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SCAN0001 - NAME?Original Sunday Review Sketch by Dennis Puleston, Brookhaven THE SUNDAY REVIEW • MAGAZINE Focus on Nature by Paul Stoutenburgh Cutchogue Another bird that jumps the season with its incubating is the Great Horned Owl, or as he has correctly been called the tiger of the air. Years ago his familiar hooting call could be heard about the Island but today with the ad- vance of our so- called progress we see and hear less and less of this great warrier. Isolated woods are the hunting grounds for this fellow and it is rare to find one invading the poultry yards of our local farm- ers. A monarch in size, this two - foot high owl appears sooty brown with a conspicuous white throat collar. To add to this, making him look even more fierce, he has two very obvious ear tufts that are actually not horns but feathers. • • • Like all owls, this bird can fly on noiseless wings. This charac- teristic is so necessary for its nightly stalks. The owl has a particular type of feather in his wings that gives him this quiet flight. Without this he would be heard approaching and his prey would be warned. Beware, Mr Rabbit, of this powerful flyer, for with one quick swoop you can become Hassenpfeffer. During the day the owl stays motionless and out of sight wait- ing for the cover of darkness to attack. What tales of woe could be told of these nightly missions while the rest of the world sleeps. I have photographed this bird twice. Once when it was trapped on a duck farm because of its nightly take of two ducks, and secondly when I photographed a nesting site on the South Shore. Owls are very fierce, particu- lar so during nesting time. The group I was with when photo- graphing, wanted to band the young birds, and knowing their fierce characteristic had come well prepared. Heavy padded clothing was the order of the day with an extra precautionary measure — a pair of fencing masks. • • • When we arrived at the site, the adult birds were nowhere to be seen, which on this occasion did not make us a bit unhappy. While one party climbed a tree to band the young, I climbed an- other •to take pictures. Heights are no particular problem to me, but I felt awfully uneasy swing- ing about with the unpleasant feeling that any minute an an- gry ball of feathers would be charging me. This is no false fear, for 1 recall reading about a person losing his eyes when an owl at- tacked him. This uneasiness was probably the reason for my only mishap in 20 years of photo- graphing. I dropped my camera 30 feet to the ground. Luckily I was able to get two or three good shots before the slip. But the camera was ruined, and I always felt the Horned Owl had jinxed me in his own way. Like the Horned Lark, this bird starts incubating in February and March and there are even rec- ords of a Great Horned Owl in- cubating under a blanket of snow. How rugged can you get? The nest is usually a discarded crow's or hawk's nest or sometimes ev- en a hollow tree will do. • • • I recall another nest in Manor- ville that was located by Gilbert Raynor in the crotch of a huge oak tree. This nest came to a disastrous end, for on our second trip in to observe, we found the young had been killed by some prowler, probably a raccoon or an opossum. And so this is the way the struggle goes on —the owl hunts the animal and the animal hunts the owl. In a true natural socie- ty this situation would balance itself, but because of man's part in the game we do not always find it working out to Nature's advantage. There is a continual battle for survival going on all the time. Perhaps later on we can talk some more about owls, as they are an interesting group. We have many owls on Long Island, the great Snowy Owl that invades us from the North, the Monkey - Faced or Barn Owl that we al- ways associate with Church stee- ples, the Short -eared Owl that roams the dunes and open coun- try and of course the little Screech Owl we hear from in the sum- mer. These and others all have their own interesting stories to tell. NEXT WEEK — RED - WINGED BLACKBIRD COMES NORTH Send your Wildlife observations to Paul Stoutenburgh, Box 105, R.D. 1, Cutchogue. Following this article —I shall try to include current Field Ob- servations each week. Today, however our list will include a group that will bring us up to date. Any authentic observa- tions will be greatly appreciated. Oregon Junco (1) February 18 (Nye) Bayard Cutting Arboretum. Whistling Swan (1) February 21 (Wilcox) Quantuck Bay, Quogue. Holboell's Eagle— February 21. (A Cooley) Shinnecock Inlet. Bald Eagle (adult) February, 26 (P Puleston) Carman's River, Brookhaven. Evening Grosbeaks (8 -18) All winter (Mrs Frank Nienstedt) Heights Place, Riverhead. Greater Yellowlegs (1) , Feb- ruary 25 (D Puleston), Pon - quogue Bridge, Hampton Bays.. . Redwings (Male) moved in the week of February 19. Purple Grackles (flack of 200) February 26— Brookhaven. Purple Sandpiper — March 11 Bellport School Field Trip) Ori- ent Point. Kildeer — March 12 • (Stouten- burgh) Greenport. Least Bittern (1) March 18 (A Cooley) Ponquogue Bridge. Brant —March 19 (Bellport Field Trip) Shinnecock. Gannets (2) March 19 (Bellport Field Trip) In the ocean off Ponquogue Bridge. Keep your eyes open for wood- cock displaying as they have been seen already by D Puleston in the Brookhaven area.