Uploaded July 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
I always go out in the late, late evening after everyone has settled and try to scare the fledges off the gourd arms. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing the right thing, because if they stay put on the arms, the owl can't catch them.
On the other hand, she can catch them if they roost in nearby trees. This was the night of the torrential rain on 7/16/2021. The owl left after 45 minutes of rain, and sometime during that period, a fledge that was on the left-facing lower arm of the middle gourd rack (huddled against the pole), either lost its footing, or got pushed down by the rain, on to the net and made an unfortunate choice to stay perched there. After the rain cleared, the owl came back, saw the new fledge there and, after planning her attack path (you can see the fledge on the net at timestamp 01:54 AM), moved from the post to the yard and launched her attack, grabbing the bird off the bottom net at 1:56 AM.
This is a hard video to watch because you can see the bird's wing flapping under the owl's feet. She takes it away to eat it. Fortunately, after 2 nights of stalking my colony this is the only one she has caught at my site. IF they would just stay inside the cages, away from the edges, they would remain safe. The owl returned 3 hours later and kept stalking / waiting for another mistake until dawn, so apparently, even after eating one, they will return at least once...maybe more often during the night, indicating to me that, without cages, this owl would have wiped out my colony by now.
As it is, with the cages, I'm at 81 pair this year and have maintained that since the first attacks in 2014.
I always go out in the late, late evening after everyone has settled and try to scare the fledges off the gourd arms. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing the right thing, because if they stay put on the arms, the owl can't catch them.
On the other hand, she can catch them if they roost in nearby trees. This was the night of the torrential rain on 7/16/2021. The owl left after 45 minutes of rain, and sometime during that period, a fledge that was on the left-facing lower arm of the middle gourd rack (huddled against the pole), either lost its footing, or got pushed down by the rain, on to the net and made an unfortunate choice to stay perched there. After the rain cleared, the owl came back, saw the new fledge there and, after planning her attack path (you can see the fledge on the net at timestamp 01:54 AM), moved from the post to the yard and launched her attack, grabbing the bird off the bottom net at 1:56 AM.
This is a hard video to watch because you can see the bird's wing flapping under the owl's feet. She takes it away to eat it. Fortunately, after 2 nights of stalking my colony this is the only one she has caught at my site. IF they would just stay inside the cages, away from the edges, they would remain safe. The owl returned 3 hours later and kept stalking / waiting for another mistake until dawn, so apparently, even after eating one, they will return at least once...maybe more often during the night, indicating to me that, without cages, this owl would have wiped out my colony by now.
As it is, with the cages, I'm at 81 pair this year and have maintained that since the first attacks in 2014.
