SCHIESS: Barn owls gather near Mud Lake

The owl almost flipped a summersault and dropped slowly into the four-inch deep snow, then wiggled its feet around as I tried to come to a screeching halt with the truck.

By the time I came to a halt on the snow covered road the Barn owl had the hapless vole in its beak and was flying to a fence post where it dropped the wiggling prey. I got a few shots as it mercifully killed the rodent and took it to the post, positioned it so the murderer could swallow it head first. Down the hatch it went with just the tail sticking out

The snow is deep near Mud Lake, too deep for harvesting voles in the fields so the Barn owls are trolling the elevated ditch banks where most of the snow has drifted off. There were 11 of these beautiful birds hunting and harvesting voles on a mile stretch of the ditch with four of them huddled on a patch of grass.

I had traveled to the area looking for hay stacks damaged by deer, elk and rabbits; those had been found and on most of the stacks Barn owls and an occasional Great-horned and Long-eared was snuggled close to the large bales. Around the base of some of the stacks had dead barn owls. While observing one owl, it tumbled off the bale; dead.

Area farmers are blaming the extreme cold and deep snow for the dying birds. One land owner took a tarp off a stack of hay and found six dead barn owls under the tarp.

Small rodents like voles, mice and gophers are critical food for barn owls during the winter and extreme cold and snow depth will hide this food source. This year a Christmas storm dumped almost a foot of snow on the ground and that was followed by extreme cold making both the owls and their prey hide to stay warm. Intermittent snow, melting and freezing has compounded the problem as the owls cannot break through the crust to get to their food.

Barn owls are nocturnal hunters and feeders, except when food is scare when they will feed day and night. While it was cold and the snow was soft, they were out in force both the day and night, but when it warmed up last Sunday and Monday, it appeared that many of them may have migrated to a friendlier area or they are feeding only at night.

These light colored owls can see in near total darkness, but their hearing is the best of any animal or bird that has been tested. Their ears are asymmetrically placed on their heads with one further forward than the other and one is higher than the other. This allows them to pinpoint the direction and height of a sound under the snow a hundred yards away.

Their drawback of hunting in snow is that they do not dive head first like the Great-gray owl does, but it flutters down trying to grab the prey with its four-inch legs and talons. The prey has to be within eight inches of the snow surface to be successful, while a Great Gray can harvest a rodent two feet under the snow.

During the last four years of mild winters, the Barn owl population has grown in the Mud Lake area. It will be interesting to visit the area this spring to see if they are nesting or if they have migrated even to nest in a new place.