New Season, More Changes

On Saturday, 3/26 it reached 69 degrees on Gobbler's Knob. But with the ever-present Spring wind, it felt a bit cooler - maybe 68 degrees.  Heh! Oh, but it was so beautiful and there was absolutely no way, I was going to stay indoors.  I was quite surprised when I flushed my martins - it appears my 84 cavity colony is already 1/2 full!  I've never been that full by this time of year before.
My first priority was to finish up my owl cages on my Deluxe gourd racks.  My jerry-rigged, owl interference didn't work as well on those racks last year and I've no doubt that I'll be seeing my Great Horned Owl again this year and possibly, my Barred Owl as well.
I would have caged these 2 racks last year, however, I could never come up with an idea that would work, both because these racks had no place to mount homemade supports for the wire and there were also weight considerations (it's windy here in the spring!).  In summer of 2015, we figured out what we needed to do.  I ordered the same stainless steel arms for these racks from the original manufacturer, only the length of these arms would be changed to 36" and they would have the same gourd mounting holes as the originals.  I ordered 8 arms per rack as that would be enough to support the type of wire cage I needed to build.
Here's what my racks looked like last year, just using garden stakes as a 'cage' to interfere with any owl messing with them.

I decided that I would use 4 panels of 4 foot-high welded-mesh wire fencing, per rack.  Each panel is cut to 56" wide, allowing me to bow them out almost 10" from the front of each gourd.  I was surprised how light the 4 panels were, as I gathered them up and carried them out to the first rack.  The top of each panel is mounted on a stainless steel rod and I added the heavy duty garden stakes along the top in between the new stainless rods, to add more support.

Note the two new, extra long stainless rods. Each panel is cinched together with a heavy duty zip tie, tightening it down on the rod.

Heavy duty zip ties hold together the edges of each panel in place on the rods.  The inside white zip tie is there only to keep the yellow tie & wire from sliding inward.

A smaller zip tie was added inside on just the rod (not holding anything), but will help keep the outside yellow zip tie from sliding inward.

The tops of the panels are all zip-tied to the garden stakes and the top wire 'ceiling' along the way, closing all the gaps at the top.  All I have to do is cut the 3 zip ties holding each panel to the next at the seam, leaving the zip ties at the top that hold it to the extra heavy rods on the top, lift the panel up and walk in.

Each rectangle is 2" wide - you can see the cage is at least 10" out in front of each gourd entrance.

As with my other rack that I enclosed a couple of years ago, I will need to work a little more slowly and be more cognizant of where my face is at all times, since some martins tend to flush out of the gourd at the very last second.
The fencing is 48" high so it drops below the most bottom gourds about 6".  I will have to monitor to see if that's going to be sufficient

East Rack - 3/26/2016

Mid Rack - 3/26/2016

Each cage took 35 - 40 minutes to install and I was really glad that I made the changes early in the day, since it took the colony some time to adjust to their new surroundings. So, 38 feet of mesh wire fencing, a couple of packs of zip ties, some heavy duty stainless steel rods, 24 feet of undersill trim to make some nice, 4"x4" landing spots, a handy pair of wire cutters and a good pair of leather work gloves and I'll be able to better sleep at night.  I think my most stressful time last year was when the new fledges came home late in the evening and hunkered down on the inside gourd arms.  I knew those 'easy catches' were going to attract the owl and I spent many hours & nights outside with them, trying to gently encourage them inside or leave the site. With these new cages, they can safely roost on the arms if they want and stick their tongues out at the GHO when she comes.
Some were initially frightened by the changes, fluttering around and around the outside of the cages, while others flew under and straight up to their gourd without missing a beat.  Some ended up hanging upside down on the cage, and some landed on top and dropped right through to their gourd.  Some of the territorial fighting resumed, with the males quickly reclaiming their gourds as their competitors dropped through the top of the wire in full battle mode, proving that each of these birds have their own character and personality as unique as we humans.
I had a really hard time not laughing out loud (and I can laugh really loud) at some of the antics in this video.  Enjoy!

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".