Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 11:51:36 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Denise Ryan Subject: Re: Owl Postings - for students MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" If anyone has some owl sightings that they would be willing to share with me privately I would really appreciate it. I am taking a class on Owls with the USDA Grad school and we are taking a field trip on Saturday to look for owls. Any recent scouting reports in the area this week would be helpful to me, and the 10 other folks in this class. I'll pass this info on to our instructor, Leon Nawojchik, as he plans our route around the DC and the DC suburbs. However, I suspect that if there is a lot of owl activity in a particular area much farther outside of DC, we might also make an hour - 2 hour drive to that location. That said, we are approaching our field trip with a strong ethic to not disturb the owls unnecessarily or to approach closer than is warranted. If you can also mention time of sightings and how acclimated to people or suburban life the owl has become accustomed, that would help us judge how close we can approach before we get to the point of harassing any owl. Thanks! Denise Ryan Washington, DC denise_ryan@lcv.org -----Original Message----- From: Norman Saunders [mailto:marshhawk@WORLDNET.ATT.NET] Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 3:18 AM To: MDOSPREY@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Owl Postings Keith Eric Costley asks: > I vaguely remember an e-mail about posting owl sightings > on MDOsprey. I made an attempt to find the posting; but > I could not. If it is not too much trouble can you refresh > my memory as to the content of that message? Should I > post owl locations on MDOsprey? The general thoughts on owl sightings are that it is alright to post locations for Short-eared and Snowy Owl sightings. All other owl locations should not be posted. The reason is that owls often create a feeding frenzy among birders, especially for the harder-to-find species such as Long-eared Owl. These birds can be easily flushed from their daytime roosts by over-zealous birders, leaving them as easy targets for daytime predators. Short-eared and Snowy Owls are open country birds that often hunt during the day or at dusk and as a result have developed defenses of their own against predators and are thus less apt to be disturbed by birders searching for them (within reason, of course). Do recall, however, the problems last winter that surrounded the Snowy Owl up in Frederick County--even this rule has to be taken with a grain of salt. Best, Norm Saunders ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================