Perches 104
Wednesday | 24 March 2010
The last in my series on the perches, this is about the owls at COWHORN. In Perches 103, the picture depicted bones that hawks had dropped around the bases of perches. Last month we began hearing and seeing owls on the perches. This picture shows that owls leave a different “calling card” than do hawks.Amazingly, on one occasion we were around the asparagus perches at just the right moment to see this come from an owl! The critter in question was about 6 to 8 inches tall and was probably a Screech Owl. As I later learned, owls eat rodents whole, digesting everything from the prey and then eliminating what they don’t need. This picture shows a pancake of hair, bones and cartilage. In the moment however, we learned something truly more amazing - owls regurgitate what they don’t digest. Yup, a 6 inch owl regurgitates up a golf ball of guts which then sounds like a tennis ball when it hits the ground! And that wraps up Perches at COWHORN.
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Read Perches 102...
Read Perches 103...
– Barbara Steele
Perches 103
Tuesday | 09 February 2010
More proof – new rodent skulls under the perches! Today I found three. In this picture, you can see the teeth still intact.
Read Perches 101...
Read Perches 102...
Read Perches 104...
– Barbara Steele
Perches 102
Thursday | 14 January 2010
In Perches 102, we are examining the droppings of the raptors. Check out these bones.Some look like entire sculls of small birds! Upon reading, I have learned that raptors often eat their competitor birds before they go after ground rodents. As you can imagine, the rodents are the ultimate goal for a farm.
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Perches 101
Wednesday | 13 January 2010
The problem is that “Perches 101” was an entire year, so the story is already long at this point! If you check out Masterplan, you will see the many habitat breaks in the farm that run along the main road.
Our thinking with the spacing of these spots was that they would create a corridor from the southern uplands running the length of the farm to the north. These breaks would provide essential habitat for “beneficials,” the guys that create natural predator loops which in turn keeps the ecosystem functioning fully.
These are the kinds of analytical decisions you make when deciding how to organize a farm. Well, these are the kinds of decisions you make when you are organizing a Biodynamic® farm that you consider to be a living, breathing organism. It looked good on paper so it seemed like a good place to start!
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Musings on Bears
Wednesday | 16 December 2009
The first clue was the scent. A BLM ranger told me a few years ago that once one smells bear droppings, one often doesn’t forget. So, when I smelled it earlier in the week, I paused and looked. I was in the northeast corner of the farm where we have the most wildlife activity. Nothing looked out of place though.
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