Long-Eared Owls Are Roosting In Small City Park

CHICAGO (STNG) - Birdwatchers are flocking to a South Side park to see owls rarely found in urban environments like Chicago.

“Why here?’’ wondered library worker Royal Reed Jr., who was at the park Thursday morning snapping photos of the spiky-topped long-eared owls.

Hoo knows?

“It’s a mystery,’’ said Zhanna Yermakov, natural areas manager for the Chicago Park District.

Photo: James Peterson, Chicago Park District

The 14-inch-tall owls typically winter in rural areas or forest preserves before heading north for the summer to Wisconsin, northern Michigan and Canada, said Field Museum ornithologist Douglas Stotz.

Stotz has seen migrating long-eared owls stop along the lakefront for a day or so but he said it is “highly unusual” for them to hunker down here.

Nocturnal and people-wary animals, they are usually difficult to observe. But the feathered group at the small park (the Park District asked that it not be identified to avoid disruption to the animals) have settled in trees next to a sidewalk.

The district put up a fence around the conifer trees. Birders say they have seen as many as 10 of the owls in the park, hunched in bunches. Such owls eat rodents and are likely surviving on mice but perhaps some city rats as well, Stotz said.

When roosting, the owls stretch their bodies to make themselves look like tree trunks. Males make the typical “hoo-hoo” sound while the female call is more like a raspy buzz. When frightened, they may hiss like cats. On Thursday morning, nothing seemed to be scaring them. Even as a steady stream of excited camera-toting birders arrived, alerted by blog postings, only a passing police car’s siren caused any kind of stir in the quiescent creatures.

Birdwatcher Paul Massey drove in from west suburban Brookfield because “owls are so hard to find . . . they’re very secretive.’’ Massey, a floor installer, was thrilled to have seen one fly on Wednesday. He called the odd owl appearance “a gift.’’

Students from a nearby school had to be taught that lesson: Earlier this winter, teachers had to stop kids from throwing snowballs at the owls.

Now the birds have become part of the science curriculum there, Yermakov said.