October 24, 2023 • 20 mins
Marion County Naturalist, James Anderson, joined the show to help us discover The Owls of Marion Ohio. He talked about the different species, where and how they live and what they sound like. Plus he highlighted the Park District's upcoming events, including Saturday's annual Trail of Treats at Tallgrass Trail.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Joining me today is James Anderson fromthe Marion County Park District. He is
the Marion County Naturalist and James isgetting ready for a huge event on Saturday,
as well as some other things aswell. James, how are you
walking to the show? Oh?I am wonderful. Paul, it is
good to see you've got your TrailerTreats coming up. Marion County Park Districts
seventh annual Trailer Treats is this Saturday. Why don't you tell everybody the details
(00:23):
so they can come out. Yeah, So Trailer Treats is our trick or
treat efense. So people slash kids. They come out to the Marion Sallgrass
Trail and then what we'll do isthey'll start at the trailhead and they'll start
on the right side of the trailand they'll walk down. We usually go
to about the half mile mark,sometimes a little before then, just depends
on how many people we get topass out candy, and then whoever's the
(00:45):
last person on the right then theycome back on the other side. Okay,
So that's kind of the logistics ofeverything. But it's really really well
attended. It's our largest event thatwe do paleontology in the park is number
two. But last year we hadlittle under twelve hundred people and with kids
wise, we had a little overfive hundred, so a lot a lot
(01:06):
of people come out. So withthat in mind, you know the parking
situation, you know, we don'thave the largest parking lot you know,
in the world, so yes,you may have to park on the road
and some people may have to walka little bit, so just please please
be patient. We were very fortunatethat a lot of people in the community
stepped up and say hey, Iwill help, So just again, please
(01:29):
be patient with those volunteers. Andyou're still accepting folks who might want to
pass out treats for their organization orjust because they want to pass out treats.
Tell them how they do that.Yeah, So, since we have
a few days still left, ifyou guys want to come out pass candy,
we just ask you bring your owncandy. And again we can have
between three to five hundred kids,and make sure you hand the piece of
(01:52):
candy to the children because if youlet them, of course, you know
you get some of those kids thatlike grabbing a whole bunch surely, and
also to just make sure you bringa lawn chair or something because you know
you're going to be out there fora few hours. Yeah, but if
you're interested, I've still contact uson our Marion Tallgrass Trail Facebook page.
That way you can get a holdof us. And we're asking for the
(02:15):
volunteers slash people who are passing outcandy to arrive at the trailhead by one
point thirty. I'll have them parkin another spot and then the event starts
at three and again ends at fiveo'clock pm. Excellent, And I know
a lot of people just bring likewagons and stuff. They'll put a couple
of chairs in there, run theirwagon down with their little setup and they
pass things out once again. Itis Marion County Park histrink seventh annual Trail
(02:38):
of Treats. It is tall GrassTrail this Saturday from three until five.
You can get details by checking outtall Grass Trail on Facebook. All those
details are up there. Plus youcan reach out to James if you're interested
in helping to pass out candy andtreats and doing things like that. It's
such a great event, but itis a ton of work, Yes,
yes it is. James is likeyou know all about doing events. Yes,
(02:58):
I did a few of my days. They are fun. Now,
we want to talk a little bitabout owls today, and you even want
to you want to have some owlsounds so people can know if they've got
an owl around them. Talk alittle bit about this. Yeah, So
we have about two hundred and fiftyowls here in the world, and out
of that number, there's about eightof them that call Ohio home. And
(03:19):
I just want to briefly talk aboutsome of the cool adaptations or cool features
that owls have that make them veryspecial predators. And I brought some pictures
just to kind of show you,so a little show and tell. So,
of course, the eyes are verylarge. And what's actually interesting about
owl's eyes they're not eyeballs. They'retube shape. So you know how you
and I can look left and right, Well, owls cannot do that.
So one of the reasons why they'realways bobbing their heads is they're trying to
(03:44):
triangulate, you know, their surroundings. Right, So if we actually have
the eyes like an owl, oureyes would be as big as softballs,
Oh wow, coming out of ourheads. So of course I'm in these
large eyes they're able to see detailin the dark enfirement. So that's very
important for these creatures because we usedto think that owls use their sense of
site to find their prey, whichthey do, but they actually use hearing.
(04:08):
Hearing is actually the most important thing. And if you're not familiar with
birds, all right, yes theydo have ears, but their ears a
little bit different from you and I. They do have the ear canal and
the earhole. They don't have theexternal flappy skin that we see on us
humans or other mammals, and sothese guys can hear four times greater than
us, and so it's actually cool. Some species of owls, like barn
(04:29):
owls, they have like a facialdisc kind of like the old satellite dish,
kind of like what's in front ofyour radio station, and they actual
channel in the sounds. And what'sactually interesting, most owl species have asymmetrical
ear canals, so that means theyhave one ear canal up kind of towards
the top of their skull and theother one's kind of more in their neck
region. Okay, And so what'scool about that is if the sound reaches
(04:50):
to the left ear before the rightear, it tells that the prey is
directly underneath and vice versa tells thatthe prey or whatever is directly above them.
