Bella Vista Garden club learns about raptors
Lynn Sciumbato of Morning Star Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Gravette spoke about raptors at a meeting of the Bella Vista Garden Club on Wednesday, April 26.
Sciumbato said she takes care of native wild birds including everything from hummingbirds to eagles. She brought Sydney, a barred owl that she has taken care of for 12 years, to show the club. Sydney perched on her arm during the entire presentation.
She said birds are federally protected by the Migratory Bird Act. She said in the early years of the U.S., each state had its own laws about birds. In the 1900s, bird populations were dropping rapidly because birds migrate and in many states it was legal to shoot the birds, she said. The Migratory Bird Act made it illegal to kill, hurt or keep any native wild bird, she said.
Sciumbato said she has to have a permit to rehabilitate birds and another permit to keep a small number long-term.
She said the barred owl is the type of owl found in the woods of Bella Vista. Although it looks large, it is actually a rather small owl covered in very fluffy feathers, she said. Their size determines what kind of prey they take, and a barred owl will eat chipmunks and frogs, she said.
“Where you’ve got woods and water, you’ve got lots and lots of barred owls,” she said.
She said raptors are birds of prey that kill live food and eat it, but more specifically, they kill the food with their talons. The talons are long, sharp and attached to some of the strongest muscles in the bird’s body, she said.
Owls use their hearing as much as their night vision, she said. An owl can hear a mouse squeak in the grass half a mile away. An owl will sit in a tree and wait to hear something and then fly to a closer tree and look for the prey, she said.
Sydney needed rehabilitation after being hit by a car, she said, adding that 85% of raptors that need rehabilitation have been hit by cars. She said a lot of birds hunt along the highway because it is easier to see prey moving there than in the tall grass, and a lot of birds get hit by cars that way.
In answer to a question about the owls’ nests, she said they tend to make nests in cavities of trees. However, the cavities start out as woodpecker holes, and woodpeckers only make holes in dead trees, and people cut down dead trees, she said. Owls will use a box for a nest, and people can find plans online to build one, she said.
Sciumbato said people should be patient to see a barred owl. There are not as many as there are blue birds, for example, because the owls are higher on the food chain, however, their numbers are good, and they are protected, she said.