My Witt's End: Owls Take Center Stage

Five-week-old Barn Owl Chick

Have you ever attended one of those concerts where the opening act almost steals the show from the headliner? So it was Saturday when Susan and I, along with about two dozen birders from The Wilderness Center Bird Club of Wilmot and the Kirtland Bird Club of Cleveland, had the opportunity to watch the banding of Barn Owls at Killbuck Marsh Wildlife Area. Barn Owls were the headline act, however, Cliff Swallows at the farm of Perry Yoder set the tone for the day—and it was a tough act to follow.
Through the Herculean efforts of Su Snyder of TWC and Eileen Zimlich of KBC, we saw the show of a lifetime. It started with some early morning birding of areas around Killbuck that Su knows so well and reports on so diligently. Mid-morning we stopped at the immaculate farm of Perry Yoder to see nesting Cliff Swallows. I expected the usual half dozen or so birds flying around. Whoa! This Amish farmer and his family have been encouraging the nesting of this species at their farm since the late 90s and now have more than 550 nests lining the eves of their barn every year.

A fraction of the 550 Cliff Swallow nests at the Perry Yoder farm

Cliff Swallows by the hundreds danced around us gathering insects for their young, affording views that many of us with many years of birding behind the binoculars have never seen. Perry and his sons (seven of them and one daughter) proudly talked with us about how they and their Amish neighbors encourage this and many other ways to live in harmony with the environment.

Cliff Swallows coming and going from their unique mud nests

Not only does Perry have the swallows nesting on his property, there were Purple Martin houses, from which he collects nesting data. Standing in one spot, along with swallows and martins, I saw Red-headed Woodpeckers, Bobolinks, and Eastern Meadowlarks.

Purple Martins paid little attention to our intrusion of its space

Six chix, a couple more shy than others, were as interested in the camera as I was of them

In the afternoon we met with and were treated to an event few birders get: Banding of Barn Owls. This is an endangered species (in Ohio) primarily because of loss of habitat. Tom and Jack Henry, twin brothers both retired from the Ohio Division of Wildlife, started a program of banding the species and encouraging the bird’s survival through nest box placement in the late 1980s. They travel the state, as well as other places in the country, banding birds and gathering data on the species. This year they’ve banded more than 240 chicks from 51 nests boxes in the state.

Tom and Jack remove one of the chicks from the nest box

The chicks must have learned of our thrilling morning with the first act by the Cliff Swallows so they ramped it up for a great show. We got to see six chicks in the nest box, weights checked, ages estimated and the awarding of a piece of jewelry they’ll wear for life. At the end of the show the chicks got the standing ovation.