On Wednesday, July 30, 2025, 4:24 PM, Carole Winslow <cjwinslow94...> wrote:
It's taken me this long for the heat and wind down of atlas birding to
drive me indoors and given me the time to post a write-up on this adventure
from spring. I also was purposely waiting on the completion of the nesting
before I posted it to eBird (already done) and then getting to share it
here.
I'll try not to make this too long, but I did want to share some of
the interesting details. The short summary to start off with is that on
April 8, two of our local Seneca Rocks Audubon members, Mal Hays and Larry
Towse, were checking screech owl boxes as they do regularly, and came
across two saw-whet owls in boxes at SGL 63 and 74. They got a picture of
each and let me know as they were quite surprised. We've had saw-whets in
boxes before around this time period, so I went out the next day with Larry
and we checked each box. The female was defensive and there were five eggs
in each box. That was a really exciting day, to see this beautiful owl so
closely and find the eggs. We set up some trail cams for both, and started
keeping an eye on the activity. At the SGL 74 box near Strattanville, four
very small young chicks were found on 4/24, and at SGL 63 near Shippenville
five young were first found 4/28, ranging in age probably at least several
days.
After there were young found, we tried to monitor more closely, and I
was just involved with the box at 63 closer to me where we had a cell trail
cam that we followed, and could get videos. The only sign of predation that
we had over the period was a fisher that was seen on the night of 5/2 at
that box, where it appeared that one of the adults drove it off. Mike Leahy
was involved with helping with the nest monitoring by then, and got a
predator guard up and the nest was undisturbed. He was also responsible for
reaching out to get some interest in banding the birds, so Scott Weidensaul
and Dave Brinker got involved with the project. Things seemed to be going
well at the 63 box, but the box at 74 was not doing as well. The chicks had
been getting their pin feathers and progressing but by banding day there
were only two left, and not looking strong. That nest eventually failed, as
the parents appeared to have left, most likely predated we assume. On May
10, the 63 box chicks were banded by Dave Brinker and Aaron Coolman, a grad
student from the Univ of Delaware. The youngest bird was not banded as it
was very small and not expected to survive. The female was banded, and
fitted with a GPS tracker. Mike was later to give her a name, Seneca, and
we had high hopes of following her movements for maybe another year, to
learn about migration patterns and breeding location next year.
Over the next 20 days the box at Shippenville had some ups and downs,
there was a rather extended cold and rainy period where it seemed the
adults weren't getting as much food. But while the female wasn't seen again
during daylight nest checks, an adult was still coming as seen on the cam
at night to deliver food. Eventually, three of the chicks did not survive,
eaten by their siblings, but towards the end of the month we found a mouse
in the box again so it seemed that there was a better food supply. We did
end up supplementing some mice just a couple of days, and by 5/25 you could
hear the young calling on the video as the adult left the nest and 5/26 one
of the young was peering out of the nest box entrance when Mike was
checking. The last check was 5/29 where both young looked well, and then
that night and 5/30, a lot of trail cam activity with a bird perched on the
cam and audible movement. That all ended by 1am 5/31 and there was no
further activity. Don and I checked the box 6/1 and it was empty with no
signs of trouble and no owls in the area. We believe they fledged that
evening of 5/30, and it was so gratifying to know they finally made it out
into the world.
The GPS tracker revealed that Seneca had stayed in the area within 0.6
miles or so of the box, often ranging off the game lands but sometimes
returning to that general area. Unfortunately the very sad part is that
after June 22 we no longer had movement on the tracker. Mike, Don and I
checked for several hours over a couple days and weren't able to locate
anything, as it was on private land in an area with thick understory and
then thick ground cover even in the more open areas. Aaron made the trip
and after searching did report that he had found what he believed were some
of her remains and feathers, but no tracker. So I guess we won't know for
sure but guessing that she was taken by a barred owl most likely. Not the
ending we wanted, but the whole adventure was quite the learning experience
for me, both good and bad. It was a privilege to share the lives of these
birds for a short while and while we never were able to determine if the
male had remained in the area, I will still hold out hope that the two
young birds were able to survive and maybe someday will show up in a mist
net some day, for Bob, or John, or Scott, or some other bander. That would
be the greatest end to the story ! My great thanks to everyone that made
this story possible. For those on Facebook I will be getting to a post
there in the next day or so hopefully where I will have some of the photos
of the whole saga.
(too long I know but hard for a long-winded person like me to get it all
written in less words..)