And so what scientists, again,they used to the thought site was
the main sense that they used.But actually they put owls in a dark
room. They put like maybe twoor three owls, and they put about
fifty mice, and out of thatthey captured all the mice. And they
(05:14):
found out again that hearing is whatthat these creatures are doing. Wow,
Now when the owl and they areattacking their prey rather than from a mouse
to a rabbit or anything like that. Of course, they have their long
toes the talons. All right,that's going to do a lot of that,
you know, the killing. Butactually a lot of people don't realize,
especially the larger owl species, theyactually do have very large legs.
(05:36):
And so what they do is theypounce on top really really hard. And
even if you had a great hornedowln that's not really attacking. Even if
they were just standing on your shoulder, they still could dig deep inside,
even into your bone layer. That'show powerful. It's about two hundred pounds
per square inch of pressure. Andso the reason why they want to do
(05:57):
it really fast because think about it, like, if you're a rabbits,
all right, you're the rabbit.An owl attacks you but doesn't kill you
instantly. What's the first thing therabbit's gonna do. It's going to attack
it. And so they want tomake sure, you know, that that
prey item dies quickly because if theyget bit, of course, there's a
chance of getting infection and other things. So that's you know, not good
for the ol. And if wehad an owl right now, that was
(06:21):
just flu right by us and wedidn't see it, or we wouldn't even
hear it. They are silent flyers. Wow. And what's makes them the
silent flyers. It's a couple ofthings. If you ever feel an ol
feather, they're really soft, theyactually feel like velvet, and the actually
it's like a sponge. It actuallyhelps assort some of the air around them.
Also too, I know it's kindof hard to see, but on
(06:42):
the kind of the edge of theprimary feathers, right, they have these
kind of these teeth they're called fringes, and they travel they are traveled through
the feather. You ever heard likea chicken or a duck or turkey,
you know how they flap their wingsand you hear that, right, If
you did that to an owl,you would not hear a thing. Even
with our most current technology, withthe most high TICH microphones, we cannot
(07:03):
detect any sounds. But there's acatch, as I mentioned, as the
owl feathers is like a sponge ofsorbs air. Well, guess what else.
It absorbs a lot water. Soif you get a rainy day,
it weighs them down very hard,so they can't fly very well. And
so that's why on a rainy day, you know you're not going to see
(07:24):
or hear any owls. And kindof give a little story. Last month,
I did my night hike and Ihad about fifteen people, and I
would say more than three fourths ofmy crowd was facing in front of me,
and I had one family that wasfacing behind me. And one of
the experiments we do is we callin for ols. I use my little
boom box player, and we kepthearing this out. He was getting closer
(07:45):
and closer and closer. Finally hekind of stopped for a moment and I
knew he was in within the vicinity, and so as I kept trying to
call in more, this owl flewright behind my back. I didn't know
it, but the family behind methey could feel the wing, they could
feel the air go, and ofcourse they're like, oh my gosh.
Yeah, I'm like what And thenwe shine the flashlight ray above, and
(08:09):
sure enough, this little owls rayabove us, but direct. Again,
the owl was literally right behind myback, and I had no idea,
no idea. So it's kind offunny when you call in owls. Owls
are they're not the most intelligent speciesof bird. But you know how we
say you're wis as an owl.That's kind of a misconception because if you
(08:31):
had a scale from the most intelligentbird species to the least, your most
intelligent are like crows and ravens andthose African gray parrots. I mean,
those guys can recognize colors and theycan mimic voices. But the owls are
the other end of the spectrum becausewith the eyes. Forgot to mention that
the eyes take up about seventy toalmost eighty percent of the skull space,
(08:52):
so it only leaves about ten totwenty percent for brain capacity. Oh wow,
So yeah, I'm not saying owlsare stupid. We're just saying,
owls again, are just not themost intelligent. That's why they actually can
be fooled very easy. Even viaa dog bark, I can set some
owls off. So when you're callingfor owls, you're basically starting a turf
(09:13):
war. So the owls here init and saying that, oh, this
is my territory, and what you'rebasically saying is no, this is my
territory. They all go back andforth and back and forth, and sometimes
owls will do that all night long. So those are coin of some of
the cool features of adaptations that owlshave. Okay, so now I just
want to talk about some of theowls that call Ohio home. So I'm
(09:35):
not going to go over all eightof them. I want to talk about
some of the ones that we canfind here in Marion County. And as
Paul mentioned, what I'm going todo is I'll give some couple of fun
facts about these owls, and thenI will use my phone and put it
up to the microphone and we'll seeif this works. So, because when
