Playing Chess Instead of Checkers

Make no mistake over this writing - I am extremely distressed over this issue, but this is how I deal with my distress - I write to make myself feel better. When I was a small child, my grandfather taught me to play checkers.  As I matured, he taught me to play chess and it was obvious that chess required a lot more thought, planning and strategy in order to win.  I loved it, especially the knights and bishops pieces as their moves were the more complicated and aggressive on the board.  I never became a pro at the game, but I learned a lot from it that I now apply to real life.

If someone or something presents a smart move to you, make a smarter move in return.  That's the way I feel about my dealings with this owl.  I'm still not 100% sure, but believe my owl to be a Great Horned Owl - one of the most aggressive owls around.  In chess, the best games are played against a knowledgeable, respectable challenger.  Well, I think I have met quite a respectable foe in my current battle to protect my martins.  They don't call them "wise, old owls" for nothing.

Great Horned Owl image: National Geographic Online

From the All About Birds site:

Renowned for ferocity, Great Horned Owls kill and eat small to medium mammals of many kinds, especially hares and rabbits. They eat mice, rats, squirrels, opossums, woodchucks, bats, weasels, and the occasional domestic cat. Great-Horned Owls also eat skunks, which are sometimes such a prominent part of the diet that both bird and nest may smell of musk. Although mammalian prey typically comprise more than three quarters of the diet, more than fifty species of birds have been recorded as prey. In addition to hunting small songbirds, Great Horned Owls have been known to eat large birds such as grouse, herons, ducks, Canada Geese, hawks (including Red-tailed), and even other species of owl. A woodland with resident Great Horned Owls usually lacks any other raptors in the immediate vicinity.

Well, that may explain what has happened to some of the feral cats that have been roaming around here lately.  If I were an owl, I would prefer a larger return for the amount of effort required to hunt - a meal such as a cat or rabbit rather than a scrawny little songbird.  What is it about my purple martins that makes him want to come after them so aggressively anyway?  Do they taste like lobster or some other special delicacy?
My first moves in response to the owl were to put up the wire fencing around my Trendsetter and the array of garden stakes around my gourd racks.  We had multiple days where the owl did not make an appearance, then when he did show up, the game camera pictures showed him using the tops of the racks as perches from which he was hunting for ground-dwelling prey.

Then one night, he upped the ante - I found a bent garden stake in front of 2 gourds, which I replaced with an even thicker stake. As the stake he grabbed was just out of view of the game camera, I was unable to see what had happened, but I did verify that the martins in those 2 gourds were safe & still feeding their young.  In response to his move, I decided to stand watch and wait for him and hopefully give him a good scare.  He flew through my yard at 9:10 PM on 7/4, circled to some trees and at 9:25 PM, he returned to perch on the perching post, 20' from my martin housing.  I flipped on all the lights, including my million-watt spotlight and ran at him, screaming a lot of words that probably shouldn't be printed here on my blog.  Regardless, he left in a hurry.  Despite my feeling of victory in the battle that night, I knew that the war was not yet over, but I still hoped I had provided him with something to think about before he landed here again.
As most of you know, he upped the ante again on the nights of 7/7 and 7/9, challenging the integrity of my wire cage on the Trendsetter and flushing out several martins.
http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2014/07/caught-in-act.html

While these videos have indeed been alarming to me, I saw his increased aggression as another challenge to which I needed to rise and hopefully, respond with something even better which will perplex and discourage him.  As of yesterday, we had 3 peaceful nights with no owl attacks, but knowing that he is probably not done with me or my martins yet., I built a scarecrow and christened her, "Ellie Mae" before sticking her out in the yard to stand guard duty last night.

As I sat with Ellie Mae in the yard last night, I saw a large bird with a large pair of wings silhouetted against the southern horizon moving steadily northward toward my colony.  "Holy Moley - he's bigger than I thought - not tonight - you will NOT eat martins tonight!", I thought.  Grabbing my spotlight as I rose and tensing in preparation to start my own running, screaming, scary attack, I stopped mid-step as my eyes identified my attacker - and I allowed the Great Blue Heron to pass, unmolested by my colorful words and lights.  I did find it odd though that after flying another 5 seconds north of my house, the heron suddenly turned 180 degrees, emitted her own alarm calls, and flew back southward.  What had scared her?  Had she spotted my owl perched in a tree north of the house and changed course?  I'll never know.
All the game cameras confirmed today that we have now been 4 nights without any night visitors.
Whether Ellie Mae is helping or not is yet to be determined.  I'll move her around the yard to different spots, keep playing the radio and keep the lights on all night.  If anything does happen, I'm sure I'll be dismayed, saddened, alarmed and very, very upset again.  But I will regroup and deal with it.
For now though; "Dear Mr. Owl - Your Move".