Three Cheers For Hooters!
 

Sorry Guys, Not those kinds of Hooters. I mean the feathery ones which take a great toll of rodents.

A few years ago, a couple of "hairy tailed rats" (red squirrels) moved into the treeline on the edge of the property. They were cleaning out the bird feeders, but my wife's response was to put out more feeders and seed. Predictably,their numbers increased and they got to be a problem.
The little beggars managed to chew their way into my garage and from there it was easy to get into the train room. It wasn't pretty and I wasn't happy. I was just about to the point where traps were going to be acquired and deployed.

Enter a Barred owl. I thought I had heard it one day last week, but Thursday at dawn, it was sitting on the back of the bench, beyond the flower gardens. A couple of nights ago, it was sitting on the top of one of the bird feeder poles, eight feet from the house.
Today, not a squirrel to be heard or seen. :D

I'm loving the balance of nature!
Best
Les

And for that little bait-and-switch I post this:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...psdwarwinv.jpg

I don't think a single one of those girls would have done a thing for the squirrel problem. :D

Best
Les

Yes they would have! With them around you would have totally forgotten about squirrels ever even existing. ;)

the one time i went to a hooters, not one of the gals in the place looked remotely like that. the food was disappointing, too.

While I have seen a pretty girl there I have NEVER had a good meal at a Hooters.

Have a sleep over in the train room: If the squirrels are allergic to silicon bolt-ons, hair coloring and eye liner, the poor bastards are finished.

Very cool, Les. Nature at work.

From: Barred owl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Food and feeding

The barred owl is a very opportunistic predator. The principal prey of this owl are meadow voles, followed by mice and shrews of various species. Other mammals preyed upon include rats, squirrels, rabbits, bats, moles, opossums, mink, and weasels. A barred owl was photographed in Minnesota in 2012 predaceously grabbing and flying with a full-grown domestic cat, a semi-regular prey item for the great horned owl but previously unknown to be taken by this species.[12] Birds are taken occasionally and commonly include woodpeckers, grouse, quails, jays, icterids, doves and pigeons, and even domestic ducks and chickens, where they will even swoop through small openings in enclosed and covered runs. Less commonly, other raptors are predated, including smaller owls.[11] Avian prey are typically taken as they settle into nocturnal roosts, because these owls are not generally nimble enough to catch birds on the wing. It occasionally wades into water to capture fish, turtles, frogs and crayfish.[3][13][14] Additional prey include snakes, lizards, salamanders, slugs, scorpions, beetles, crickets, and grasshoppers. Barred owls have been known to be attracted to campfires and lights where they forage for large insects. Prey is usually devoured on the spot. Larger prey is carried to a feeding perch and torn apart before eating.

The barred owl hunts by waiting on a high perch at night, or flying through the woods and swooping down on prey. A barred owl can sometimes be seen hunting before dark. This typically occurs during the nesting season or on dark and cloudy days. Of the North American owls, the pygmy, hawk, snowy and burrowing owls are more likely to be active during the day. Daytime activity is often most prevalent when barred owls are raising chicks.[3][14] However, this species still generally hunts near dawn or dusk.


Vocalization

The usual call is a series of eight accented hoots ending in oo-aw, with a downward pitch at the end. The most common mnemonic device for remembering the call is "Who cooks for you, who cooks for you all." It is noisy in most seasons. When agitated, this species will make a buzzy, rasping hiss and click its beak together forcefully. While calls are most common at night, the birds do call during the day as well.[15]

If you're going to ogle waitresses at Hooters, you need to do it in Texas, Arizona, or Florida. Otherwise it's going to be disappointing. Much like Vermont BBQ.

this was san diego.....

You forgot Baton Rouge. The rest of Lousiana may suck, but the hooters in BR has some hotties.

You never will. I don't know how a place can consistently server bad food without effort to make it bad.

Seems The Owl Had Help/Competition
 

Last evening, my wife was standing by the living room window (the one with snow half-way up) and was surprised to see a weasel lookking in at her!
I had wondered how the owl managed to do such a number on the squirrel population. Now I think he had "help". Tried to get a pic of the weasel, but he was so fast I didn't even get the black tip of his white tail!

In other news, a single squirrel was spotted at the feader this morning.

Go Predators!
Les

Hooters that are located closer to a university or college always have prettier girls. The food is usually the same though. I don't go there for the meal though. ;)

A friend of mine has as his train room a large metal building behind his house in rural Alabama. An owl figured out how to get in through a vent and feasted on mice that were living in there also. Talk about a mess. Owl poop is usually like lumpy white wash and soaked into his landscape scenery. He screened in the vent and poisoned the mice. Took a while to clean up the layout.

My backyard owls are the Great Horned variety. They keep the mice and dove population down. You know when they nailed a dove by all the feathers. The doves do a "fright molt" and literally eject their feathers. Here is one of the owls in a tree behind my house. Sorry I have no photos of Hooters girls.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1425923008.jpg

A friend of mine came across an owl standing in the middle of the street in his neighborhood. He stopped to help the bird and said it was just standing there frozen like it was stunned but still very much alive. He said it was a very large bird. He picked it up and carried to a neighbor's porch who was standing outside and set it on the porch. The main take away from the weird experience was how light such a large bird was :)

I don't think "Hooters" can take any credit for that though :D. If I've been to Hooters once...I've been there hundreds of times back in the 80s before they expanded outside of FL (and most of those trips were by boat). They used to have an awesome grouper sandwich and "beer is beer" :p. Been in a few others since....and I now agree with others': I'll pass....

We have a Great Horned that just moved in. He sits in the large spruce outside our bedroom window and calls. I guess that explains the lack of rabbits around. I was going to put a Kestrel box up, but now I am not sure it would be a good idea.

Great Horned also eat skunks, which I am grateful.