Barn Owl In Abstentia

     Through out my long life, I have missed a few events that took place unexpectedly where I live.  For example, in the last forty years there have been two big earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest.  In both instances, I was not even on the continent of North America and so was reduced to admiring pictures of the devastation on the news, probably in a foreign language.

   As many of you know, Sandra and I are spending some time away from the Big Island, house

The red billed leiothrix on the lanai. 

exchanging with our friends Martin and Gail DeLuke.  This morning the distaff side of this equation did a little networking and, as a result, Sandra came away with some remarkable news.  Last night our friends were awakened in the middle of the night by a commotion on the lanai, which is to say, right outside the screen door from their downy bed.   Martin leaped from the bed (to see what was the matter) and surprised a very large bird that was conducting business in our friendly confines.  The bird, realizing that a Leatherneck is not to be messed with (especially one roused untimely from his sleep) flew up, struck the ceiling, and then vanished into the night.  It was Martin's impression that this bird was huge.  In the morning our friends discovered the remains of a song bird to be named later and a number of feathers belonging to his assailant...owl feathers.

    While our lanai, fenced with plexiglass, has drawn a few birds, including a pair of red billed leiothrix, to their death, we never dreamed that an owl would land there.  Such cruel fate that we missed this remarkable occurrence.  At least the DeLuke's were in residence and so the event can pass into the ongoing legend of Casa Ono.

    So what sort of owl was this?  There are two owls on the island of Hawaii.  The short eared owl, or pueo,  lives in open areas and hunts rodents by day.  In the Pacific Northwest it winters on glacial flats and can be seen hunting by day.  Here in Hawaii, it prefers upland meadows.  We have seen this

The short eared owl, or pueo.

bird a few times on the old Saddle Road at around 3000 feet.  Our internet resources claim that it can be found from sea level to 8,000 feet. 

   The most amazing tidbit of information regarding the pueo, is that it is not exactly a native species.  The scientists at Cornell Laboratories tell us that the pueo did not arrive on our islands until the Polynesians came to Hawaii in their ocean going canoes from what is now known as French Polynesia (this might be 1500 years ago or as little as 700, depending on who you believe).  In any event, the Polynesians brought owl food in the form of that most infamous of seagoing stow-aways...rats.

    The boys from Cornell think that the short eared owl somehow flew over the ocean from Alaska to colonize our islands.  And that this would have happened about a thousand years ago, give or take.  In

that time it has changed little enough that it is recognized only as a subspecies of the short eared owl Asio flammeus sandwichensis.  it remains sufficiently similar that it might breed with short eared owls back in the 49th state .  Heaven knows, we see enough tourists from Alaska, why shouldn't one of them bring his pet owl.  Expelliarmus!
 
    The short eared owl is widely distributed, found on every continent except Antarctica and Australia.  It is found across northern Eurasia, in the pampas of Argentina and in open areas in southern India and China.
 

Martin's Nemesis, the Barn Owl

   However, this is not what the DeLuke's saw.

    Relatively common in our neighborhood is the Barn Owl.  I don't have a huge number of sightings of this bird under my belt, but if you lounge around outside in Hawaii in the late evening, you stand a fair chance of seeing one.  Unlike the pueo, it did not get to Hawaii on its own...it was introduced in 1958 in hopes that it would reduce the rodent population.  Why the biologists thought that a barn owl would do a better job than a short eared owl is beyond me.  Obviously, the barn owls are finding plenty to eat.  And if you refer to DeLuke and DeLuke in the Journal of Nocturanal Disturbances (unpublished data) it is not limiting its diet to Rattus rattus.  Obviously the overall effect of both the pueo and the barn owl on the rodent population might reasonably be described as insignificant.  Still, when one is hanging out on the lanai on a soft tropical evening, its pretty cool to see a barn owl quietly fly by.   Encountering one on the lanai at O dark thirty is another matter all together.  Just ask Martin.

jeff

What a red billed leiothrix looks like after one bashes his head into the plexiglass.  Not recommended.