CHASING CAPE COD'S COTERIE OF SIX OWLS IS A CHALLENGE (12/08/00)

Written by Stauffer Miller, filling in for Elinor

Six different species of owls can occur on Cape Cod in the course of a year. Most are difficult to see and learn much about. The easiest of the six to find is the screech owl, which will use backyard nest boxes. The next “easiest” is the great horned owl, which while common and frequently heard at night, is in reality quite hard to sight.

Then there is the short-eared ow, which has become exceedingly scarce on the Cape. As for its cousin the long-eared owl, it combines scarceness and an uncanny capacity for covertness. I’ve pretty much given up on ever finding one on my own. The last of these “secret six” as we may call them, the snowy and the saw-whet owls, are what I write of here.

I moved to the Cape over six years ago and since then have enjoyed compiling a list of the bird species I’ve seen here. With each succeeding year I have added fewer and fewer species, as my target birds have, more and more, become rarities, vagrants and general stinkers to look for. With the addition in early November of my 319th bird, a mite of a seabird called a dovekie, I finally needed only one more species to hit 320, which I regarded as a significant milestone.

Thus it was that I felt great excitement in late November when veteran Cape Cod birder Blair Nikula reported that he had seen two snowy owls on South Beach in Chatham. Though I had seen many snowys in Alaska and a few others in Minnesota, Ontario and Plum Island in this state, I had never seen one on the Cape. Here, I thought, was a chance not only to see number 320 but an owl at that, and even better an especially eye-catching one, down for an infrequent winter visit from the lands of tundra and permafrost.

Two days after receiving Blair’s report, I drove over to Chatham and from the stairs in front of the Coast Guard Station began hoofing it south over the beach. I reckoned that an hour’s walk would put me in the right area of South Beach where I could hope to see the owl. As I walked, I passed a milling mass of diving gannets, then a female merlin (a type of falcon) and then a flock of 40 or so lapland longspurs feeding in tidal debris.

But, these birds, interesting and striking as they were,weren’t really what I was after. When I felt I was finally in the right area, I began checking each sandy bluff and ridge for anything bulky and white. A very white gull on one ridge got me momentarily excited. However, as I was beginning to wonder if the snowy owl was a bird only others were meant to see here, a wraith of the dunes, something caught my eye. I noticed a small bush on one of the sandy ridges with a white protuberance projecting above the upper margins of the bush.

I shifted sideways a bit to see what this was and there it was, a handsome snowy owl, my first on Cape Cod and bird number 320! It was a special occasion, but there I was alone with no one to plant a high five on. I tried at least to come up with some profound thought to suit the moment but all my mind could summon up was “thanks Blair.” Then I retreated, content to leave the owl as he patiently awaited dusk when his “day” would begin.

Now I move on to the saw-whet owl, whichl I had already seen on the Cape, several years ago at Pochet Island in Orleans. Its ways are quite different from the much larger snowy. The saw-whet winters on Cape Cod in very low numbers and spends its days roosting on the inner limbs of thick evergreens and is thus very hard to detect. The saw-whet migrates south through New England in maximum numbers in mid-October. With most migrating birds, the bird watcher can see an actual migrating bird in daylight but not so with the saw-whet. This little owl migrates totally out of view and only by catching the bird in a net at night when it is feeding can we know it is moving through. Once netted, the birds are banded and then released.

Through your usual columnist here, my wife Elinor, I learned of a saw-whet owl banding station in Freeport, Maine. A group of us from the Cape Cod Bird Club visited the station this past October. We had the good fortune to see four saw-whets removed from the nets and taken into the banders’ house, where we could see this diminutive owl right in the hand. It was a very informative experience, and we learned quite a lot about the biology and behavior of the saw-whet. In fact, this station is one of the most reliable sites in the Northeast for seeing a netted saw-whet. The trip was so successful I plan to run it again next October.

In summary, the “secret six” Cape Cod owl society is a very clandestine group and that’s exactly the way they want it. But, with a little knowledge of each members’ ways we have a chance once in a while to enter the nether world of the owls of Cape Cod or nearby regions.