Wine and Short-eared Owls

On January 21, it hadn't started to sleet or snow yet. We saw postings from Ky Birders about a Short-eared Owl at Talon Winery on the south side of Lexington. Thinking that the winery should be fairly empty on a Thursday afternoon, we headed down I-64 to Lexington, planning to have a little wine, then watch for the owl. As it turned out, there was a good sized crowd in the tasting room, but everyone kept their distance. The largest group took themselves outside to drink and talk.

Short-eared Owls breed in the far north, but come to Kentucky in the winter, favoring open grasslands. In other years, I have found them at the old Paradise coal mine site, and at a farm somewhere between E-town and Leitchfield. Other notices this year found them near Paris as well as Lexington. The best thing is that they come out to hunt about half-an-hour before sunset, and there us usually enough light for good photos. You can often find Northern Harrier Hawks in the same location.

As sunset approached, we walked around many of the open fields, but the wind made it pretty cold, so we decided to sit in the car instead. We couldn't tell which field to look in, but another car was sitting in the parking lot, and it looked like the lady had a camera. "She's here for the owl too," I thought, and sure enough the owl swooped out of the fence row. There was no place for it to land, so it just flew low over the grass. Look how long its wings are! This one made no noise while we were there, but a recording has them making a barking kind of sound rather than a hoot. It didn't take long for the sun to dip below the horizon and we started home. After cataract surgery and lens implants, I find it difficult to drive at night any more. My pupils open bigger than the lens, so the lens edge captures any available light, making huge halos around car lights, stop lights, etc. I'll have to think about going out at sunset again.

Snowy Owl in Kentucky

One bird guaranteed to get all the birders in Kentucky excited about making a road trip is the Snowy Owl! However, it's hard to get your birding ethics straight when it comes to this bird. On the one hand, you want to leave it in peace when it comes this far in the winter, so some birders will say they saw one in such and such county, but not where. Others are eager to share the location so the rest of us have a decent chance to add this rare bird to our life lists.  The first sunshine in over a week made my decision to find this bird an easy one.

 

Thanks to GPS, I drove right up a little country road to this barn. I knew this was the place as I joined 6-7 cars along the side of the road. Can you imagine what the owners must be thinking! I've seen notices on the KY Bird List about this bird since the beginning of March. It moves around a little in the neighborhood, but has been easy to find overall. Since it has been so stationary, John and Eileen Wicker of Raptor Rehab took a look and thought there was nothing wrong with it. Look for Snowy Owls sitting on or near the ground in wide-open areas. They often perch on rises such as the crests of dunes, or on fenceposts, telephone poles, and hay bales. When they fly they usually stay close to the ground. In winter, look for Snowy Owls along shorelines of lakes and the ocean, as well as on agricultural fields and airport lands. I missed seeing the Snowy a the Louisville Airport a few years ago. Snowy Owls breed in the treeless arctic tundra.

Oh, you didn't see it in the first photo? Here's one a little closer. The only part that moved was its head, which it turned around as sounds or movement attracted its attention. Snowy Owls do a lot of sitting. They sit still in the same spot for hours, occasionally swiveling their head or leaning forward and blinking their big, yellow eyes to get a closer look at something. When they hunt, they use extraordinary vision and hearing to draw a bead on their prey—maybe a vole scurrying beneath the snow—and then fly, or even run, over to pounce on it.

Snowy Owls are white birds with varying amounts of black or brown markings on the body and wings. On females this can be quite dense, giving the bird a salt-and-pepper look. Males tend to be paler and become whiter as they age. The eyes are yellow. Someone at Fish and Wildlife said they thought it was a female, but I think it's a male given the subdued barring. He didn't open his eyes much, squinting as the sun broke through the cloud cover.

Raptor Rehab has taken in 2 Snowy Owls in the almost 9 years I have been there. The first, in 2015, died of an anuerism. The second arrived last fall, having been hit by a car. She recovered quite well, and one of our volunteers drove her to Wisconsin about a week ago where she was released. It was great to work with them close at hand, but rehab birds can't be added to my life list!

Owling in Paradise

 

And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

I remember hearing John Denver sing this song when I was in college, and yesterday I went birding at this very place. In the late 1950's, the Bucyrus-Erie Company got the contract to build the world's largest shovel, to be known as the 3850. It took two years to build and each piece was shipped by rail to the new mine at Paradise, to be named the Sinclair Strip Mine. Roads had to be built and a special rail line was made. Special rail cars were made just to haul some of the parts of this big shovel. The assembly of the shovel took eleven months. Once the mine became operational, some of the construction people became miners. In the mean time, TVA was building the world's largest power plant nearby. In the early 1960's, the Sinclair Mine became operational as well as the Paradise Steam Plant. For the next twenty-five years, Sinclair Mines and Paradise Steam Plant were partners in the production of power.

In 1986, the Sinclair Mine had removed most of the coal in the area. The 3850 Shovel was not through. It had been a "star" and the center of attention for almost three decades and it had one more job to perform. With fanfare, the news media, a lot of the miners, the company that built the machine and the company that operated the machine, State and Federal Government and the EPA looking on, the 3850 had one more big dig to make. It would now be used to dig its' own grave. The 3850 faced the new pit and started to dig. It settled into its' final resting place and was soon covered with the Kentucky soil and rocks that it had been digging for a quarter of a century. Peabody had to reclaim the barren pits under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977, and now Kentucky Fish and Wildlife operates the Peabody WMA there.

 

Preston and Shari Forsythe live nearby and regularly post to the KY Bird List about the birds they see at the Sinclair unit at Peabody WMA, and they invited me to join them for an evening of "Owling in Paradise." Glad I went with someone experienced, since I would quickly have become lost of the gravel roads in the gathering darkness.  Arriving about an hour or so before sunset, we were immediately treated by 5-6 Short-eared Owls chasing each other around on one of the warmest afternoons in months.

