[Mnbird] Barred Owl behavior this morning

[Kyle TePoel]

This morning I saw two Barred Owls on the ground. From a distance of a few
hundred feet, even with binoculars, I couldn't make out great detail about
what was going on, but I presumed it was a territorial dispute and that
perhaps one of the owls was being attacked. Or, perhaps one owl caught some
prey and the other wanted it. But the seemingly aggressive behavior was not
continuous; it would start and stop. Over the course of about 15-20
minutes, this went on--lots of owls on backs, flapping wings, interspersed
with moments where they'd stop, sometimes face each other, sometimes hunker
down and get hard to spot, then sit up a bit taller, then physically
interact again. Most of the time, one or both of the owls were vocal as
well (usually the very high pitched wail). At some point, a third one flew
in (but did not land near the other two), but I did not see if it landed
nearby or continued on. Neither of the two owls on the ground paid it any
obvious attention.

I perused my bird behavior books, and many owl-based websites, and didn't
find anything specifically describing what I saw (in fact, and much to my
surprise, even my Stokes Guide to Bird Behavior repeatedly states "not much
is known" about various Barred Owl activity).

Eventually, both of the owls that were engaged with each other on the
ground flew away, in the same direction, and moments later one was heard
giving its typical who-cooks...call. Not sure what happened with the third
owl that had flown in.

As to what exactly was going on, I'm left not fully certain and would
gladly hear any input from anyone who's witnessed anything similar. I
assume the birds were not likely to be mating on the ground. I also assume
that a fight would not result in both birds flying off together (or what
appeared to be "together"), or taking "timeouts" during the act wherein
both birds were just apparently relaxed and disengaged before eventually
continuing with the tussle.

Any thoughts?

Kyle Te Poel
Stillwater Township, MN
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.lists.mnbird.net/pipermail/mnbird_lists.mnbird.net/attachments/20240307/9538e09c/attachment.htm>