The Spotted Owl
Written by Jacob Bourque
Did you ever play Marco-polo as a kid in the pool? Well, surveying for an endangered species of Owl is a lot like playing a scaled up version of Marco-polo. Except you, the person who is exclusively “it”, have to hoot like an owl and run through an old-growth forest in the wee hours of the night. It may seem silly to the outside eye, but this game was my job for three summers, and it is seriously enchanting. As surveyors we would hike on trails and dive into the forest every time we heard an owl respond. With enough Marco-polo, eventually, human and owl would end up face to face, staring at each other, often within feet of one another.
More often than not, things do not come this easily. Spotted Owls don’t always play the game fairly. Their response to your calls, I like to think, is entirely contingent on the mood they’re in, and whether they want to meet you or not. Moreover, one individual can be vastly different from the next. Like that stranger who’s sitting next to you on a plane, you’re never quite sure what you’re going to get. One might not utter a single sound, silently watching you, while you walk right under the tree it’s sitting in. Another might literally bark at you, sticking to the comfort of the tree tops, not wanting to even catch a sniff of your smelly hiker BO. However, more often than not, these owls are friendly and extremely smart, deliberate birds. Honestly, these birds have the behavioral complexity to that of monkeys. On several occasions, I have witnessed nesting pairs of Owls preen each other with their beaks, while exhibiting a level of affection I have seen in no other bird. If you’re a monkey this is equivalent to grooming each other by plucking insects off each other’s heads.
They are also very curious and endearing birds. Their large, dark brown eyes seem bottomless when you are close. They will look at you as if they know you, and are happy to know you. They’re the playful kid on the playground who wants to be friends because they couldn’t imagine meeting you and not being friends. Unfortunately for them, they have a few bullies to keep an eye out for. Like many birds, part of a Spotted Owl’s natural history is to call back and forth to one another. So in theory, they should be very responsive to your hoot. However, researchers who have been conducting long term studies on this species of Owl, say they are quieter than ever. One explanation for this is added pressure from predators, and there happens to be another Owl that produces this undesired affect.
In California, they are the new kids on the block, and they don’t play nice. The Spotted Owls “cousin”, the Barred Owl, is currently the biggest threat to their populations. The Barred Owl, an east coast native, has traversed the entire continent of North America to find itself in the forests of the west coast, and their numbers are growing, fast. This feat might seem incredible if it weren’t for the fact that this species of Owl will basically eat anything it can sink it’s talons into. In addition, they are bigger, meaner, and outcompete the Spotted Owl for territory. This is big news in the bird world. Ecologically, Spotted Owls are extremely important indicator species for old-growth forests. This means that they serve as guides for gauging forest health. Spotted Owls equal healthy forests. This being the case, research is doing everything it can to prevent their numbers from crashing. There is still so much to learn about this species of Owl and with a changing climate, they are more important now than ever.
