A IS FOR AUGUST, O IS FOR OWL

Skyler does his rounds early one August morning

The setting sun has already begun its arc back toward winter, as far away as that seems right now.  The grass grew as high as six or seven feet in places before it was mowed, which happened only a couple of days ago.  We liked having it high, as long as there were short-grass paths for walking.  It was interesting, too, looking for flattened areas of the grass where deer had clearly been moving or sleeping.  (Maybe now that the grass is short I will actually see the deer.)  Immediately after the mowing was done four or five turkey vultures soared over the field, occasionally landing to pick up a morsel – some small animal that didn’t survive the mowing.  I have no doubt many more shared that fate.  On an evening walk the same day Skyler found a dead mouse within minutes.  (He carried it for a few yards, then “buried” it beneath another pile of hay.)  A day later he found two more scraps of, well, flesh.  It doesn’t make for happy thoughts about the collateral damage when farmers mow early in the summer.  

Early morning fog lay everywhere

On our porch, the swallows, having long since fledged their early summer offspring, to our surprise are now busy feeding a second batch.  At least one of the nests has been as busy as ever, judging from the expanding poop pile underneath.  This time around it looks like there are another four or five chicks, reusing the same nest.  This winter we will leave the nest and find out whether it will be used a third time.  

One of the second set of chicks (there are at least three more behind).  Their heads are all mouth. 

On the subject of nests, we were also surprised by an enormous wasp nest that grew on the eaves of the screened porch without our noticing until a loud slamming of the screen door caused an uproar around the nest, a little too close for comfort.  Although paper wasps are beneficial (they eat flies and beetle larvae as well as nectar) we had to demolish the nest.

 

The wasp nest, in pieces, one larva on unrelated leaf (center)

Three differentiated tiers made up the interior

Author Chris Bohjalian who lives in Lincoln, VT wrote an article early this summer for the Burlington Free Press about Juliana Parker and her wildlife rehabilitation center here on Otter Creek Road after he brought her a young injured grackle he rescued.   In his words:

“The grackle was one of over 50 birds and small mammals that Julianna told me she was caring for the Sunday I brought the animal to her home. She is often assisted by her 16-year-old daughter, Sophia. When I asked, I learned that under the pair's wings were blue jays, pigeons, woodpeckers, tree swallows, ravens, and a slightly older grackle. They also mentioned chipmunks, cottontails, and even a baby weasel. Julianna has dedicated different rooms in her home to animals in different stages of recovery, but she also groups them in some cases by how likely they are to get along as they mend. The grackle I brought her wound up rehabbing with a fledgling blue jay that had been hit by a car and a slightly younger grackle that had been caught by a dog. ‘The three of them snuggle together. They perch together. They are a very sweet extended foster family,’ Juliana told me.”

The bird and small animal area of Juliana Parker's wildlife rehab center/home

I can think of many people who might not take the trouble to rehabilitate a grackle.  But Juliana is not one of them.  I can think of many more people who would not take the trouble to rehabilitate pigeons.  The fact that an easy dozen long-ago-discharged rehab patients return to sit on the roof of her home visually attests to her ministrations. 

Wildlife Rehab Center campers (Ben and Audrey in front row; Juliana standing in background, left)

Granddaughter Audrey who hopes to become a vet some day, has been volunteering for a while now  at Juliana’s center.*  Both Audrey and her brother Ben spent a week in a type of  “wildlife rehab camp” here.  The center is in fact a home, a people home, although if you lived there this fact might be debatable.   What could have been a living room is totally dedicated to animals.  There are cages from one end to the other sitting on a rug of straw, and birds fly to and fro from an enclosed porch area at one end.  Other parts of the house (the people part) are dotted with cages and cat carriers.  Cats and kittens are everywhere.

Juliana Parker is, I am told, the only wildlife person in VT licensed to care for pigeons as well

Outreach for Earth Stewardship director Craig Newman and a screech owl

I had never seen a screech owl.  But I had heard one.  Every night for a week or more in early summer for two or three years in a row a noise awoke me in the night.  It was an odd periodic monotonal trilling that went on for what seemed like hours.  I couldn’t get back to sleep for imagining what it was.  I thought it must be made by an insect.  On the other hand, it would have to be a really large insect.   But what?  

If you were a mouse, this small screech owl would be as fearsome as they come.  

A few years later, when we were living in Vermont, I researched owl sounds on the internet, having heard so many nighttime owl sounds.  It was only then that I realized it was the sound of a screech owl.  The morning I was at Juliana’s Craig Newman of Outreach for Earth Stewardship was her guest, coming to speak to the week’s campers.  He brought with him two owls, a barred owl and a screech owl.  Sadly, both hit by cars a few years ago and thereafter unable to be returned to the wild.  (The number of animal whose injuries were caused by cars hardly bears thinking about.)

Barred owl, up close, was hit by a car several years ago, and unable to return to the wild.

Those lethal claws (to rodents, anyway) 

Barred owls are common here and, because of their size, far easier to see than screech owls.  In fact I photographed one about a year ago on a nearby tree.  We often hear them calling from the edge of our field, “Who cooks for you?  Who, Who cooks for you?

And, once again, we have been visited by a great blue heron.

This heron spent nearly half an hour perched on this railing.

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*Burlington Free Press, July 6, 2014

**Julianna Parker is one of 17 wildlife rehabilitators licensed by Vermont's Fish and Wildlife Department.

***For screech owl sounds, see the Cornell Lab of Ornithology site:         http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/eastern_screech-owl/sounds