Phoebe made a mental note of where she'd seen him start up and went over to ground-truth her suspicion.

 She found the spot and lo! there was a puddle of fresh shortear poo where he'd been sleeping.

and she was not ashamed to be very excited to have found that

which warmed her mama's heart.

Speaking of warm hearts, Liam spent the entire day with Savannah, his sixth-grade teacher's daughter, playing and talking and acting goofy.

 Savannah thinks Liam hung the moon, with good reason. He is unfailingly patient and kind to small children and they adore him for that. 

It helps that Savannah is purely adorable.

She brings out the caretaker in him.

 After everyone had finished high-fiving, the ones for whom short-eared owl was a life bird did the Life Bird Wiggle. This is mandatory if Bill of the Birds is around.

We felt blessed to see about a dozen of these beautiful owls, more and more as night fell.

Same shot, but cropped so you can see the fabulous rufous wing patches and something of its face.

There's nothing quite like showing people their first flying owl. It's been an owly winter for us!

Woodpecker Helper

Though he worked on it all day, I never saw Garrett go inside the roost box I'd provided, and I got worried that he couldn't fit in the hole. A quick Internet search indicated that a red-headed woodpecker box should have a hole from 2" to 2 1/2" across. I ran outside with a ruler. This one measured 1 3/4." Eek! I had thought it looked big enough to admit him, but it was apparently not.

Garrett was still pecking at the entry hole as darkness came on. He had worked on the right and left lower edges of the hole, to little avail. You can see the pale worked edges in this photo. He barely stopped to eat, he was working so hard all day.

Not that I was worried or anything.

 I hated to do it, but I didn't have much time. I asked Garrett to leave for a little while, took the box down and carried it inside to the workbench where I attacked the hole with a chisel and a big rattail file my dad called Rasputin. Oh, I love using my dad's old tools.

Especially to help my favorite birdie du jour.

As I worked on the box, I remembered my mom's poor big toenail, that ever since she spent a day shopping in pointy-toed dress shoes in downtown Minneapolis in 19 fifty-who-knows-when, has grown up instead of out. When it would get to bothering her Dad would clomp downstairs and come up brandishing Rasputin, with an evil grin on his face, take Mom's foot between his knees blacksmith style, and rasp away at the overgrown toenail. There were always blacksmith and horse jokes and wincing and giggling from us kids. Poor Mom. But oh, I loved remembering that scene.

The wood was cedar and surprisingly hard. I realized that it would take Garrett days to do what I'd done in a few minutes. I wound up using a chisel and mallet to chip away chunks around the entry hole, then smoothing the jagged edges away with Rasputin. Only the best for Garrett!

Hoping Garrett would be able to enlarge it himself, I'd waited until the last minute to intervene, and darkness was gathering as I hung it back up. Woodpeckers like to go to roost when there's still plenty of light. Poor Garrett would probably have to spend the night somewhere else.

Yes, I worried about him in the night. It was raining, of course.

Come morning, he was nowhere to be found. Bill went so far as to speculate he might have quit the place altogether since his snag had fallen down. And I'd swiped his roost box just as darkness was falling. Ack ack ack. But I still felt him around. I knew he was out there somewhere.

I went out to check the box--no sign of him. I put a few handfuls of hamster litter in the box to give Garrett something to excavate. That's important, if you're going to put up a box for woodpeckers, to make them feel they're cleaning out a cavity.

Finally I spotted him sitting in the willow, which seems to be his retreat when things aren't going so well for him. I know how he feels. Everybody needs a tree friend.

And the next time I looked at the roost box, he appeared. He cast a look at me, sitting in the studio window, and I had to think it was an approving glance. The hole was now about 2 1/8, and should be large enough to admit him. It looked a lot better to me, at least.

The next thing that happened had the whole family crowing. Garrett stuck his head in the newly enlarged hole

went a little further

almost disappeared

and backed back out 

with a billfull of hamster litter!

Whooping, dancing, crowing with Bill and the kids--he was in! And he was cleaning out his new home!

It wasn't long before he was all the way inside and popping out just to spit litter.

With a quick shake of his head, he'd ptoo it out.

Repeat until litter is gone

and ground beneath the box is littered with gray paper snow.

Yes, it's a comfy fit. No problem now for a broad-shouldered bird. Big, big grin. Thanks, Dad. Thanks, Rasputin.

That bird was on the box the rest of the day. It started raining hard again in the afternoon. I could barely see him through the rain-spattered window. But this time Garrett knew what to do.

