HOOTERS - I don’t know much what to say about them, as the column explains what you see. It is a sight I doubt you will ever see a photo of again, as owls are definitely not a colonial type of bird. It is simply amazing to see this. Photo by Faren Fite, Greenfield.

Short-ears aplenty

I do a radio program on the outdoors most Friday or Saturday mornings from 8:30 to 9 a.m. on Stockton Radio, 107.7 F.M. It isn’t a real sophisticated program but it covers a pretty good area in a circle from Joplin over to Springfield and up to Lebanon, Lake of the Ozarks, back over to Nevada. We have a good time talking about hunting and fishing and nature and conservation and folks call in with their comments and questions.

A couple of weeks ago, a gentleman from Greenfield called in and identified himself as Faren Fite. I thought for a moment it was some kind of hoax call, because he said he had seen around 200 owls the day before in one small area between Greenfield and Lockwood. He said that on one corral fence there were more than 30 in a group.

When you are a grizzled old outdoor veteran like me, you figure you have seen about everything in the outdoors and I have never seen more than four or five owls of any species together in the woods ever. So, figuring if I haven’t ever seen something, I won’t believe it, I sort of dismissed it, until Mr. Fite sent me the photos he had taken. And folks, “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.” If you are a computer type of person you can go to the website that Sondra Gray maintains for me, www.larrydable montoutdoors.blogspot.com, and you can see many of Mr. Faren Fites “phascinating and fenomenal fotos.”

There was one photo of 28 owls sitting on a small corral fence as if they were attending a family reunion. Maybe it was an owl convention of some kind. I don’t doubt Mr. Fite at all now. He says along that rural road, there were 200 owls at least and I wish I could have seen it.

It was a huge group of short-eared owls, a species a little bit like the barred owl in size and appearance. But in habit, they are much different than most of the owls we are accustomed to hearing and seeing in the Ozarks. They have a mean look to them, with ornery-looking bright yellow eyes rather than the brown eyes the barred owl has. And the face is much different, with a pronounced circle of feathers, contrasting white and dark brown and two little feather patches referred to as “ears” which are much like the horns on a horned owl. Except the ears on a short-eared owl can usually not be seen, they just barely stick up above the forehead most of the time.

They are a species not so much fond of forests; they stick to a more open country like that prairie land along the Missouri-Kansas border, with scrub timber and thickets. And they nest on the ground. Now that is something, when you think about how most all owls nest in hollow trees. The barn owl often nests in old buildings of course and there is an odd little burrowing owl which nests in holes in the ground.

It is interesting to note that an owl can’t build a nest because his beak isn’t made for carrying and assembling nest materials. A burrowing owl doesn’t dig his burrow and barn owls don’t build a nest at all, they just lay eggs on a barn loft or ledge. Great horned owls and barred owls find a natural hole in a tree and nest there or sometime use an old hawk nest. But short-eared owls actually nest in the grass on the ground, which they trample down and flatten down and they actually try to arrange a few sticks in a situation which really doesn’t resemble a nest. Knowing that other owls do not carry sticks, that’s something I’d like to see.

On this little flattened grass “nest” they will lay anywhere from three or four to seven or eight eggs, depending on the whim of the female owl, I suppose. They lay their eggs in May or early June and the eggs aren’t much more than an inch wide, about an inch and half long. That is a very small egg for a bird that eventually will mature at a size of 14 to 16 inches in length and weigh about a pound.

Ornithologists examined the stomach contents of 110 short-eared owls many years back and found that three-quarters of their diet had been mice of one kind or another, about 10 percent small birds and nearly as many moles and shrews. About seven percent of the diet appeared to be insects, with the stomach of one owl containing about 30 big grasshoppers. Another odd thing about the short-eared owl is that he is a daytime type of owl, actively hunting during the day more than at night, when most other owls are active.

Mr. Fite’s pictures are fascinating and leave you to wonder why so many owls would be concentrated in such a small area together. Who can explain that? Certainly not me and, up to this week, I though I knew everything. Obviously it is some kind of a migration, perhaps not very far but likely from a place where food supplies of small ground mammals had been decimated for some reason or another. It is likely a mass movement of a species looking for food. I don’t see anywhere in books I have, any naturalists talking about a migration of owls.

Obviously, as I have said so often, no one can know all there is to know about nature. Those of us who spend a great deal of time outdoors see unexplainable things. A modern day outdoorsman or naturalist who tries to learn by the book can know little of the secrets of nature. You have to be there sometimes to see things which, perhaps, no one has seen before. I am much interested in hearing if any of my readers has ever seen anything like this before.

