Kathy F- Owl Question

[John A Green Jr]

Kathy,
I have read your blog about the owl issues you continued to have from last year and my heart goes out to you and your colony. You have done so much to try to prevent this and are a benchmark that I try to use as a standard, so I thank you for your determination and advice. I plan to enclose my gourd racks with wire cages within a week or two. I currently have 4 pair that have returned, 2 ASY males and 2 ASY females. My question is, what is the earliest known owl attack that you have had? Also, I know I have an owl problem but have never had any young not fledge thank goodness, so I hope that means something positive. Although they could be roosting elsewhere when the owl starts showing up. Also, any new ideas that you have up your sleeve? I have laid in bed many nights lately trying to figure up the one thing that could save us all from this. Thanks in advance.

[KathyF]

Hi John,
Sorry I missed this over the weekend - I just finished mounting all my cages this weekend. Thank you for your kind words - they are very much appreciated.
The earliest knownvisits from my owl happened on May 3, however, I 'felt' something was wrong all during the month of April. In Missouri GHOs are normally feeding their young during this time of year.
John, my biggest lesson-learned is - once an owl is able to catch a martin at your site, it is more difficult to deter them. So, that said, if I were you, I'd put up the caging now - regardless of how much your birds complain. It would be better to cause them a bit of anxiety for an afternoon, than they be eaten in the middle of the night.
When I first put up my cages, I put them on as early in the day as I could so it would give the martins time to inspect them and get used to them. Also, if you cut out some nice 4x4" openings and put some undersill trim over the bottom edge, it will give them a place to land while they're inspecting their new environment.
Here's a video of how mine reacted last year when I enclosed the gourd racks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYhPVzCQjy8

Second lesson-learned - make sure your cages are at least the length of the owl's reach from the porches - 13-15" minimum. An owl will eventually learn to reach through to try to grab them.
Yes, I have a new idea this year. One of the things I've noticed with my owl is that, every time I make a change, she will not come around for a certain length of time, until she's comfortable with whatever I've put out - such as my scarecrow idea. The scarecrow worked for awhile and as long as I moved it around and changed it up, she stayed away. But, I have to work full time and eventually, didn't move it for a few days, and the owl came back.
Last year, I placed a fan, a helium balloon, a light and a radio with our 'house sounds' (door slamming, shotgun ejecting, dog barking, me walking across the deck, etc.) inside our hunting blind and set it on the porch. I left the flap half open - the fan blew the balloon around and made movement. A few times, I removed the balloon and sat in the blind myself to scare her away if she showed up, just so she could never be sure. It helped a lot, but again, work interfered with my hobby and I went on a lot of travel and she got a few.
So this year - more changes - a very kind landlord has loaned me one of the "Dancing Man" products that came out last year.
My plan is to move the hunting blind out into the yard, add the light back in and the cd player again, put the dancing man in the hunting blind and put it all on a timer. When the dancing man moves, it will move the blind and she won't know if it's me in there or another non-threatening decoy.
And Yes, unfortunately, I also plan on going out a few nights, just to make a 'show' (ie, jump out of the blind and make a ruckus) to let her know, *I* could be the one in that blind.
I have studied and studied the videos from my monitoring cameras and she does walk around my yard and appears to be 'listening' as she looks up at the gourds. Maybe another alternative is to play some obnoxious head-banger music - or maybe something by the no-talent Kanye West - think that would drive her off? LOL

[John A Green Jr]

Thank you Kathy. I will install my cages this weekend. Nice ideas too. I may borrow a few of them and try them out. Good luck with your season and if I come up with anything that seems worthy, I will post it, thanks again.