First, apologies for anthropomorphizing in my last post and saying the owl in the North Woods was lonely.  She’s clearly just advertising her availability.  Calling her lonely is just me projecting my concern that she won’t be able to find a mate.

Last night she called at least three hours.  I gave up watching her at that point, as my feet were near frozen!  She called constantly pausing between calls from 15 seconds to 3 minutes.  She’s clearly making sure any nearby male will find her!

For those who don’t know the history of Eastern Screech-Owls in Central Park, they were reintroduced into the park about ten years ago.  The program didn’t result in reestablishing a self sustaining population.  Deaths due to car traffic may have tipped that balance against the owls, but there were other factors as well, poisons, geographic isolation, cavity contention with squirrels and other birds, etc.

So, Central Park now has an owl who has a low chance of finding a mate.  Moving her would be politically difficult and introducing a mate would just perpetuate an unproductive situation even longer.

That said, I will miss watching owls raise their offspring in the park.