So picture this. Boggy park with elevated walkways so you can visit without feeding leeches. Lots of trees in varying states of liveliness and decay. Lots of birds but they have lots of places to hide. On a cold quiet day you might catch barely any at all.
The path leads down to a small lake. Lake Hylebos. You stay your minute, turn around to head back. On that tree stump off the path, was that dead snake there before? That’s weird. Why are robins and other birds flying around and screeching?
This was the only time in my life I’ve seen the predator-mobbing behavior of birds other than crows. The robins and possibly others (I remember that less well, and it was impossible to see everybody involved) were harassing a barred owl, out in daylight to eat snakes and take names.
I saw the owl fly to a shadowy tree branch where it rested. As much noise as they kicked up, the other birds didn’t want to get too close. This was at the outer limits of my vision, and my cellphone’s ability to see isn’t any better than my ailing eyeballs. But we strained to keep watching for as long as the bird was willing to sit still.
A barred owl is a pretty generic owl, grey and brown and white and cryptic. The most noteworthy things about it are a lack of feather horns and having dark eyes instead of the typical yellow. It’s like they’re a strigid owl trying to evolve into a tytonid owl – ghostfacing like a barn owl. The cool thing about it, to me, is that I never ever get to see owls. And I got to see this one! Yay me.
But it’s not that special, apparently. I’ve seen a photograph of one taken from right under the Space Needle, in the middle of Seattle Center. I’m always hearing fuckoes tell me they saw a great horned owl in broad daylight as well, perched on a mailbox in their suburban home, or somesuch. I’ve never seen that shit and probably never will.
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Barred owls are the most common ones around here in Vermont, though you hear them more often than you see them. They have a characteristic four-note hoot. Since they tend to sleep perched, one can sometimes see them just sitting there in the daytime but it’s rare to see them active. I’ve heard great horned owls but never seen one.
I’ve not seen predator-mobbing of owls, mostly because they’re mainly nocturnal, but it’s a common behavior when hawks, as well as crows, threaten songbirds. The little birds do quite a job of circling and confounding the hawk.
interesting. i tend to imagine barn owls are the most common ones everywhere.
i don’t know why these local barred were up in the daylight, this and the one from the space needle, but i’ve seen pigeons walking around at two in the morning, and my home boy clark was woken up at 3 am by a robin one time. weird hours for outlyin’ weirdos; dave attell should interview them.
So today the hummingbirds showed up (we’ve had a feeder for two weeks, maybe they’ve showed up earlier and we missed them), but also we had a mad Baltimore Oriole show up, perched on the hummingbird feeder, looking into our window and saying, “Where are our oranges?”.
I’ll pick some oranges up at the store tomorrow morning.
orange bird eat orange? makes sense. get them some licorice too.
So, yesterday, after I purchased some oranges, cut them in half, and affixed them to my make-shift orange-half holder (a piece of plywood with four course-thread drywall screws poking through it to hold the orange halves in place), a pair of orioles showed up, took a look, and flew away.
Well, this had happened in previous years, which was disappointing but not completely unexpected.
Today, on the other hand, the orioles showed up and spent some time eating the fruit. When it gets dark this evening I’ll have to swap out the two-day old oranges for fresh. But it is so nice to see them.
For what it’s worth, according to the internet, they don’t appear to have any special fondness for anise.
good work. i didn’t know they were into fruit.