you hear about owls, you thinkof the sound as they all hoot,
some of them do. But asI was telling Paul, earlier that No,
(09:58):
not all owls give a hoot.So the most common species is the
Eastern screech out. So these guysare cute. They're a little bit bigger
than a pop can. And whatmakes them very successful a their size,
but B is their diet. Theseguys can eat up to one hundred and
twenty three different things that we havedocumented here in Ohio from small mammals to
(10:20):
birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects. So because having that very
fast diet, you know, they'revery very adaptable. Now, of course,
you know they want to be moreof a woodland setting, but yes,
you could even find these guys indowntown Marion if you had a very
large mature tree, especially has someholes or cavities on it. I guarantee
you probably have a screech out inor nearby that tree. Wow. Also
(10:41):
too, you know a lot oftimes they end up in annex or old
garages or things like that. Soagain they're not very big owl, so
again they can fit in in alot of smaller spaces some than your bigger
owl species. But the picture I'mshowing has a gray and a red,
so here in central Ohio we onlymainly give the but more like Hawking Hills,
(11:01):
they get more of the reds andkind of rain. That middle ground
they kind of get both. Soagain, if you're around Hawking Hills State
Park and you see a screech owl, they're just more of that that red
coloration. They're really really pretty.So within their name the screech owl,
they do make kind of a screechingsound, but the one famous call is
called whiny or trills sound. Sowe're gonna see how this goes. Okay,
(11:35):
that's awesome. Yeah, and Iactually can do my own imitation with
this. My college professor at HackingCollege, he told us what you can
do just get kind of a littlespit or saliva in your mouth and kind
of till back and go and yeahit h And like I said, because
they're not the most intelligent, theythink, oh that's another So they're again
(11:56):
very very easy to fool. Sothe other ol species you can find here
in Marion County is probably my favoriteal species is this guy's called the bar
at awl. So within their name, it looks like they have bars across
their chests, and I always saya cool way to identify them as they
have those very dark pupils and theireyes and say, it looks like they're
staring into your soul versus the otheral species will have a little bit more
(12:18):
coloration into their eyes. But theseguys you will find mainly enforested areas that
have rivers or creeks running through.So especially if you're near the only tangy
the Iota River, that's a reallygood place to find them. So are
one Park at Teradise. We dohave quite a few that fly and nest
around that area. Also to someparts of tall Grass Trail. If you're
(12:39):
more between miles three and five,you'll find these guys more often and their
favorite. They're one of the reasonwhy they're my favorite because of their call.
And the call is who cooks foryou? Or who cooks for you?
All? My joke is nobody.So here's myself. So this is
what they sound like. Good,And here I'll actually I want to show
(13:09):
you what a pair sounds like.Okay, that's fascinating. Oh yeah.
So the other owl species you'll findacross Marion County. This is our largest
owl species. This is the greathorned olm, and these guys can get
(13:31):
up to about five pounds, SoI know it sounds like to us,
but in the bird world, that'skind of pretty heavy for a bird.
Sure, but these guys are ferociouspredators. I mean, we talked about
how the guests are going after someof the smaller mammals, but these guys
are kind of going after the largermammals. Now. No, nothing like
a white tailed deer or anything likethat, but raccoons opossums. But actually
(13:52):
one of their favorite foods is skunks. Really and see, owls including most
birds, do not have a senseof taste or smell or it's very very
small versus gulls and faultures do.So if they get sprayed, they don't
care. You ever had an instantin life where you were sitting at your
house or your car and all ofa sudden you smell that skunk smell and
(14:13):
then it went away twenty minutes latersomething like that, and you're like,
wow, that's weird. What itcould have been. I'm not saying always,
but what it could have been,it was a great horn. Now
they got sprayed and just flew throughyour area. Oh okay, so possibly
possibly so Now they do have thetraditional houtine sound, So this is what
(14:33):
they sound like. Okay, sodeep it is, yeah, and kind
of talking about that. You canactually distinguished boy and girls on the Great
horn Nows by their hoots. Sothe deeper it is, it's more of
(14:56):
a female and the males is alittle bit a little bit lighter. Also,
two females who about six to seventimes males are about four to five.
So my little joke is I said, the girls just have more to
say. Yes. So also twoOne owl species that's actually very rare in
Ohio is this guy is called thebarn owl. And the barn how is
(15:20):
actually not indigenous originally in Ohio,so not native because most of Ohio was
forested. Now, I know,Marion County was mainly open prairie region,
but when we came in, wedestroyed a lot of that natural landscape.
