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April 30, 1998 - Great horned owls: a reminiscence6A • The Suffolk Times • April 30, 1998 Great horned owls: a reminiscence I'm so fortunate to have observant readers out there who take time to call when something unusual occurs in the intriguing and natural world we live in. My latest call was from a retired schoolteacher, who reported on FOCUS a big owl nest in her woods. I told ON her I thought it NATURE was the nest of a great horned by Paul owl, the "tiger" Stoutenburgh of the woods. This is the largest owl here on Long Island and it's the earliest nester. January, February and March are the months when you start to hear it call for its mate in these early months of the year that their courtship ritual takes place. I remember once, not too long ago, on a cold winter moonlit night Barbara and I watched a pair of great horned owls carousing in a big tree out in our front yard. We heard the male calling and spotted him high in a tree. As we listened and watched, to our great sur- prise, in flew the female and landed beside him. What a sight they made in the black and white of the moonlit night! First memory They hunt with their specially de- signed wings that are super -quiet when in flight. This quiet approach lets them come upon their prey before it can escape. Their diet is made up of a wide variety of mammals from tiny voles to rats, from rabbits to an occasional stray cat. All are struck with deadly talons that, once attached and closed, mean a quick and painless death. Small mam- mals and birds are eaten whole. Their fur, feathers and bones are regurgitat- ed through the mouth to form tight pellets that can be found under the owl's favorite roosting tree. Inside these pellets are the clean bones, skulls, teeth, etc., of the victims of this efficient predator. Often researchers collect these to determine the mammal population of a region. It's a. great classroom project for kids to try to reassemble the skeletal remains and then try to determine the species. My first memory about a great horned owl is from a story my father told to me. When he was a boy he took a small dog out for a walk in a snow- storm. The dog was walking ahead of him when, all of a sudden, a big owl swooped down on the dog, then veered off and. disap- peared in the snow. Evidently the dog was too big and at the last moment the owl realized its mistake. It's funny how those early childhood stories linger with you. Another encounter with a great horned owl was when a good friend of mine called from Riverhead to tell me an owl had been caught in a trap on a duck farm, was I inter- ested in rescuing it? If not, it was going to be destroyed. What had happened was that this duck farmer had a pen where his prize laying ducks were kept separate from the others. The duck farmer found he was missing one of them each night. It couldn't be a raccoon, for there were no scattered feathers or signs of a struggle in the area. Then someone suggested it might be an owl. But how to catch the owl? He didn't want to stay up all night with a gun, so he set a trap on top of a pole in the pen area. Sure enough, the next morn- ing he had caught the culprit. The owl had come in for his evening meal and landed on the post with the trap and was caught. So I went over and took the owl, assuring the farmer I'd release it far, far away. I might add that the "pole trap" technique was the usual way in the old days gamekeepers got rid of unwanted predators that preyed on the pheasant and quail populations. Since those early days all hawks are now protected and the cruel pole trap has been done away with. Some of my other experiences with a great horned owl include a time when a group of young bird enthusiasts wanted to help band a nest of young great horned owls over in Bridgehampton. We had all read about fencing mask for protection. I had brought my first good camera, an Exakta with a telephoto lens. I was anxious to try it out, so while two oth- ers were busy banding the owls in a tall oak tree, I climbed to the next nearest tree so I could photograph the opera- tion. All went well. The parent birds did not attack and Dennis was able to band the downy young while I photographed. That is to say, all went well until my camera flipped out of its case and tumbled to the ground. Needless to say, it had to go to the repair ship but I was able to save my film. Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh We hear more and more reports of great homed owl nests and their young. Being early nesters, sometimes In February and March, the owls' young are ready to fly by March or April. i oIQ l r7 LrV%OFl1 16P H41% 75 Years Ago April 27, 1923 Fire destroys landmark: The old "Wharf House" at Southold was destroyed by fire Tuesday morning. The fire was not discovered until it had gained such head- way that the flames were beyond control. Mrs. Emma Gaynor, who has successfully conducted the resort at Paradise Point, had a five -year lease on the building and was engaged in getting it ready to open as a tea room. Considerable improvements had already been made, and 500 feet of new lumber and a quantity of furniture belonging to Mrs: Gaynor were destroyed. Letter to the editor: In driving around the Eastern End of the "Blessed Isle" I am impressed with the ever - increasing signs along the road, so many more than of years gone by. Can you not use the influence of your paper to stop or discourage it? Cut out the signs, for tourists and summer people want to get away from all that. They want real beautiful wild country and no matter how beautiful the view is, it is spoiled by a large advertisement, utterly spoiled. 50 Years Ago April 30, 1948 Advertisement: Opportunity. Ladies without ties. Earn $25 to $50 weekly during your evenings and spare how fierce owls can be when you intrude on their territory, particularly when they have young. To prepare we all decked out in heavy clothing and gloves. Someone even took an old time. No experience necessary. Earn while you learn. Promotions and future security. Must have car. Write Post Office Box B, Attention David Crabtree, Suffolk Times, or call Eastport 358J. New printing plant: The historic Academy building on Horton's Lane has taken on renewed life as the site of the Southold Academy Printing Company. The new occupant is the only offset printing shop in this area. Mr. James S. Smiley, the owner, has considerable expe- rience in production, layout and artwork, as well as a thorough background in the offset industry: 25 Years Ago April 26, 1973 Plus 9a change: Otis Pike reports from Washington: "I have never written a column nor made a broadcast about the Watergate crimes. It is time. The most appalling thing of all for anyone in political life who tries to live not merely by the law, but by the spirit of democracy, is not the fact of the crimes, but the reac- tion of the American people. [They] seem to have lost their capacity to be outraged, no matter how outra- geous the acts of their public officials. I would like to think that this is because many of them simply refuse to believe that their public officials can be that bad. But I am forced to think that this is because most of them expect their public officials to be that bad." Basket makes nest Then there was the time a lady called from East Marion and told me about some baby owls that had fallen out of their nest. This intrigued oth- ers in the family so we all went to the location. Sure enough, we found the two young owls on the ground in good condition, but the nest they had fallen from was only a remnant of the original. Somehow it had fallen or blown apart. After much dis- cussion we decided to assem- ble a makeshift nest and put it in an old bushel basket. Then, with the young owls in it with their bills chattering, we hoisted the whole rig gradually up to about where the old nest was. Our work complete, we left, hoping the parent bird would return, not minding the change. If we had not put the birds back up in the tree, they probably would not have lasted the night, for sooner or later Mr. Raccoon or Mr. Fox or ma- rauding dogs or cats would have found them. The good part was that a day later reports came in that the parents had accepted the new nest and the young were doing just fine. These are some of my contacts with this fierce hunter of the night, which have become more and more common over the years. Telephone calls from time to time about Tim's nest along the roadside, Ralph's nest at the top of a broken -off tree and, of course, the call from the lady this week and our visit to her home and nest tells me that great horned owls are more common than one suspects. Great horned owls do not migrate but stay in the same general area for most of their life, feeding on anything that moves during the night. The only way the average person knows they are about is by their occasional haunting call. You won't believe this but while I was writing this a telephone call came from Bob down by Paradise Point, who told me he had a young great horned owl in his back yard. Evidently it was blown out of its nest with the north- easter we were experiencing at that time. He knew where the nest was and told me that below it were the remains of rabbits, a crow and some sort of duck, which meant the owl probably picked the duck off the water at night. So once again it shows the variety of food the great horned owl will take to feed its hungry young.