Barn owl tracking helps ensure safety of birds

Article Date: 2007-06-08   Source: http://www.delawareonline.com   Comments: 0

By Molly Murray

Delaware, U.S.A. - Like most babies, little barn owls know how to get your attention.

Besides their attractive features - big, dark eyes, curved bills and fluffy, downy feathers - they can sound just like Darth Vader.

If they are frightened, they make a noise that sounds like oxygen passing through a respirator.

It was the sound heard Thursday when state wildlife manager Wayne Lehman pulled five baby barn owls from their nesting box and quickly attached metal identification bands.

The banding is part of an effort to find out what's bothering barn owls. While they are not threatened in the state, there is concern that their habitat is disappearing, said Lehman, who has been tracking the birds for more than a decade.

While population estimates are not readily available, the decline has caused concern in other areas. In Illinois, the birds are listed as endangered, and Pennsylvania recently launched a campaign to track population losses.

The birds normally nest in the cavities of old trees and in barns. Now, both of those habitats are disappearing, Lehman said. And the birds face threats from predators such as raccoons and snakes, which prey on the owl eggs.

Lehman started putting up nesting boxes in barns along the Delaware Bay coast more than two decades ago.

He recalled that in the 1980s he decided to repair an old barn on a state wildlife area.

"What's going to happen to my barn owls," then-wildlife manager Tony Florio said.

Florio worried that if the barn was too nice, with no openings for owls to come and go, the habitat would be lost.

That's when Lehman got the idea to start installing the boxes in barns to give the birds some protection from predators and a place to call home.

On Thursday, he was back at that original barn -- the first site of a nesting box. It has an opening cut into the side of the barn so the birds can come and go.

Lehman went up into a loft of this barn north of Woodland Beach and brought down five baby owls -- ranging in age from 4 weeks to 6 weeks. The parents were likely roosting nearby in tall trees, he said.

State wildlife officials like to band the young birds before they get old enough to fly because they are easier to handle, he said.

But even babies can have wickedly sharp talons and pinching beaks.

"This one's not going to hurt you too bad if it gets you," he said.

Still, Lehman generally wears leather gloves when he handles them.

Lehman said barn owls are important to the ecosystem because a single family of birds can eat as many as 1,000 rodents in one nesting season.

"These owls are really valuable," he said. "They rarely take valuable species -- or what we consider valuable -- like rabbits or songbirds."

Among the aspects that state officials track are where the birds go, how long they live and what type of habitat they prefer.

Most birds banded in Delaware rarely stray far from home, he said.

Some may end up across the Delaware Bay in New Jersey, but few have been found farther away than that, he said.

They favor habitats on the edges of Delaware's tidal marshes. Lehman said they eat a small vole that is found in the marsh.

They can live as long as 12 years in the wild, he said.

These babies make such as racket "because they probably think they're going to be eaten," he said.

But when the banding is done, Lehman carries each baby back up to its nesting box in the loft of the barn.

He won't see them again until next season.

Related Articles:
2007-11-14 - Owl baby boom makes researchers hoot by Molly Murray - Assateague Island, Maryland, U.S.A.
2007-03-01 - Biologist holes up with owls by Molly Murray - Delaware, U.S.A.

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