These guys cided the move into Ohio. So they think the first Ohio record
with the barn now was in eighteensixty one. So I'm going to test
(15:43):
you your history. What else happenedin eighteen sixty one here in the country,
something really big? Well, wehad the Civil War, that's right.
So the year the Civil War yupstarted was the year that the barn
Owl. The first Ohio record ofthe barn ow came and they think it
was around the Cincinnati region, sosouthwestern Ohio, And there was a document
a year or two ago here atTallgrass Trail. I was one of the
(16:03):
farmers. He took a picture andhe sent it to me. But they
are considered a threatened species, soit means they're population's not doing the greatest.
So you know, like Purple Martins, you know you see those those
houses and people's yards and all that. Well, Purple Martins and barn How's,
they are so used to humans helpingthem out. They're just so they're
basically they're not going to really maketheir own structure. So that's why within
(16:27):
their name Barnow's they hang out inold barns, old buildings. Well,
in today's world, we don't reallysee that too often, especially here in
Ohio. Now if you go inthe southern US, that's kind of a
different story there, especially like Kentucky. I know there's a lot of abandoned
barns out in those neck of thewoods. So we do have a small
pocket population in southern Ohio, butagain more in central Ohio, it's very
(16:51):
rare, but we actually have reallygreat habitat for him because Big Island is
a really good area because they lovebig prairie opening areas. So maybe if
one day, if a farmer decideto put a barn owl box and encourage
them, we could have a decentbarnow population in our county. So one
more, I just want to talkabout that this guy is not a regular.
(17:11):
This guy is a visitor. Thisis called the short ear owl and
this guy is from up in northernUnited States Canada region, and we get
some bird species that migrate to Ohioduring the winter season because they like the
cold, but they don't like itwhere it's really cold, which you know
up in Canada it is, soI know, it's crazy how most birds
(17:32):
go down south to keep warm,And of course there are some birds that
like it in more and cooler areas. So if you're around the Big Island
Wildlife a area, especially now andthroughout the winter season, you will see
these guys. And they're really coolbecause this species a little bit different from
most owls because one reason is thereare more ground nesters versus most owls like
(17:52):
to nest up in trees, andalso too that the short ear owl can
actually be more active during the daytimeversus most owl species are active at night
times. So I'll let you listento one more sound and then I guess
we'll move on to programs. Butthis is a let's call a hoots from
the mail wow. So as youcan see that again, all owls give
(18:25):
a hoots. And you can findthese sounds of course online. Of course,
if you go on YouTube, there'sa lot of different things you can
find. Also to the Audubon birdapp. It's free to download, it's
free to use. I know mostof these sounds came from that, so
yeah, check it out and you'llreally be interested of all the sounds and
al can make what great stuff.I love that. Why don't you grab
(18:48):
your calendar, we'll talk about someof the events you have coming up into
next month. Yeah, so inNovember we got quite a few programs coming
up. So on the second,at four o'clock PM, we have an
animal tracking program at the Myerswoods Natureperson so we're going to be learning how
to identify some different animal tracks.On the eighth, at five o'clock PM,
we're doing a sunset hike at TallgrassTrail starting at the Herd Road parking
(19:10):
lot, so we're going to strollaround the lake and see what kinds of
wildlife we can find. That's agood time to see our beaver friends.
On the eleventh, from one tofour pm, we will be part of
the Drug Free Marion's Fall Festival eventthat's at the Fairgrounds and the Memorial Coliseum,
so come check us out. Onthe twelve from eleven am to three
(19:30):
pm, we're part of the Findingthe Impossible event. It's kind of where
the cat Sanctuary is there on MarionWaldo Row. I believe the address is
one seven five to five Marrion WaldoRoad, Marion, Ohio. So check
us out. On the fifteenth atfour thirty pm, we're doing a fall
hike at the Teradyce Nature Preserve.So we're just going to stroll around and
(19:51):
see all the beautiful scenery at theTeradyce Nature Preserve. On the twentieth,
we're doing a morning bird watching programat Myers Woods at eight o'clock. I
know sounds early, but hey,that's when a lot of the birds are
active. And then the last programfor November, we're doing a terrific Turkey
program at the Tall Grass Trail atthe trailhead starting at five o'clock PM.
So we're just going to be talkingabout how this magnificent bird that we celebrate
(20:14):
during the Thanksgiving season, learn abouttheir ecology and the history of maybe on
how it almost became the national bird. But we're going to learn about the
myth and legend behind that. Whatgreat stuff. And James Anderson, thank
you so much, the naturalist forthe Marion County Park District, joining us
today talking about owls and all theowl sounds and how you can get your
own birding app absolutely free. Ilove that once again. Trail of Treats
(20:37):
coming up this Saturday. You'll findit from three to five on October twenty
eighth at Tall Grass Trail. Youcan get details by checking out the Marion
County Park District Tall Grass Trail allon Facebook and you can learn more about
all of that. If you're justfinding this podcast, make sure you hit
follow every time we post one.You'll get a notification right on your phone.
