A few summers ago when we were living on the coast, Roy and I (and our adjacent neighbors) were both blessed and cursed by a pair of barn owls nesting in the attic of the neighbor’s house. The owls entered through a soffit vent dislodged by Hurricane Ike and made a nest in the attic of the house.
I don’t know how many eggs were laid – or how many owlets lived to maturity – but I suspect that the hot, drought conditions resulted in less than optimum conditions to rear a brood and we only saw one owlet fledge.
At first, he hung out on the railing of our neighbor’s upstairs porch and cried for momma or daddy to bring him a mouse dinner with his loud squeaky-hinge sort of cry. He called non-stop all night long, interrupted only by feeding on the prey he was delivered, which made it quite noisy fishing under our lights. Mom and Dad were constantly flying overhead guarding the baby and hunting. I chased off Mama owl diving for our 17-year-old Yorkie several times – getting a wing in my face and an owl hitting the closing patio door as testament to the gravity of the owl’s intent.
As the young owlet began stretching his wings, he ended up hiding for a week or so between the plywood sheets we keep to board up when hurricanes threaten. Again, he called his parents all night long looking for supper – the call got on our nerves after a while, and we’d have to go in the house to get some peace and quiet. But during the daytime, we’d sneak up and play peek-a-boo with the immature owl. We’d catch his attention and move from side to side – and he would follow our movement with his head and body. We also took a few portraits of him, but we stayed at a distance doing this because – well, even at this young age, he had talons and a beak that were not to be messed with. Even though his nocturnal dinner parties were rather messy, leaving disgusting owl pellets around, it was hard not to get attached to our owl baby. He was SO adorable!
But the little owl did not like the cramped accommodations at our house, because after about a week, he tried his wings again and ended up in the storeroom of another neighbor – who almost had a heart attack when he opened the storeroom and found an owl staring back at him. That visit lasted about a day, and when the little owl was stretching his wings that evening, he ran into some power source – we surmise – as he was found dead the next day under the power lines with no visible wounds.
That’s when I really felt for the little fellow and started to find out a bit more about barn owls. I learned that they feed mostly on mice and small mammals and frequent grasslands to hunt for food. There is no specific breeding season for the barn owl, instead depending upon a steady abundance of food. Barn owl populations increase rapidly when mouse populations go up and may produce several broods when the hunting is good.
Barn Owls may look big with their 42-inch wingspan, but an adult weighs only about a pound. It can turn its head about 270 degrees to look at things because it cannot move its eyes. But here’s the most surprising part – they live a very short time. They become sexually mature in less than a year and in the wild, they only live one to two years, and many of them (like our owlet) do not live to see their first year through.
Our owlet’s parents only stayed around a couple more days after the little owl died – grieving, I guess. Then they left, and did not start another brood. Even though the little owl’s raucous cries were disturbing and his parents’ flyovers were unsettling for us and our small dogs, Roy and I were sad to see that the little guy die. So, who gives a hoot about our little owlet? I guess we all did.
