FEMALE BARN OWL DRAWS ONLOOKERS

One of Decatur’s newest public green spaces is the sprawling Legacy Park near Agnes Scott College. Formerly the site of the United Methodist Children’s Home, the 77-acre park’s peaceful landscape and century-old buildings are loaded with history.

Now, it’s becoming one of metro Atlanta’s “birding hot spots,” where in just one day dozens of species of songbirds, wading birds, raptors and other feathered species can be seen or heard.

Since earlier this month, one bird in particular — a female barn owl — has been drawing small crowds of binocular-toting, camera-clicking bird-watchers (myself included) daily to the park. The birders, many of them lugging spotting scopes on tripods, show up at the crack of dawn and at sundown — hoping to get a glimpse and maybe a photo of the owl as she flies low over grassy fields near an old granite barn to snatch up mice and other morsels to eat.

Why so much interest in a barn owl, one of Georgia’s four, year-round native owl species (the others being great horned, barred and screech owls)? The big reason is that, even though the barn owl occurs throughout Georgia, it’s rarely seen — even more shy and retiring than the other owls. That’s even more true for urban areas, which the barn owl usually shuns.

Only at dusk does a barn owl emerge from its daytime roosting place — a hollow tree, an old barn — to hunt its rodent prey in fields and open woodlands. Its flight is swift and noiseless due to specialized feathers. Other adaptations help it zero in on moving prey on the darkest night.

Those adaptations give the barn owl its characteristic heart-shaped, nearly flat face — which, along with its black, piercing eyes and rasping, screeching voice, have made it an object of superstitious dread. Actually, it is harmless to people.

The barn owl’s future, however, is of great concern to wildlife biologists. Over the decades, the owl has declined in alarming numbers because of increased urbanization and other forms of habitat loss.

IN THE SKY: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: The moon is new on Saturday and will be a thin crescent in the west on Monday evening. Mars is in the southwest at dark and sets in the west a few hours later; it will appear near the moon on Friday (March 19). Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn appear in the east before sunrise.

COURTESY OF STEVE This female barn owl has been attracting small crowds of bird-watchers every day at Legacy Park in Decatur. The barn owl, one of four species of native owls in Georgia, is rarely seen, especially in urban areas.