Finally, mad-deer disease, or Chronic Wasting Disease, has come to Missouri, right where I predicted it would first be found - in one of those deer pens where they try to raise giant antlers by feeding an herbivorous creature a diet that includes meat by- products.

The first deer with Chronic Wasting Disease was found on such a place in north Missouri. I will write more about this later. Rest assured, it is the first but not at all the last. Missouri’s wild deer will not escape it, as it is widespread in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

Come to our big “Grizzled Old Outdoorsman’s Swap-meet Event” at Nixa this coming Saturday, March 6. Doors will open to the public at 9:00 and it will last most of the day. Uncle Norten and I are looking forward to meeting with readers of this column. He’s bringing his hand-made sassafras canoe paddles and I am bringing my hand-made turkey calls. And there will be many tables filled with bargains of all kinds, antiques, hunting and fishing gear, beautiful outdoor art, you name it. You can reserve your own table if you have outdoor or country-living treasures to sell. There are still plenty available.

Call the Nixa Community Center, phone 417-725-5468. The swap meet will be held there in a big gymnasium, at 701 N. Taylor Way. You may also call Sondra Gray with Lightnin’ Ridge Publishing, 417-234-9104 for information or to reserve a table. You can get directions and information on that website of mine, given above.

My address is Box 22, Bolivar, MO 65613. You can email me at lightninridge@windstream.net.

The Missouri Departments of Agriculture, Conservation and Health and Senior Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced last Thursday that a captive white-tailed deer in Linn County has tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). CWD is a neurological disease found in deer, elk and moose.

“There is no evidence that CWD poses a risk to domestic animals or humans,” said State Veterinarian Dr. Taylor Woods. “We have protocols in place to quickly and effectively handle these situations.”

The animal that tested positive for CWD was a white-tailed deer inspected as part of the State’s CWD surveillance and testing program. Preliminary tests were conducted by the USDA National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, IA.

Upon receiving the confirmed CWD positive, Missouri’s departments of Agriculture, Conservation and Health and Senior Services initiated their CWD Contingency Plan. The plan was developed in 2002 by the Cervid Health Committee, a task force comprised of veterinarians, animal health officers and conservation officers from USDA, MDA, MDC and DHSS working together to mitigate challenges associated with CWD.

CWD is transmitted by live animal-to-animal contact or soil to animal contact. The disease was first recognized in 1967 in captive mule deer in the Colorado Division of Wildlife captive wildlife research facility in Fort Collins, Colorado. CWD has been documented in deer and/or elk in Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the Canadian Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. There has been no evidence that the disease can be transmitted to humans.

“Missouri’s proactive steps to put a testing protocol in place and create a contingency plan years ago is proving beneficial.  We are in a solid position to follow pre-established steps to ensure Missouri’s valuable whitetail deer resource remains healthy and strong,” said Jason Sumners Missouri’s Deer Biologist.

For more information regarding CWD, please contact Dr. Taylor Woods at (573) 751-3377.

by Jim Low

A gigging trip on the Niangua River in Dallas County produced Missouri’s first state-record white sucker in the alternative methods category.

Fifteen-year-old Joshua Lee Vance of Bolivar gigged the four pound, five ounce fish around 8:30 p.m. Jan. 19, setting Missouri’s first state fishing record of the year. The fish was 21.25 inches long

The Missouri Department of Conservation maintains fishing records in two categories – pole and line and alternative methods.
The Pole and Line category is for fish hooked in the mouth with a hand-held line. Alternative Methods records include fish taken by snagging, trotlines, limb lines, bank lines, spearing, gigging or archery.

The white sucker pole-and-line record is four pounds, eight ounces.

A surprising number of state fishing records have never been filled. Open records include six for pole and line and 23 for alternative methods. Open pole-and-line records include white catfish, spotted sucker and alligator gar. Open alternative-methods records include white and yellow bass, muskellunge, shovelnose sturgeon and shorthead redhorse.

Anglers should note that some alternative methods are not legal for some fish species. For example, trout may not be taken by gigging.

A list of state fishing records and information about applying for records are available at www.mdc.mo.gov/69.

The Conservation Department also has a Master Angler Program to recognize notable catches that fall short of records. For qualifying lengths and weights and an entry form, visit www.mdc. mo.gov/71.