Barred Owl Strix varia
Case 4
Brancher with minor injuries in Leeds replaced by orphan brancher from Ohatchee
We headed back to Birmingham with the unlucky Ohatchee brancher, but stopped in Leeds, just east of Birmingham, to respond to a call that had just come in to the Wildlife Center’s Emergency Hotline.
A landowner reported that a huge oak tree had come down in his yard a few days earlier, and a young owl had been sitting in the same spot in the branches of the tree ever since the night the tree fell.
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Little
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The
property was right on the banks of the Little Cahaba River, with tall old trees
surrounding a large, grassy lawn and a19th century house, one of the first built
in the area. It was perfect Barred Owl habitat.
As soon as we got out of the car, we spotted both adult owls perched near a depressed-looking brancher still sitting in the branches of the huge fallen oak tree.
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The fact that the young bird was
sitting in the open, and had not changed its perch in three days suggested that
it might have suffered a concussion when the tree came down. I decided to take
it back to the Wildlife Center for a thorough physical exam. In a few days, if
the bird was behaving normally, we could bring it back and reunite it with its
parents. In the meantime, the adult birds could take care of the brancher from
Ohatchee, whose parents we had failed to locate. This would keep the adult birds
in their nesting mode until their own brancher could be returned, and it would
also give the Ohatchee juvenile the chance to fledge in the wild. Tim Leopard
placed the Ohatchee brancher on a secure perch about 15 feet above the ground,
and only about 20 feet away from where the big oak tree had fallen. There was
no need to use the recorded calls, since both adult birds were in plain view.
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Brancher in tree
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Two
days later we returned with the Leeds brancher, who had recovered from his
concussion and was now bright, alert, and reactive. While Tim used a ladder to
place the brancher on the same secure perch that he had used two days earlier, I
wandered around the large open area, scanning the trees for the Ohatchee
brancher. Sure enough, the young bird was visible about 50 feet away from the
perch where we had left him, high up in the tree canopy. As soon as the Leeds
brancher was securely perched, and Tim had removed the ladder, we played the
food-begging calls to draw the adult birds in, even though we knew they were
somewhere nearby. A minute or two later one of the adults flew directly to the
branch where the Ohatchee brancher was perched, as if it assumed that this was
the bird that was calling. As the calls continued from a point directly below
the other bird, the adult owl flew in and landed just a few feet away. A few
minutes later the other adult bird flew in and also perched nearby. Now the
owls had two juveniles to care for, and in such an ideal setting, it was clear
that they could handle the job.
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