After Chris sent word that she had found the owls again, we all went up north that evening.  For the first time in 2007, we got to see owls in Central Park.  Three owls to be exact, two parents and a fledgling.  They must have had four babies.  It was great to see both parents and the fledgling doing so well.

We were able to follow them as they flew from tree to tree.  I was able to get pictures of one of the parents and a fledgling.

They stopped in a tree that had been used by Screech-Owl fledglings two years ago.  It brought back memories of that year, my first season birding in Central Park.  It was the Screech-Owls that year that got me introduced to our current circle of owl watchers.

In late February, three young screech owls were found in the northern end of Central Park.

Marie was the epicenter of all the email traffic back and forth between rescuers, parks employees, and rehabbers.  The young owls were rescued on different days, a pair on one day, and the third on a different day.

For some reason, lights, plentiful food, that the reintroduced owls came from Rehabilitation and Rescue centers, and/or other factors have resulted in owlets being born a month or two too early in Central Park.  Young Screech owls are "branchers" before they fly, and their early birth when trees are without leaves seems to lead to problems.

In case the young owls could be reunited with their parents, an effort to find the parents was launched in case it made sense to reunite the young owls with their parents.  Last year’s 75th Street owl watchers went up for a few evenings, but we didn’t find the parents and gave up looking.

On March 13th, we all got a wonderful note from Chris:

"Positive visual sighting at 9PM of one mature Eastern Screech Owl on bridle path near ballfields, where Bruce Yolton was known to take photographs last year.

It flew to a branch within 5 feet of me, perching, without fear, for a good five minutes, responding with little hooty whoops to my whinnying, then flew off.

Good birding!

Chris and Fig"

The first email from Chris…

Hi Bruce,

I was catching up with your blog today, Bruce, and noticed your post from
November speculating that there are no longer any Eastern Screech Owls in
the park.
Never fear:  though I don’t know where they live (at the moment), I have
seen one or two ESOs hunting in the familiar areas, on more
than one occasion when I’m out walking my dog after dark.  The most recent
sighting was last week, when an ESO did a fly-by as I watched a raccoon
shamble down from a tree for her evening dumpster diving.
So, they’re still around, probably enjoying the peace and quiet that comes
when one’s avian celebrity star has waned a bit.
with best wishes for the holidays (all of them),

Chris

On Saturday, the first owl of the fall season was spotted in Central Park, a Long-eared Owl (LEOW).   (I was working, so I didn’t get to photograph LEO.)

I did make it the park around dusk to look for Eastern Screech Owls (ESOW).  Unfortunately, I suspect that there may no longer be any surviving ESOs in the park. These owls were reintroduced to the park in 1998 and 2001-2002 and have not been fairing well.  Screech Owls fly at low heights and easily run into cars.  (The original decline in Eastern Screech Owls occurred about the same time as the carriage paths in the park were turned into roadways.)

I suspect the fall owl season will consist of viewing migrating Long-eared and Northern Saw-whet Owls, and confirming the disappearance of the Eastern Screech Owl from Central Park.

December Update: At least two Eastern Screech Owls are in the North Woods!  I’m happy to be wrong!

After all of the problems with the West Side Screech-Owls in the Spring of 2006, I wasn’t optimistic that there were any surviving Screech-Owls in the park.  Around Thanksgiving, after the leaves had fallen from the trees, I searched all of the known Screech-Owl cavities near the Rambles and in the North Woods.

I had no luck finding any owls, and even wrote in my blog, that I though 2006 might be the last year Screech-Owls were seen in Central Park.

In December, I received a note from Christine (Chris), who walks her wonderful dog Fig, in the Northwest of the park every evening that she had seen Screech-Owls.   I spent a few evenings looking for them without any luck.

In early March, I received emails detailing two different rescues of Screech-Owl babies up north.  Again, I went up to look and found nothing.

In late March, Chris wrote us again saying she had found the owls. What was wonderful, was that she had not only found the parents, but also a fledgling.  Luckily, the next day, I got to see and begun studying the Screech-Owls.

What follows is my account of the adventures and discoveries watching these three Eastern-Screech Owls in the Spring of 2007.

These photographs were all taken with natural light.  Advances in
digital photography make it possible to take pictures in very low
light.  The photographs were taken with a 500mm lens at
distances of 25-200 feet. 

The long exposures also brighten up the dark sky, so that it appears to
be daylight.  However, most of these pictures were taken after dusk.

As the nights darkened, natural light sometimes was replaced by
orange street lamps and green and red traffic signals.  You’ll notice some color shifts in the
photographs or blurry images.  To have avoided this completely, I would have needed to
use flash.  I decided that I would rather have the color shifts than
risk disturbing the owls with repeated flashes. 

I don’t think limited use of flash has any effect on the owls, but since this was part of a long term study, I wanted to be extra careful.  It’s also important to say how much flash photography disturbs the ambiance and those watching with you.  When I go birding, if I see a someone or a group watching a bird, I slowly join them before taking pictures.  Nature photographers in Central Park should take the same approach, and ask their fellow birders if they mind them taking flash pictures.  These birds don’t deserve an aggressive "paparazzi" style photo shoot.

For background on the Eastern Screech-Owl, there is basic information on The Owl Pages or the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology’s Animal Diversity Web.

Our gray morph West Side owl may have moved to the Ramble, in an area that used to be the territory of the now deceased red morph owl.  This makes it possible, that given the autopsy results of the red morph, which cited cause of death as an attack by a raptor, that the Eastern Screech-Owl in the Ramble was the red morph’s killer.  This story continues to have unexpected twists and turns.

Fly out (or it now fly off, now that the owl is sleeping out in the open) was at 8 p.m. sharp.