a SE LORIENT & PES PN SLES STEERS PRES Peay RE RT Ett PORTA Sat is “4 Wednesday, July 27, 1988 THE REVIEW _9781-2nd St., Sidney B.C. Tales of the great horned owl Outdoors’ Unlimited: By Cy Hampson: K. Taylor, in a Birder’s Guide to Vancouver Island, lists the great horned owl as.a fairly rare resident. Edo Nyland, Dean Park Estates, recorded the sighting of one of these large owls in Dean Park carlier this spring. About the same time, Mary and I picked up a fresh pellet from a table near the small pond in the same park. This pellet may have been regurgitated by the same species as it contained bones - and hair from a cottontail rabbit. However, the pellet might well have come from a barred ow! although we did not at any time hear.the characteristic call of that specics during our numerous hikes in the park, nor when we joined work parties cngaged in preparing trails. The great horned owl is the most widely: distributed of Amer- ican Owls, Occurring across the continent from Atlantic to Pacific and from the tree-line in the north to the Straits: of Magellan at the southern tip of South America. They are powerful avian predators, feeding upon rabbits, hares, rats, mice, voles, pocket gophers, moles, squirrels, chipmunks, muskrats, woodchucks, weasels, opossums, snakes, lizards and a wide variety of birds, both large and small. On one occasion, I ran across a horned owl in a roadside ditch with a firm grip on a fully grown skunk. The owl had the neck of the struggling skunk grasped by onc foot .while the talons of the other were deeply embedded in the victim’s back..I left the scene -when the skunk had ceased to struggle. | HORNED OWLCHICKS: Fy runnvtv ue ncnayraamenrensce tahiti sido dian houschold. But owning .an ly connected to income, accord- | 7 covering 1987. cent of houscholds: with income of $10,000 or less but in 69 per -cent.of houscholds’ with income ! . Over $95; 000. On still another occasion, Mary and I spotted a great horned owl perched listlessly in the lower branches of a dead balsam poplar. Our near approach did not alarm it in the least and in a -moment we noticed a number of white porcupine quills protrud- ing from its head in the region of its eyes and mouth. The owl was slumped down, oblivious of its surroundings. We eascd it into a cardboard carton but before we reached home, the bird had died. Subsequent examination revealed that a number of quills had lodged in the swollen throat and still more of them in the crop and muscular gizzard. The owl had taken on a porcupine whose specialized armor had proven too much for the predator. Owls tend to dismember larger prey but swallow smaller ones whole. In the latter case the digestible portions arc utilized as food while the undigestible bits such as bones, feathers and fur arc wrapped in a neat, mucous-coated bundle and regurgitated i in the form of a pellet. Floating the pellets in water and separating the contents will usually reveal the items of dict utilized by the owl. During-onc spring, we collected the pellets near a great horned owl’s nest and recorded the results. This. pair of owls fed almost exclusively upon deermicc, meadow voles and. red-backed voles..Only two items of bird remains showed up and those were the skulls and bones of Hungarian partridges. At still another nest, the owls fed mostly upon pocket gophers during the breeding scason. - Great homed owls do not build their own nests. Instead, they make usc of the old nests of hawks, ravens, crows and even mag- pics. . . They are usually on the breeding territory as carly as late Janu- ary or carly February and we have found them on eggs in late February and carly March, even though the thermometer regis- tered many degrees below the freezing point. The adults are often very aggressive about the nest, especially after the eggs have hatched. One should be wary indeed when climbing a nesting tree in Guder to inspect the contents or band the chicks. Dishwashers ‘not for all Telephones, refrigerators and TV sets arc in almost every Cana-. | Tea rouse automatic dishwasher is definite-. We welcome one and ail to our» _7th season fo serving lunches and afternoon teas. ing to a Statistics Canada study of household facilitics and.income They were found i in only 13 per 479-7787 Taxes paid | RRS e Gallery | OPEN Tues:-Sun: 11:30 ~6:00 PM "| _ $460 OLD WEST SAANICH ROAD Page All SAANICH & THE ISLANDS 696-6232 CONSTITUENCY OFFICE 2388 BEACON AVE. MEL. COUVELIER SIDNEY,B.C. TERRY HUBERTS DISTRICT OF NORTH SAANICH ADVISORY PLANNING COMMISSION District of North Saanich is accepting applications to fill a vacancy on its Advisory Planning Commission. The appointment. to the Commission will be made at the August 15, 1988 meeting of Council, and expires January 16, 1989. Interested persons should forward their names to Joan E. Schill, Municipal Clerk, 1620 Mills Road, P.O. Box 2639, Sidney, B.C. V8L 4C1, no later than Wednesday, August 10, 1988. ne - ra E Teun ARE YOU SURE YOUR DRINKING WATER IS SAFE? WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE SURE! Our water treatment unit. removes: -CLORINE, THMS, P.C.B.s, LEAD and other contaminants from tap water. FORAFREE | BROCHURE CALL: 656-4501 oes “A HERITAGE "HOTEL - : FOR BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER OR JUST RELAXA TION “Cy Hampson photo - paid $6,491 in ‘personal’ taxes in 2 ee sh 1986, up $4,837 in 1982, accord-. “the: avenge? Canadian: family s Appearing Thursday, Friday and Saturday atth foes be a “> in-our pub for the month of July. If you'like ‘Irish Rover’ _ing:to a s a Statistics Canada study of - Pre mero amily expenditure: : type. otf music you: must neo the > Rendragon T ve. 7: Wty Tasty Neb A aay Vat gh a | ar [ey ath Yeti ;