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Be sure and look at the attached photo. - Perdita
CARQUINEZ STRAIT - Ma & Pa Owl wisely find hungry, relocated owlets
Demian Bulwa, SF Chronicle, May 31, 2004
There's a hoot of a family reunion going on 140 feet above the Carquinez Strait. On Wednesday, three baby barn owls were relocated from a nest on a pier built as part of the new Benicia-Martinez bridge project. Rather than delay construction, Caltrans biologists crafted an alternative abode in a nearly identical pipe 30 feet away.
But the owlets' mom and dad had trouble finding it. That is, until about 1:15 a.m. Saturday -- just hours before the birds, who can't survive long on their own, were scheduled to be taken to a wildlife hospital. Heartfelt hoots from the month-old chicks were answered.
The biologists rejoiced, and the baby owls were treated to at least six feedings that day of small rodents plucked by their parents from a salt marsh on the water's south side. "Very cool," said Chuck Morton, one of the biologists. "We hate to break up families."
The caper started when a Department of Transportation employee discovered the ghost-faced birds with white and rust-brown feathers last Monday afternoon. Common barn owls aren't endangered, but they could have halted bridge construction under the federal Migratory Bird Act. Instead, they were bundled into a warm cardboard box before dawn Wednesday and placed in a 3-foot-diameter pipe put up just for them.
Biologists fed the chicks mice Wednesday and Thursday night as the parents came achingly close -- just 8 to 10 feet from the new nest. If the family was separated for more than three days, Morton said, biologists would have had to take the young ones to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek.
Without parental guidance, Morton said, the owls could have starved or had trouble flying for the first time -- an act expected to happen in the next two or three weeks.
"When your nest is 140 feet in the air, you only get one chance," he said.
After they take flight, the owls also must be taught to hunt. Then, "they'll stake out their own territory," Morton said, and the temporary nest will be removed.
The reunited owls and owlets haven't been named.
"We didn't want to get that attached," Morton said.
CARQUINEZ STRAIT - Ma & Pa Owl wisely find hungry, relocated owlets
Demian Bulwa, SF Chronicle, May 31, 2004
There's a hoot of a family reunion going on 140 feet above the Carquinez Strait. On Wednesday, three baby barn owls were relocated from a nest on a pier built as part of the new Benicia-Martinez bridge project. Rather than delay construction, Caltrans biologists crafted an alternative abode in a nearly identical pipe 30 feet away.
But the owlets' mom and dad had trouble finding it. That is, until about 1:15 a.m. Saturday -- just hours before the birds, who can't survive long on their own, were scheduled to be taken to a wildlife hospital. Heartfelt hoots from the month-old chicks were answered.
The biologists rejoiced, and the baby owls were treated to at least six feedings that day of small rodents plucked by their parents from a salt marsh on the water's south side. "Very cool," said Chuck Morton, one of the biologists. "We hate to break up families."
The caper started when a Department of Transportation employee discovered the ghost-faced birds with white and rust-brown feathers last Monday afternoon. Common barn owls aren't endangered, but they could have halted bridge construction under the federal Migratory Bird Act. Instead, they were bundled into a warm cardboard box before dawn Wednesday and placed in a 3-foot-diameter pipe put up just for them.
Biologists fed the chicks mice Wednesday and Thursday night as the parents came achingly close -- just 8 to 10 feet from the new nest. If the family was separated for more than three days, Morton said, biologists would have had to take the young ones to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek.
Without parental guidance, Morton said, the owls could have starved or had trouble flying for the first time -- an act expected to happen in the next two or three weeks.
"When your nest is 140 feet in the air, you only get one chance," he said.
After they take flight, the owls also must be taught to hunt. Then, "they'll stake out their own territory," Morton said, and the temporary nest will be removed.
The reunited owls and owlets haven't been named.
"We didn't want to get that attached," Morton said.
Got a barn?"
