Maggie's Farm

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Thursday, March 1. 2012

Owl of the week: Tyto alba

Tyto alba, the Barn Owl, has a huge geographical distribution:



 


I think of them as the nighttime version of the Marsh Hawk, because they like the wide open spaces, grasslands, fields, and marsh edges. They are not woodland birds.


I know we do not have them at the farm, because we have a hundred acres of meadow and a perfect barn loft open for them to use, and they have never used it. Plus there are hundreds more acres of horse field and cow pasture nearby. I think we're at the northern edge of their range. For owls, we have only Great Horned, Barred, and Screech as far as I know. Probably Saw-Whet in winter, but I haven't seen one there.


The last time I saw a Barn Owl was when one flew across the road in front of me at night in the headlights, between a marsh and some large estate fields in lovely Lloyd Harbor, Long Island. Lloyd Neck, actually.

Posted by Bird Dog in Natural History and Conservation, Our Essays at 17:17 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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Regarding owls did you happen to see the news that BO's Interior Dept. is planning on shooting the Barred Owls in a section of the Northwestern forests because they have been predating on the local Spotted Owls? The protection of these same Spotted Owls was the rationale years ago for preventing commercial lumber companies from harvesting timber from those forests.

I suspect that BO and his Interior Dept. have decided to pick winners and losers amongst these raptors because they are afraid that if the SO's are eliminated by natural selection then they will no longer have a rationale for keeping lumber companies out of the forest.

I thought progressives believed in and championed Darwin and natural selection, no?
#1 Verde on 2012-03-01 20:01 (Reply)
I expect the barred owl will get more sympathy then the timber communities, decimated by the environmental restrictions of the 80's and 90's.

Barn owls are lovely birds and a little spooky, seeing them suddenly in your headlights. Common here in the NW
#1.1 Marko on 2012-03-01 22:21 (Reply)
They ridicule notions such as "intelligent design" and insist they believe in evolution yet they refuse to let evolution happen and constantly try to "intelligently" design humans. What idiots. What maroons. What ignoramicuses.
#1.2 Knucklehead (Link) on 2012-03-02 16:13 (Reply)

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