Joining me today is James Anderson fromthe Marion County Park District. He is
the Marion County Naturalist and James isgetting ready for a huge event on Saturday,
as well as some other things aswell. James, how are you
walking to the show? Oh?I am wonderful. Paul, it is
good to see you've got your TrailerTreats coming up. Marion County Park Districts
seventh annual Trailer Treats is this Saturday. Why don't you tell everybody the details
(00:23):
so they can come out. Yeah, So Trailer Treats is our trick or
treat efense. So people slash kids. They come out to the Marion Sallgrass
Trail and then what we'll do isthey'll start at the trailhead and they'll start
on the right side of the trailand they'll walk down. We usually go
to about the half mile mark,sometimes a little before then, just depends
on how many people we get topass out candy, and then whoever's the
(00:45):
last person on the right then theycome back on the other side. Okay,
So that's kind of the logistics ofeverything. But it's really really well
attended. It's our largest event thatwe do paleontology in the park is number
two. But last year we hadlittle under twelve hundred people and with kids
wise, we had a little overfive hundred, so a lot a lot
(01:06):
of people come out. So withthat in mind, you know the parking
situation, you know, we don'thave the largest parking lot you know,
in the world, so yes,you may have to park on the road
and some people may have to walka little bit, so just please please
be patient. We were very fortunatethat a lot of people in the community
stepped up and say hey, Iwill help, So just again, please
(01:29):
be patient with those volunteers. Andyou're still accepting folks who might want to
pass out treats for their organization orjust because they want to pass out treats.
Tell them how they do that.Yeah, So, since we have
a few days still left, ifyou guys want to come out pass candy,
we just ask you bring your owncandy. And again we can have
between three to five hundred kids,and make sure you hand the piece of
(01:52):
candy to the children because if youlet them, of course, you know
you get some of those kids thatlike grabbing a whole bunch surely, and
also to just make sure you bringa lawn chair or something because you know
you're going to be out there fora few hours. Yeah, but if
you're interested, I've still contact uson our Marion Tallgrass Trail Facebook page.
That way you can get a holdof us. And we're asking for the
(02:15):
volunteers slash people who are passing outcandy to arrive at the trailhead by one
point thirty. I'll have them parkin another spot and then the event starts
at three and again ends at fiveo'clock pm. Excellent, And I know
a lot of people just bring likewagons and stuff. They'll put a couple
of chairs in there, run theirwagon down with their little setup and they
pass things out once again. Itis Marion County Park histrink seventh annual Trail
(02:38):
of Treats. It is tall GrassTrail this Saturday from three until five.
You can get details by checking outtall Grass Trail on Facebook. All those
details are up there. Plus youcan reach out to James if you're interested
in helping to pass out candy andtreats and doing things like that. It's
such a great event, but itis a ton of work, Yes,
yes it is. James is likeyou know all about doing events. Yes,
(02:58):
I did a few of my days. They are fun. Now,
we want to talk a little bitabout owls today, and you even want
to you want to have some owlsounds so people can know if they've got
an owl around them. Talk alittle bit about this. Yeah, So
we have about two hundred and fiftyowls here in the world, and out
of that number, there's about eightof them that call Ohio home. And
(03:19):
I just want to briefly talk aboutsome of the cool adaptations or cool features
that owls have that make them veryspecial predators. And I brought some pictures
just to kind of show you,so a little show and tell. So,
of course, the eyes are verylarge. And what's actually interesting about
owl's eyes they're not eyeballs. They'retube shape. So you know how you
and I can look left and right, Well, owls cannot do that.
So one of the reasons why they'realways bobbing their heads is they're trying to
(03:44):
triangulate, you know, their surroundings. Right, So if we actually have
the eyes like an owl, oureyes would be as big as softballs,
Oh wow, coming out of ourheads. So of course I'm in these
large eyes they're able to see detailin the dark enfirement. So that's very
important for these creatures because we usedto think that owls use their sense of
site to find their prey, whichthey do, but they actually use hearing.
(04:08):
Hearing is actually the most important thing. And if you're not familiar with
birds, all right, yes theydo have ears, but their ears a
little bit different from you and I. They do have the ear canal and
the earhole. They don't have theexternal flappy skin that we see on us
humans or other mammals, and sothese guys can hear four times greater than
us, and so it's actually cool. Some species of owls, like barn
(04:29):
owls, they have like a facialdisc kind of like the old satellite dish,
kind of like what's in front ofyour radio station, and they actual
channel in the sounds. And what'sactually interesting, most owl species have asymmetrical
ear canals, so that means theyhave one ear canal up kind of towards
the top of their skull and theother one's kind of more in their neck
region. Okay, And so what'scool about that is if the sound reaches
(04:50):
to the left ear before the rightear, it tells that the prey is
directly underneath and vice versa tells thatthe prey or whatever is directly above them.
