More owl stuff

[Gologit]

We've been seeing these in the woods for years. When we told the 'ologists what we'd seen we were told that we were wrong.
Madhatte had a thread about the interface between loggers and 'ologists and was wondering why there wasn't more communication. Being told that you don't know what an owl looks like will tend to make you think twice about saying anything.

Kind of a long article but very fairly presented:

Great gray owls find a surprising home on timber firm's land - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee


The owls like to hang out around logging operations because we disturb their prey and the prey moves around more. No big mystery to that.

 

[slowp]

If only wildlife biologists would read threads like this....

Timber cruisers cover a lot of ground and see a lot of things. But most don't have wildlife degrees so the information is considered to be suspect. I gave up quickly.

 

[Gologit]

If only wildlife biologists would read threads like this....

Timber cruisers cover a lot of ground and see a lot of things. But most don't have wildlife degrees so the information is considered to be suspect. I gave up quickly.

Exactly. The people who walk the woods, be they choker setter, faller, forester, or whatever, see things that the people who never leave their offices or get out of their pickups don't see.

There's a massive disconnect between the two groups of people and it seems to be getting worse. I don't know a lot about wildlife biology, or any other science for that matter...I'm just a logger, but when I tell an 'ologist that I've seen something and he automatically considers what I've told him to be wrong he's doing himself and his profession a lot of harm. This needs a solution. I wish I had one.

 

[Cedarkerf]

Ive seen a great gray owl in the middle of the day up here they are quite the impressive bird. Its always hard to deal with know it alls weather its oligsts engineers or kids.

 

[indiansprings]

Good Stuff, no shortage of great horned an barn owls in our country.

You guys are seeing the 7-8' tall hairy bi-ped roaming the forest have you. If you have you might back off the barley pop just a tad. It could always be PNW HBRN though on his way to a falling job.

I always figured if any logger ever seen a big foot they would shoot it.

 

[Gologit]

Good Stuff, no shortage of great horned an barn owls in our country.

You guys are seeing the 7-8' tall hairy bi-ped roaming the forest have you. If you have you might back off the barley pop just a tad. It could always be PNW HBRN though on his way to a falling job.

I always figured if any logger ever seen a big foot they would shoot it.

Shoot it? Heck no! Something that big and strong, that lives on roots and berries and gets around the steep country that good...they'd probably offer it a job. Might make a good forester.

 

[slowp]

I do know of one good wildlife guy. He used to be a forester and went to more school after his job got cut.
He's good. Knows the language and knows what goes on. He's a rarity.

Nobody shot the cougar that watched the nervous rigging crew for two days. That took a lot of self control.

 

[Metals406]

Bob, are them owls better fried or done up on the BBQ?

 

[coastalfaller]

Yep, sometimes common sense just doesn't enter into the equation. We had a setting once where we had a certain time frame to work. Apparently someone had interviewed the owls and they told the ologist that they didn't like the sounds the fallers make or the loaders, but the yarders and trucks were OK!!!!???!!!!! So they were able to yard and haul in that window, only there was no logs to yard or a loader to load them!!!?????

 

[GRTimberCO]

Don't that just piss you off when someone that only thinks they know whats going on treats you like YOU are the idiot? Back in April a couple local middle school kids were hiking the local river trail and decided to cross it. I don't know if they realized it was up 2 1/2 feet above normal from the storms and flowing about 20 miles an hour over those shoals. One of them made it and the other didn't. Within a few days what started as a rescue effort has now become a recovery in one of the narliest pieces of water you could possible search for something. They are going with the hypothesis that he drowned and sunk within 300 yards of where he was last seen... in a river that was flowing 20 miles an hour in the fast, shallow sections. Maybe but I thought, the body is down river in the slower water.

Now I don't say this out of pride at all but that six miles between the dam and the last shoals are my stomping grounds. There is nobody still alive that knows that river better than me just for the fact that I'm on it 50-60 times a year duck hunting, training dogs, scouting running trot lines or fishing. I know ever sand bar, snag, log just under the water and rock shelf in there just because I've hit them all at some point. I rode it that Monday afternoon with some guys and again that Wednesday evening with another deacon form our church, just creeping along the edge looking in the snags and around the sand bar for this kid’s body. I went to the command center when it right after it happened and offered to help in anyway I could. The official commander of the operation looked at me like I had a second head growing out of my neck; like I was the silliest, stupidest son of a ##### that he'd talked to all day. I offered my services to the authorities over this operation but they dismissed me saying they felt like the body was still up river and basically walked off and left me standing there. By the way, a week later after the official search had ended we found that kids body 2 miles down river from where all the expert computer models said he had to be, in the slower water.

 

[RandyMac]

This little Owl lived in my yard. I lived right across from the Dennys.

 

[promac850]

Shoot it? Heck no! Something that big and strong, that lives on roots and berries and gets around the steep country that good...they'd probably offer it a job. Might make a good forester.

What are you gonna feed him? Jack Link's?

[video=youtube_share;u_1lg4Y6mvw]http://youtu.be/u_1lg4Y6mvw[/video]

 

[dave k]

Thanks for that, as you said it's a fair and good report. I ve just had that same reaction when I reported woodpeckers here, it took a little while for the two guys from BirdWatch Ireland to believe that I knew what a woodpecker sounds like. The bit fuss was that woodpeckers havn't been seen in County Wicklow for several years.

 

[madhatte]

Ah, 'ologists... where Forestry is the official process of disregarding the Forest for the Trees.

 

[J.Walker]

Some more owl stuff.

BBC News - Owl leaves imprint on Kendal woman's window


.

 

[DavdH]

Spotted Owl and Barred owl removal

We have had several pairs of Spotted owls eaten by barred owls. We are now
protecting Barred Owls in Mendocino Headlands, we have all the spotted owls trained to come to white pickups to be fed..Now the goberment is ready to help ...
"The northern spotted owl is a beautiful bird. It’s also threatened under the Endangered Species Act. And now, the government is taking drastic measures to ensure it’s survival by advocating the “removal” of the bird’s major competition, while also seemingly targeting loggers.

“Removal” of the birds is really just another way to say shooting the barred owl, the spotted owl’s rival. And it’s part of a group of recommendations announced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help revitalize the spotted owl population:

Management of the encroaching barred owl to reduce harm to spotted owls. Most of the recovery actions the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has carried out since finalizing the spotted owl’s 2008 recovery plan deal with the barred owl threat. A major part of this is developing a proposal for experimental removal of barred owls in certain areas to see what effect that would have on spotted owls, and then to evaluate whether or not broad scale removal should be considered. This portion of the 2008 plan was not significantly revised."
I'm wonderin' if Great Grey Owls eat both smaller owls.

 

[Gologit]

Ah, 'ologists... where Forestry is the official process of disregarding the Forest for the Trees.

Well said.

 

[slowp]

Another owl story but in the city.

Residents split on fate of 'hazard tree' housing family of owls | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News | KOMO News | Local & Regional

 

[madhatte]

"Older Growth" cottonwood? Pfft. I bet it's 50 years old.

 

[Joe46]

Please note that even though it was mentioned that residents were split on the tree coming down, no quotes were in the article from people who were in favor of it. A case of one sided reporting???????? In a Seattle paper???????:jester: