Publication Date: Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Give a hoot
Give a hoot
(August 24, 2005) Owls enlisted in streamkeeper's fight for native plants
by Bill D'Agostino
Jim Johnson is hoping vicious killers will soon be moved into Palo Alto's Downtown North Neighborhood.
Vicious gopher killers, that is.
Johnson, the streamkeeper for the San Francisquito Creek, has been working for years to revegetate its banks, replacing invasive non-native plants with native grasses and trees.
But gophers and moles have thwarted his work, digging up purple needle grasses and toppling newly planted maple trees.
"I've been struggling with these guys for a long time," Johnson said. "Every week it seemed there was another Maple Tree fallen over."
So Johnson enlisted the help of David "Tex" Houston, the chief steward for Palo Alto's Arastradero Preserve for Acterra and a leader of a local Bluebird recovery program. Houston got local Boy Scouts to build wooden boxes to attract Barn Owls and Kestrels, whose main food source are gophers and moles as well as rats and other rodents.
Four of the wooden boxes can now be seen hanging from tree branches on the Palo Alto side of the San Francisquito Creek, which divides Menlo Park and Palo Alto. Two are near the Waverley Street Bike Bridge and two are near El Palo Alto Park. The larger boxes have six-inch openings to attract the Barn Owls and deep cavities to entice them to nest.
"They'll be flying around the neighborhood feasting on these rodents," Johnson said hopefully.
If the boxes successfully lure an owl, neighbors might soon hear the high-pitch screeching of babies asking for food.
Because they only come out at night and because of their relatively small size, the owls should not harm neighborhood pets, Houston said. But, he added hesitantly, "They might take a kitten."
Staff Writer Bill D'Agostino can be e-mailed at bdagostino@paweekly.com.
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