 



As we drove slowly with our windows down, Shari spotted what she thought to be a Mockingbird perched nearby. Closer inspection revealed a Loggerhead Shrike glowing in the sun! We all expected to see them in Florida, but this is the second I've found in Kentucky this winter.  Shrikes hunt the same small mammals as the owls and harriers in this area.




At times, the Harriers and Owls would chase each other. Territorial disputes? There seemed to be so many birds in the same place that the mice didn't stand a chance.

 

The Paradise power plant still operates with TVA, and the smoke billowing from the towers has a distinct yellow tinge to it. I wonder what their scrubber capacity is. I am definitely torn by this issue. I want a clean environment for our wildlife and birds, yet I depend on electricity just like everyone else. I don't like strip mines (and definitely not mountaintop removal), but since the mines closed, the economy of this area has taken a big hit. Not prosperous looking by any means. Some of the lakes and ponds have water, but I didn't see cattails growing along the edges. I assume Fish and Wildlife keeps an eye on the acid levels here, but I do wonder a bit...

We hoped to get a glimpse of the Pan-STARR comet just after sunset, but a layer of haze or clouds blocked our view. While standing on the highpoint of the S2 area, we must have sighted 14-15 owls, given that it's hard to keep an accurate count of rapidly flying birds. Driving out again, we found another 4-5 owls perched in branches, looking all around as we crept up to them so I could take a quick photo through the car window.  Wonderful owling this trip, but I'm still working on a really good closeup. As Scarlett O'Harra said, "Tomorrow is another day."

SEO - The Search Continues

I am becoming obsessed with the goal of a terrific portrait photo of a Short-eared Owl. They can be found wintering in many different places in Kentucky, but I somehow manage to miss all the great trips my friends take at the last minute. Eileen came back saying, "We saw 35 of them take off at one time!"  Three days later her friend called to say they were all gone.

 



In Western Kentucky, near Paradise (you remember, "down by the Green River, where Paradise lay," as John Denver sang) the coal companies stripped the minerals out, and have "reclaimed" the area in grasslands, and they often find good raptors there, including Short-eared Owls.

Shelby County is just next door, so when Pat and Jane from the Beckham Bird Club said they saw one right by the road, I asked for directions. We arrived a little early and took the scenic tour of Shelby County farmlands, including some wonderful Kestrel sightings. By 5 o'clock the main show was ready to begin. At least three SEO's soared and circled each other, or flew low to the ground ... on the other side of the field.  We could see them pretty well through binoculars though. I put some mouse offerings on the fence posts near the car, although they weren't interested enough to investigate.

But how often do you get to see owls in synchronized flight? Pretty cool.

By the time the sun set over the silos on the neighboring farm, our fingers were turning to icicles, and we decided to go for coffee and supper. I intend to keep looking for Short-eared Owls whenever I can, since I am determined to find one sitting on a fencepost long enough and near enough for a good photo! Wish me luck!

Search for the Snowy Owl

Snowy Owl Photo by Eddie Huber

Last night around 7 p.m., my cell phone rang. "Kathy, you have to get out here right away!" Morgan exclaimed. "We have a SNOWY OWL out by I-65 near the airport!" I had been watching Hercule Poirot reruns on Netflix, and hadn't checked my emails lately, but a Snowy Owl was sighted in Louisville on Nov 15.  There are several strange things about this sighting. One, Snowy Owls very rarely get as far south as Louisville. Even in a bad winter, they come to Ohio and Indiana, but not Kentucky. AND mid-November is extremely early for such a bird to be sighted. We've heard about the finch sightings, but I was blown away by this. Of course, we put our shoes on and hurried to the car, but only a mile away from home my friend called again and the bird had flown off. This photo was taken by Eddie Huber, another birding friend. Apparently it was found at the foot of an exit ramp off the interstate!

So I got in my car this morning and headed to the area of the sighting. Snowy Owls are diurnal and could be hunting at the airport again.  It should be easy to spot if it's there - a large white bird tends to stand out. So I scanned all the light poles, power poles, roof tops, signs and fences, but no luck. When you see something light colored you take a closer look, with your heart pounding madly. Maybe I got lucky this time, you whisper to yourself.

I never realized how many odd things are attached to the top of various poles and posts! I met up with another birding buddy, and we cruised the back side of the airport for a scenic tour of the industrial side of Louisville, checking in with other birders via cell phone. I would have been completely lost, but Del seemed to know where he was going. Of course, we saw plenty of plastic-bag birds. I suppose this metal feather duster thing is some kind of anti-bird device.

Large Great Brown-Tailed UPS birds perched at their regular feeding area at the airport. I wondered what was going through the mind of that young owl. (I know, this is anthropomorphising, but hey...) Coming so far from the familiar barrens of the Arctic tundra, it must have felt like it entered the Twilight Zone. There were areas of short bare grass, kind of familiar looking, surrounded by large paved areas completely devoid of life. To the north of the airport is the Kentucky State Fairgrounds, with more grassy areas and parking lots. To the south of the airport is the largest landfill in the county, with few trees but plenty of rats to eat, making it attractive to raptors. Therefore, this strip has attracted other northern visitors over the years, including a Rough-Legged Hawk one winter. Last year, a Ferruginous Hawk stayed at the Cincinnati airport for several weeks.

As we cruised through the industrial buildings and warehouses, I did spot this young Red Tailed Hawk, trying to ignore a vicious attack from a Mockingbird. The hawk finally gave up and flew off. I'm keeping my cell phone nearby and charged up, hoping that someone will find this bird again, and I can get to see it. Wow! A real, live Snowy Owl here in Louisville! I just hope we don't have to bring it in for rehab sometime.