First suspected owl predation

[Caroline]

This year will be my 12th year of hosting Purple Martins. Except for snakes and raccoons, I think I've hit every snag know to Martineers.

This year I had my first suspected owl attack.

I was outside, watching the PMs on May 11. They were happy, chattering, buzzing my head, playing musical gourds, and seemed as normal as ever.

I did a walk-about around the pole and found this large, 18" across, pile of feathers. I did not see any blood, neither on the gourds nor on the ground; no pieces of flesh, no brown owl feathers. Nothing except the feathers from an ASY male martin. It's as though he blew out all his feathers.

I do have a Cooper's hawk problem, but they normally carry off the victims and I thought owls swallow their meals whole.

The group of feathers is so far from the pole, if the hawk ate it from the top perch, my dogs would have noticed, and the feathers would have been more under the pole. All the feathers are there, flight, tail, shorter darker chest feathers, but there are not chunks of skin or flesh attached to them.

Wes thinks a hawk - Cooper? Merlin? Peregrine? - (we have all three in the area) dropped down fast and hard, hit the bird, exploding the feathers, and swooped off with the prey.

Anyway, that bird is gone and the colony is back to normal. They hadn't settled on gourds, mates, or anything yet. While I hate to lose any bird, I'd rather lose one very early rather than after the eggs start appearing.

Any idea what happened to this beauty?

[SYmywa]

Caroline,

That's sad, to lose even one!

I have no clue who done it, but if the feather group was that tight, Id
guess it was devoured right on the ground!

Maybe someone with knowledge on this will Swoop - in /w a thought.

One question's been plaguing me for some time, If our goal is to increase
PM numbers and thinking about reports like this and the many that go unreported.
Does todays housing offer the protection, required to support that end?

JAS

[Dave Duit]

Owl cages can be installed around the entire gourd rack or metal housing for owl troubles. For hawk troubles, many landlords add decoy martins around their colony.

[SYmywa]

SOUNDS LIKE CAGES HAVE BEEN FAIRLY EFFECTIVE IN MOST CASES.
THEY MAY OFFER AN ALTERNATE ESCAPE ROUTE. ESPECIALLY
IF P.M. CAN SEE THE ATTACKER IN ADVANCE.
THAT BRINGS ME TO THE QUESTION OF PORCHES AS NEET AS IT
SEEMS TO OBSERVE THESE BIRDS ON THE PORCH, MIGHT THAT SAME
PORCH/CANOPY BE THE UNDOING OF MANY P.M.?