About HOP
Owl Box Management Program
We are a non-profit organization. Please help us keep our Barn Owl Cams going by making a donation!
2010 Nicasio School Barn Owl Box - See Map
All three owlets are accounted for as of July 8, 2010!
We will post some information here, answers to questions, etc. The Ustream chat boxes only allow about two sentences at a time - kind of frustrating to use for answering questions that require a detailed answer. The Molly & McGee site has more bells and whistles - probably the site owner is using a paid-for premium version. That's not something we can probably do at this time as our funds are limited and donations are down for all non-profits during this time of economic crisis.
Here are two short videos showing the world outside the owl box. As you can see, they have a beautiful view. The video is very shaky, hope it doesn't make anyone sick!
Photos of the outside of the box taken by Nicasio School IT wizard, Mark Tong are here:
http://www.silyco.com/nicasioowlbox01.jpg
http://www.silyco.com/nicasioowlbox02.jpg
Here are some initial comments/answers to questions we've seen in the chat:
Where is the box?
Nicasio, Marin County, California. A beautiful part of West Marin County with lots of rolling hills, ranches, horse properties, farms, vineyards and small towns. The population of the town is small, but many tourists visit the area. There more cows and horses than people. It's perfect barn owl habitat and probably has among the highest number of barn owls in the San Francisco Bay Area. We have many owl boxes installed in Nicasio, mostly on private properties. The school is "downtown" Nicasio (which is about a block long!). The Hungry Owl Project put the box up three years ago and this is the first year owls have used it. Thanks to the staff of the school the camera is on Ustream. We no not have audio on the box. It may be possible to access the box and add it on later when the chicks are older and ready to be banded.. We monitor most of our boxes with pole cameras to peek in at certain times when it's safe to do without disrupting the nesting process.
Banding of the Nicasio Barn Owls - June 13, 2010
Banding is when a small metal "bracelet" is placed on a birds leg. Each has a unique number and an 800 number to call if the band is recovered (happens when bird is found dead or injured for the most part). Banding allows us to learn a lot about birds. When the owls are old enough that mom isn't roosting in the box anymore, but still young enough to not be ready to leave the box (approx. 4-6 weeks old), we can go in and take them out for a few minutes, weigh them, measure them, and band them. At that time we can make fixes to the box, like if the camera lens is dirty or something. It doesn't hurt the owls to do this. One of our volunteers, Anne Ardillo, is with the Golden Gate Raptor Observator, www.ggro.org, which has federal permits to band raptors. Some of you may watch the Peregrine Falcons in SF and have seen them get banded.
Here is information from Anne of Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, who did the banding, as well as a comment from here regarding the owls. The tarsus bone is measured in order to provide justification that the size band selected for each bird is appropriate for their leg:
1st owl Band # 1907-00040, tarsus depth 9.6, weight 518 grams
2nd owl Band #1907-00041, tarsus depth 9.1, weight 533 grams
3rd owl Band #1907-00042, tarsus depth 9.6, weight 613 grams
We can't age or sex them according to their weight and leg size especially these owls who were born so close together...They are in good health and their weight is normal to a bit high so parents have been feeding them well!
Weighing a Young Barn Owl - taking the weight helps determine that the owlet is in good health. The ideal weight range is known for various ages. The ideal time to band the owlets is at the age of 5-6 weeks. Their legs are adult size, yet they are not on the verge of fledgling, so banding them at this time is safe and just makes for an interesting day for them and for us.
Where will they branch & fledge to?
Good question since this box is on the side of a school building. Usually by the time of branching (owls are out of nest, can't really fly yet, but hoping around on tree branches and often returning to box) if an owl falls to the ground it is able to climb back up the tree trunk to its nest cavity by using its talons and wings. But if the box is on a pole or building and there are no trees close by, what then? We recommend that a pole box, or a box on a building, be no less than 30' from a large tree trunk that the owls could climb. We have interesting video from one of our boxes that is on a pole at a residential site. The last owl to leave the box fell to the ground and tried to climb the pole but only made it about 1/3 of the way up before losing its grip. It spent the next 24 hours on the ground and the next night flew to the top of the box. We are working on some design ideas to make it possible for the owls to climb the poles and get back to the safety of their box, but at the same time would not allow a predator like a raccoon to climb up. During its time on the ground the owl was vulnerable to predators. On the other hand, they do have some defenses that might deter some predators. A lot of times the owls will simply hang out on top of their box. They do that anyway, even when the box is on a tree (this is from another one of our owl cams):
That's probably what the Nicasio owls will do or they might end up on the roof of the school. If they do fall on the ground we have placed some branches and things to help them get back up, it is also possible for the parents to feed their chicks even if they are on the ground. The issue on the ground is, of course, predators. Once the owls are branching size they could scare off a fair number of predators, but still not an ideal situation for them to end up in! There are trees nearby, about half a football field away.
The fledging stage is when they actually start practicing flying and take short flights, sometimes not very gracefully. During these stages, the parents are still feeding them. As time goes on the owlets will gradually disperse from the area and fend for themselves. More than half will not survive their first year. But those that make it past the first year will be fit and able to reproduce to make more barn owls the during the next breeding season. Primary causes of death the first year include starvation, predation, car strikes. Primary causes of death in general for barn owls are, in no particular order: rodenticide poisoning, vehicle strikes, starvation, predation, loss of habitat, electrocution on power lines. Many raptors meet their death in these ways. Note that most of the causes listed are connected to human activity.
The Box
This is not our typical box, you can see those here. This one was given to us by a rancher we work with. It had a perch on the outside that went through to the back of the box. We cut the perch off the outside, perches give predators like the great horned owl a place to lurk, and cut part of it out inside the box. We decided to leave some of the perch since the box is so deep, but they really don't need perches, they have built in climbing spikes called talons. A camera was installed and there is no audio.
Disclaimer: we do not claim to know everything about barn owls. In fact, we learn a lot by watching the owl cams. We've had owl cams going for several years now, but this is the first year we've had live video streaming online, thanks to the IT consultant at the Nicasio School. We have watched lots of videos taken inside our owl boxes and the one thing we know for sure is that there is always more to learn about these amazing birds, and all creatures for that matter!