And so what scientists, again,they used to the thought site was
the main sense that they used.But actually they put owls in a dark
room. They put like maybe twoor three owls, and they put about
fifty mice, and out of thatthey captured all the mice. And they
(05:14):
found out again that hearing is whatthat these creatures are doing. Wow,
Now when the owl and they areattacking their prey rather than from a mouse
to a rabbit or anything like that. Of course, they have their long
toes the talons. All right,that's going to do a lot of that,
you know, the killing. Butactually a lot of people don't realize,
especially the larger owl species, theyactually do have very large legs.
(05:36):
And so what they do is theypounce on top really really hard. And
even if you had a great hornedowln that's not really attacking. Even if
they were just standing on your shoulder, they still could dig deep inside,
even into your bone layer. That'show powerful. It's about two hundred pounds
per square inch of pressure. Andso the reason why they want to do
(05:57):
it really fast because think about it, like, if you're a rabbits,
all right, you're the rabbit.An owl attacks you but doesn't kill you
instantly. What's the first thing therabbit's gonna do. It's going to attack
it. And so they want tomake sure, you know, that that
prey item dies quickly because if theyget bit, of course, there's a
chance of getting infection and other things. So that's you know, not good
for the ol. And if wehad an owl right now, that was
(06:21):
just flu right by us and wedidn't see it, or we wouldn't even
hear it. They are silent flyers. Wow. And what's makes them the
silent flyers. It's a couple ofthings. If you ever feel an ol
feather, they're really soft, theyactually feel like velvet, and the actually
it's like a sponge. It actuallyhelps assort some of the air around them.
Also too, I know it's kindof hard to see, but on
(06:42):
the kind of the edge of theprimary feathers, right, they have these
kind of these teeth they're called fringes, and they travel they are traveled through
the feather. You ever heard likea chicken or a duck or turkey,
you know how they flap their wingsand you hear that, right, If
you did that to an owl,you would not hear a thing. Even
with our most current technology, withthe most high TICH microphones, we cannot
(07:03):
detect any sounds. But there's acatch, as I mentioned, as the
owl feathers is like a sponge ofsorbs air. Well, guess what else.
It absorbs a lot water. Soif you get a rainy day,
it weighs them down very hard,so they can't fly very well. And
so that's why on a rainy day, you know you're not going to see
(07:24):
or hear any owls. And kindof give a little story. Last month,
I did my night hike and Ihad about fifteen people, and I
would say more than three fourths ofmy crowd was facing in front of me,
and I had one family that wasfacing behind me. And one of
the experiments we do is we callin for ols. I use my little
boom box player, and we kepthearing this out. He was getting closer
(07:45):
and closer and closer. Finally hekind of stopped for a moment and I
knew he was in within the vicinity, and so as I kept trying to
call in more, this owl flewright behind my back. I didn't know
it, but the family behind methey could feel the wing, they could
feel the air go, and ofcourse they're like, oh my gosh.
Yeah, I'm like what And thenwe shine the flashlight ray above, and
(08:09):
sure enough, this little owls rayabove us, but direct. Again,
the owl was literally right behind myback, and I had no idea,
no idea. So it's kind offunny when you call in owls. Owls
are they're not the most intelligent speciesof bird. But you know how we
say you're wis as an owl.That's kind of a misconception because if you
(08:31):
had a scale from the most intelligentbird species to the least, your most
intelligent are like crows and ravens andthose African gray parrots. I mean,
those guys can recognize colors and theycan mimic voices. But the owls are
the other end of the spectrum becausewith the eyes. Forgot to mention that
the eyes take up about seventy toalmost eighty percent of the skull space,
(08:52):
so it only leaves about ten totwenty percent for brain capacity. Oh wow,
So yeah, I'm not saying owlsare stupid. We're just saying,
owls again, are just not themost intelligent. That's why they actually can
be fooled very easy. Even viaa dog bark, I can set some
owls off. So when you're callingfor owls, you're basically starting a turf
(09:13):
war. So the owls here init and saying that, oh, this
is my territory, and what you'rebasically saying is no, this is my
territory. They all go back andforth and back and forth, and sometimes
owls will do that all night long. So those are coin of some of
the cool features of adaptations that owlshave. Okay, so now I just
want to talk about some of theowls that call Ohio home. So I'm
(09:35):
not going to go over all eightof them. I want to talk about
some of the ones that we canfind here in Marion County. And as
Paul mentioned, what I'm going todo is I'll give some couple of fun
facts about these owls, and thenI will use my phone and put it
up to the microphone and we'll seeif this works. So, because when
you hear about owls, you thinkof the sound as they all hoot,
some of them do. But asI was telling Paul, earlier that No,
(09:58):
