I was so thrilled this year when I started in Old New York and first thing when I went out in the morning, I heard the glorious hooting of a Great Horned Owl even there!

I’ve seen what it does to the birds, and I’m sure it’s equally as unpleasant to the ratties. I like the rodents too, but I know we need to keep them away from our food and they should be dealt with humanely or naturally.

I like that better than owl exterminators, even if it was still a funny bit. 😁

Ah, good! We don’t really get antagonistic types in this community, but if it was, I’d rather use it for a teaching moment.

I see a number of these programs popping up around the world, especially with Barn Owls. Greece just hosted a Project Tyto conference that was made of a few nations working together to spread this type of program.

Owls pretty much eat and sleep, so they need safe food and a place to nap and have babies!

Sorry, I can’t tell if this is sarcastic or not. But even if one is against using animals for labor, I would think this should still be seen as a net positive.

What we do

Each installation is tailored to the site.

We design, install, and monitor purpose-built habitat to support on-farm predators, and specifically owls.

This includes nesting boxes, hunting roosts, ground rodent surveys and wildlife cameras to track activity and impact over time.

We use field data and ecological understanding to give owls the best chance to return, breed and establish long-term.

Our mission is to get the conditions right. After that, the owls take it from there.

There aren’t any owls being supplied to anyone. They do species surveys and make sure properties are free from poison, including surrounding properties since owls don’t understand property lines. If the land can support owls, they build nesting sites, which are not always readily available, as owls don’t build their own nests. They also make sure the area is set up properly for the style of hunting Barn Owls do.

Basically, they are setting up farms to be appealing to owls that are in the area so they move there. They’re not moving owls, selling owls, or what have you, they want to restore what should be existing biodiversity and reducing the use of indiscriminate poisons that kill many types of unintended animals. Modern rodent poisons, SGARs (Second-Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides), don’t metabolize, so they accumulate in the bodies of things that eat rodents, like cats, dogs, and birds of prey. While one poisoned mouse may not kill them, since it remains in their system, eating multiple ones will eventually kill them. For things like birds that bring them back to their nests to share, 2 generations of birds can be lost at once.

While some areas are working to soft ban SGARs, actions like this can help with pest management while not destroying other animals unintentionally and bring balance back to local ecosystems.

It’s got the sass-o-meter pegged!

The ears are amazing! Plushies and mammals are better for cuddles though. Birds feel like paper mâché to me.

We can compromise with a mild maiming and go from there. 🤔

They softened up Smokey Bear too much. This is the head of fire prevention we need!

I’m grateful it’s off the table for now. We best keep an eye on this guy though, I’m sure he’s not going to quit trying.

Glad you are enjoying them! I know it does me good to start the day with some awesome owls and their adventures!

Thank you! I believe I only have the one pair, but they are both so spectacular it makes up for it. The female is actually my favorite because she is much more vibrant red than I am used to seeing in them.

Here is an older post starring her.

Thank you! I’m glad you like them.

My heart goes out to this little guy. He’s so handsome and looks so bold and impressive, but he’s such a wimp! 😁

I’ll even slingshot peanuts out right under him, but he hesitates so long that a jay or squirrel will get it, or he just gets scared off by the peanut itself!

Lady Cardinal ends up getting way more than he does, but she’s still a bit nervous of the jays.

For the record, I have never in my 3 years of really watching them seen the jays pick on anyone smaller than them, just each other, crows, and the hawk.

So stoic and handsome! Nice photo!

No, no! This owl is fresh, without cosmetics! !

The owl language has over 50 words for anger!

We usually get things like the chocolate covered cashews or sea salt caramels. They occasionally have some peanut butter or maybe cashew butter cups and those I remember being really good.