The 2015 Ute Mountain Mesa Verde Festival kicked off May 6, and before birders set out on a late-night owl-spotting tour, John Rawinski, San Luis Valley Birding Network coordinator, author/photographer and retired U.S. Forest Service employee, briefed the crowd on what they might see out on their tour, how to look for them and what measures can be taken to protect them.
Rawinski’s presentation “Unlocking the Mysteries of Colorado Owls” covered everything from how to identify possible species by their own unique call as well as when and where to find them.
Fourteen of the 19 North American species of owl can be found in Colorado, and 11 of those are in Southwestern Colorado, Rawinski said.
“One of the reasons we have the tremendous variety is because we’ve got tremendous habitats – a variety of habitats – that are based on precipitation, elevation zone, vegetation. We we have high mountain basins, we have beautiful aspen forests, we have beautiful canyons where certain species of owl like to hide, and of course we have prairies in the eastern part of our state,” he said .
One of the most at-risk species, the Mexican Spotted Owl, also carries with it a great deal of symbolism. Rawinski says there have been some Spotted Owls at Mesa Verde and in the vicinity of Cortez.
“They’re really symbolic of our value system,” he said, referencing the clash between the timber industry and environmentalists who want to preserve the dwindling species’ habitat. “I feel we have to be really careful when we do our timber sales, speaking as a former Forest Service employee, and certainly if we knew locations of spotted owls, we would mitigate away from those areas and try to balance timber harvest away and protect habitat.”
In Native American culture, owls in general symbolize a visionquest. In American pop-culture, they symbolize wisdom, and in Hispanic culture, they symbolize death.
“In Hispanic culture, they’re considered owls as witches or brujas,” said Rawinski. He recalled a story told to him by a San Luis Valley resident, about a Montevista man who had a mistress in Taos, N.M., circa 1880. He decided to it break it off to the mistress, and rode down to Taos for two days on horseback. He told the woman he was staying with his wife, rode the two hard days and roughly 100 miles back to Montevista, and when he arrived at home the mistress was already there waiting for him.
“The story goes that she turned into an owl and flew that distance and got there in plenty of time before he did,” said Rawinski. “Other times, they said that when you had owls show up on your ranch or farm, it was a symbol that death was coming, and no doubt a lot of owls got blasted out of trees.”
Folklore aside, owls are also key figures in the animal kingdom, as they control the rodent population, eat insects that pose a threat to forest trees, and they prey upon sick animals; thereby controlling the spread of disease.
While they’re incredible predators, owls’ biggest threats are habitat loss, fence line accidents, power line accidents, automobile collisions, gunfire, drought and climate change in general.
The Audubon Society recently identified 413 species of birds at risk because of climate change, and 10 of those were owl species, Rawinski said.