not all owls give a hoot.So the most common species is the
Eastern screech out. So these guysare cute. They're a little bit bigger
than a pop can. And whatmakes them very successful a their size,
but B is their diet. Theseguys can eat up to one hundred and
twenty three different things that we havedocumented here in Ohio from small mammals to
(10:20):
birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects. So because having that very
fast diet, you know, they'revery very adaptable. Now, of course,
you know they want to be moreof a woodland setting, but yes,
you could even find these guys indowntown Marion if you had a very
large mature tree, especially has someholes or cavities on it. I guarantee
you probably have a screech out inor nearby that tree. Wow. Also
(10:41):
too, you know a lot oftimes they end up in annex or old
garages or things like that. Soagain they're not very big owl, so
again they can fit in in alot of smaller spaces some than your bigger
owl species. But the picture I'mshowing has a gray and a red,
so here in central Ohio we onlymainly give the but more like Hawking Hills,
(11:01):
they get more of the reds andkind of rain. That middle ground
they kind of get both. Soagain, if you're around Hawking Hills State
Park and you see a screech owl, they're just more of that that red
coloration. They're really really pretty.So within their name the screech owl,
they do make kind of a screechingsound, but the one famous call is
called whiny or trills sound. Sowe're gonna see how this goes. Okay,
(11:35):
that's awesome. Yeah, and Iactually can do my own imitation with
this. My college professor at HackingCollege, he told us what you can
do just get kind of a littlespit or saliva in your mouth and kind
of till back and go and yeahit h And like I said, because
they're not the most intelligent, theythink, oh that's another So they're again
(11:56):
very very easy to fool. Sothe other ol species you can find here
in Marion County is probably my favoriteal species is this guy's called the bar
at awl. So within their name, it looks like they have bars across
their chests, and I always saya cool way to identify them as they
have those very dark pupils and theireyes and say, it looks like they're
staring into your soul versus the otheral species will have a little bit more
(12:18):
coloration into their eyes. But theseguys you will find mainly enforested areas that
have rivers or creeks running through.So especially if you're near the only tangy
the Iota River, that's a reallygood place to find them. So are
one Park at Teradise. We dohave quite a few that fly and nest
around that area. Also to someparts of tall Grass Trail. If you're
(12:39):
more between miles three and five,you'll find these guys more often and their
favorite. They're one of the reasonwhy they're my favorite because of their call.
And the call is who cooks foryou? Or who cooks for you?
All? My joke is nobody.So here's myself. So this is
what they sound like. Good,And here I'll actually I want to show
(13:09):
you what a pair sounds like.Okay, that's fascinating. Oh yeah.
So the other owl species you'll findacross Marion County. This is our largest
owl species. This is the greathorned olm, and these guys can get
(13:31):
up to about five pounds, SoI know it sounds like to us,
but in the bird world, that'skind of pretty heavy for a bird.
Sure, but these guys are ferociouspredators. I mean, we talked about
how the guests are going after someof the smaller mammals, but these guys
are kind of going after the largermammals. Now. No, nothing like
a white tailed deer or anything likethat, but raccoons opossums. But actually
(13:52):
one of their favorite foods is skunks. Really and see, owls including most
birds, do not have a senseof taste or smell or it's very very
small versus gulls and faultures do.So if they get sprayed, they don't
care. You ever had an instantin life where you were sitting at your
house or your car and all ofa sudden you smell that skunk smell and
(14:13):
then it went away twenty minutes latersomething like that, and you're like,
wow, that's weird. What itcould have been. I'm not saying always,
but what it could have been,it was a great horn. Now
they got sprayed and just flew throughyour area. Oh okay, so possibly
possibly so Now they do have thetraditional houtine sound, So this is what
(14:33):
they sound like. Okay, sodeep it is, yeah, and kind
of talking about that. You canactually distinguished boy and girls on the Great
horn Nows by their hoots. Sothe deeper it is, it's more of
(14:56):
a female and the males is alittle bit a little bit lighter. Also,
two females who about six to seventimes males are about four to five.
So my little joke is I said, the girls just have more to
say. Yes. So also twoOne owl species that's actually very rare in
Ohio is this guy is called thebarn owl. And the barn how is
(15:20):
actually not indigenous originally in Ohio,so not native because most of Ohio was
forested. Now, I know,Marion County was mainly open prairie region,
but when we came in, wedestroyed a lot of that natural landscape.
These guys cided the move into Ohio. So they think the first Ohio record
with the barn now was in eighteensixty one. So I'm going to test
(15:43):
you your history. What else happenedin eighteen sixty one here in the country,
something really big? Well, wehad the Civil War, that's right.
