From Patricia Thomas

Short-Eared owls in flight exhibiting a courtship behavior of clapping their wings. I think she was charmed.

  • anon6789OP
    link
    53 months ago

    Oh wow, I was eating lunch and missed the rope dragging! I’d never heard of it, but it’s such a smart idea! I give a short paper describing the technique!

    They put a length of lightweight rope between a pair of 4 wheelers and slowly go across the area to search. The rope is light, so it rides higher up in the grass, and the nest is down in a depression, so that combo keeps the eggs from being hurt.

    As soon as an owl gets flushed, they stop, and then they can follow the rope line to find the nest and flag it for study!

    It lets them search huge areas in much less time with little chance of hurting anything. Genius!