I've been storing up blogposts for awhile now, trying to get enough to see me through a big trip in February (!), the release of The Bluebird Effect in early March, the release of The Rain Crows' first CD  and a CD release party in early March, and two big family events, also in March. I feel the hounds of Hell at my heels. I'm working from dawn until bedtime trying to make it all happen and keep the blog going, too.

And I cannot tear myself away from this woodpecker's story. Every time I think I can wrap up the Garrett posts and move on to The Wilds in winter and North Dakota in summer, something else happens in his life. Which makes something else happen in my life.

And I realize that I'm entirely too wrapped up in this little bird, and probably he's too wrapped up in me. 

which, as you know by now, is exactly how I like it.

Because when you can look out any window and see something like this, all you can do is share it.

Postscript:

On the morning of January 30, 2012, I went for my run. It was a pearly partly cloudy morning with promise of a little rare sun. I came up the driveway toward home around 8:45 AM and Garrett flew out to meet me. I couldn't believe he was coming on a straight line toward me. He perched in the old pear tree right over my head, holding a peanut in his bill. I spoke to him and told him what a fine, fine bird he was, and how glad I was to see him. I thanked him for coming out to say hello.  I told him I'd enjoyed having him here since the 15th of January and I hoped he liked all the things we'd done to make him feel welcome. He bobbed a couple of times and flew to the southeast, landing briefly in a willow. I headed up the sidewalk to start my morning, musing about how odd it was that he'd fly up to me, perch right over my head, stop to chat...

That was the last time I saw Garrett.  All day long, I told myself I just wasn't looking in the right places at the right time. By 3 pm I knew that Garrett had flown straight to me to say good bye. And, maybe, thank you.  

The floodgates opened then.

I'm sitting at my desk, watching a pair of red-bellied woodpeckers sharing suet. A pair of white-breasted nuthatches, two downies, a crow. All wonderful, none of them Garrett. Better, though, to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Homeless!

The wee hours of January 27 saw a ferocious windstorm with pelting rain. The creeks were running so high at dawn I thought Bill wouldn't get through Whipple to work. Duck Creek ran like angry chocolate milk, carrying our good bottomland soil out to the Ohio. I checked Garret's snag at 7 AM as it was beginning to lighten outside. A-OK. Bill checked it at 8. A-OK. I walked out at 9 AM, intending to investigate as to whether I could pound a post in beside it to which I could lash the rotting snag for support, and found this:

The snag had, not surprisingly, broken off right at Garret's cavity entrance. 

I'd seen Garrett take so much punky wood out of that cavity, I knew the walls had to be perilously thin. Add days of soaking rain and wind that made the whole snag sway side to side, and it was only a matter of time before it broke in two. Little Garrett was a bit too enthusiastic about his home remodeling project. He must've gotten a good fat home equity loan.

What used to be his ceiling--the cavity entrance at upper left.

And here's where he was sleeping. I figured it had to be pretty damp in there. Not to mention moldy (that's the white stuff).

Nobody had seen Garrett since first light. He wasn't in the cavity, nor was he on any of his usual perches. I combed Liam's huge weeping willow. Bingo.

He looked very disheveled. This is the first time I'd seen him preen. 

I knew he hadn't been hurt in the cavity collapse, or he couldn't have made it up into the tree. 

When he was done preening, he went to the living birch next to his old snag and started to try to excavate a cavity. He pecked for about 15 minutes in the hard, living wood and then gave up.

The next time I saw him, he was on the roost box I'd put up for him on the second day he spent with us!

You can imagine my excitement!

Phoebe had spotted him on it a few days before, and there was evidence that he'd already been working on the entry hole, which is a bit tight for him. But on this dark, cold, drizzly day, January 27, he really set to. He never stopped to eat that I saw--just pecked and pecked at the hole. You can see how he's got it bumped out on the right edge.

It's not beautiful by any means, and I have it turned upside down. It's actually a bluebird nest box that's supposed to discourage sparrows, and the hole's supposed to be pointing toward the ground. One of the many failed designs--it turns out to be exactly what house sparrows love--an entrance on the underside; a large nesting chamber, and darkness.  Baby bluebirds also tend to fall out of the hole when it's properly mounted. Like many innovative bird boxes, it's just a big Duh all around, but it looks mighty good to Garrett and me. 

He worked on it most of the afternoon, taking breaks to kick redbelly butt.

The other woodpeckers in the yard had a good day because Garrett was so preoccupied.

This boy actually got away with taking some Zick Dough, something Garrett actively discourages.

Almost the best part, besides having anticipated Garrett's need for a nice roost box? 

You can watch him working on it from the downstairs bathroom!

Could he get it done by nightfall?