So the year the Civil War yupstarted was the year that the barn
Owl. The first Ohio record ofthe barn ow came and they think it
was around the Cincinnati region, sosouthwestern Ohio, And there was a document
a year or two ago here atTallgrass Trail. I was one of the
(16:03):
farmers. He took a picture andhe sent it to me. But they
are considered a threatened species, soit means they're population's not doing the greatest.
So you know, like Purple Martins, you know you see those those
houses and people's yards and all that. Well, Purple Martins and barn How's,
they are so used to humans helpingthem out. They're just so they're
basically they're not going to really maketheir own structure. So that's why within
(16:27):
their name Barnow's they hang out inold barns, old buildings. Well,
in today's world, we don't reallysee that too often, especially here in
Ohio. Now if you go inthe southern US, that's kind of a
different story there, especially like Kentucky. I know there's a lot of abandoned
barns out in those neck of thewoods. So we do have a small
pocket population in southern Ohio, butagain more in central Ohio, it's very
(16:51):
rare, but we actually have reallygreat habitat for him because Big Island is
a really good area because they lovebig prairie opening areas. So maybe if
one day, if a farmer decideto put a barn owl box and encourage
them, we could have a decentbarnow population in our county. So one
more, I just want to talkabout that this guy is not a regular.
(17:11):
This guy is a visitor. Thisis called the short ear owl and
this guy is from up in northernUnited States Canada region, and we get
some bird species that migrate to Ohioduring the winter season because they like the
cold, but they don't like itwhere it's really cold, which you know
up in Canada it is, soI know, it's crazy how most birds
(17:32):
go down south to keep warm,And of course there are some birds that
like it in more and cooler areas. So if you're around the Big Island
Wildlife a area, especially now andthroughout the winter season, you will see
these guys. And they're really coolbecause this species a little bit different from
most owls because one reason is thereare more ground nesters versus most owls like
(17:52):
to nest up in trees, andalso too that the short ear owl can
actually be more active during the daytimeversus most owl species are active at night
times. So I'll let you listento one more sound and then I guess
we'll move on to programs. Butthis is a let's call a hoots from
the mail wow. So as youcan see that again, all owls give
(18:25):
a hoots. And you can findthese sounds of course online. Of course,
if you go on YouTube, there'sa lot of different things you can
find. Also to the Audubon birdapp. It's free to download, it's
free to use. I know mostof these sounds came from that, so
yeah, check it out and you'llreally be interested of all the sounds and
al can make what great stuff.I love that. Why don't you grab
(18:48):
your calendar, we'll talk about someof the events you have coming up into
next month. Yeah, so inNovember we got quite a few programs coming
up. So on the second,at four o'clock PM, we have an
animal tracking program at the Myerswoods Natureperson so we're going to be learning how
to identify some different animal tracks.On the eighth, at five o'clock PM,
we're doing a sunset hike at TallgrassTrail starting at the Herd Road parking
(19:10):
lot, so we're going to strollaround the lake and see what kinds of
wildlife we can find. That's agood time to see our beaver friends.
On the eleventh, from one tofour pm, we will be part of
the Drug Free Marion's Fall Festival eventthat's at the Fairgrounds and the Memorial Coliseum,
so come check us out. Onthe twelve from eleven am to three
(19:30):
pm, we're part of the Findingthe Impossible event. It's kind of where
the cat Sanctuary is there on MarionWaldo Row. I believe the address is
one seven five to five Marrion WaldoRoad, Marion, Ohio. So check
us out. On the fifteenth atfour thirty pm, we're doing a fall
hike at the Teradyce Nature Preserve.So we're just going to stroll around and
(19:51):
see all the beautiful scenery at theTeradyce Nature Preserve. On the twentieth,
we're doing a morning bird watching programat Myers Woods at eight o'clock. I
know sounds early, but hey,that's when a lot of the birds are
active. And then the last programfor November, we're doing a terrific Turkey
program at the Tall Grass Trail atthe trailhead starting at five o'clock PM.
So we're just going to be talkingabout how this magnificent bird that we celebrate
(20:14):
during the Thanksgiving season, learn abouttheir ecology and the history of maybe on
how it almost became the national bird. But we're going to learn about the
myth and legend behind that. Whatgreat stuff. And James Anderson, thank
you so much, the naturalist forthe Marion County Park District, joining us
today talking about owls and all theowl sounds and how you can get your
own birding app absolutely free. Ilove that once again. Trail of Treats
(20:37):
coming up this Saturday. You'll findit from three to five on October twenty
eighth at Tall Grass Trail. Youcan get details by checking out the Marion
County Park District Tall Grass Trail allon Facebook and you can learn more about
all of that. If you're justfinding this podcast, make sure you hit
follow every time we post one.You'll get a notification right on your phone.
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