[TowerTalk] ospreys & barn owls

[RICHARD BOYD]

I am really enjoying this discussion that combines both towers and wildlife, two of my main interests!

We used to have (before arsonists burned it down but that's okay we got a reasonable insurance payment) a 30-foot-high boat shed with "observation tower" at our hunting club on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  It had an 8x8' room at the top, windows all around, most of the window panes broken out.  One year W3IO and I went to do Field Day up in that room, but inside the darkened boat shed, as we went up the rickety wooden stairs, we about jumped out of our shirts when confronted with a loud H-I-I-I-S-S-S-S-S-S from a couple barn owl parents with four barn owl babies.  They had their nest on the landing halfway up the steps.  One adult barn owl went flying past us down the steps and out of the building, leaving the several others with wing/shoulders hunched up, head and neck held low, rocking left and right, all hissing.  I for one was intimidated, "Let's get outta here!!"  First time I've ever seen a real, live, barn owl; they're impressive birds.  Due to their reclusive and nocturnal nature, owls are not often seen by "boys" from the suburbs like me, even if we have "country" aspirations -- like me.

By the next year the owls had moved on and WA2DFI, W3MC and I did FD from that room, and it was pretty cool.  By the year after that the building was just a smudge of black soot on the ground.  But, when we designed our own house and had it built, we put an 8x8 room up on the peak of the roof very much like that one.  We like it, though we have the oddest house "in these parts."  That's okay -- it's my house so it's appropriate if it's odd.

Tie in to towertalk:  the propensity of all these birds, from ospreys to turkey vultures, to purple martins, 200 at a time, to perch on towers is evidence that ham antennas and towers actually provide beneficial "structure" to the environment and benefit wildlife, even protected species like barn owls. We should make a master list of all these examples for when someone brings up the subject of alleged "harm" to the environment and wildlife.

73 - Rich, KE3Q