They need a frickin’ laser version for the cats head 
Mofiddly, I am sorry about your cat. I, too like cats, and from experience I keep mine inside now.
Do you think the owl considered your cat as prey, or a rival?
I rescued a cat when I lived in the woods. Rusty came up and wrapped around my ankles/ I did not have her fixed, and I had many cats. I did get everyone fixed. I lost her daughter, my favorite cat, Jack to something unknown. I keep the two we have now inside. Mrs. Plant (v.3.0) rescued them from a grocery store dumpster.
Not the oldest reanimation, I guess.
Anyway, the solution to the cat v. owl issue is to keep the cat inside. Cats are enormously destructive to native songbird populations. Any time an owl takes an outdoor cat it’s a good thing. If you like pointy little box-crappers keep them inside where they belong.
Rude and tacky, rude and tacky.
I would always vote for owls over cats, but this isn’t a poll.
Even though your affections are misplaced, you might broadcast a territorial owl hoot in your yard at night. Could work.
link: owl sounds
I know this is an old thread but for people interested yes owls can take cats
Since originally posting in this thread, we had to relocate the chicken operation to the south side of the property, away from the street and the utility poles that the owls would sit on.
Now, the crows are getting in the pens and stealing eggs! :smack:
Goddamned Mother Nature!
And just like 2 years ago, have nothing to contribute to the topic of keeping Owls at bay. Maybe I should just learn to love em’, baby! (Actually I don’t dislike them a bit. Its the wife that raises fucking chickens, not me. I’ve never lost a motorcycle to an Owl!)
zombie or no
raise more mice than your cats can eat. hot food for everyone.
I doubt if lights will help. Owls need at least some light, no species can see in total darkness, and owls are aided by artificial light where there is any. But the light might make it easier for your cats to detect them, since they fly silently without audible wing turbulence (special feathers on wings).
Well since she put me down
there’ve been owls puking in my bed
- from the Dave Barry version of “Help Me Rhonda”.
A few more comments about owls, amplifying what I said just above. There is no such thing, on earth, as “total darkness” outdoors. As I recall, only about 10% of the light from the night sky comes from visible stars, and 90% is background light from the jillions of s tars that are not individually resolvable by eye. You can demonstrate this to yourself by cutting a one-inch hole in the center of a piece of matte black paper, and holding it up and looking through it on a starry might. It is amazing how bright the center hole will appear to be. All of this light makes it easy for an owl to see on what you think is a dark night.
The presence of substantial light does not dismay an owl At least lour species (that I can think of) of the North American owls spend their summer in the Arctic, where it never gets dark, and they must hungtin perpetual daytime to live thrugh the summer. In temperate zones, owls typically start moving around an hour or two before dark. The reason they hunt is night is not so much through their own preference, but most small mammals are nocturnal, sleeping all day and moving around at night. What time of day do your mousetraps snap in your pantry?
I realize these are old posts, however, I was looking for ways to deter owls when I found this.
My problem is not cats ( I have plenty of those) but, as noted above, I do feel so lucky to live where I do, to be able to see what I get to see in my own back yard.
To the problem: Last year a pair of Green Herons nested in the canopy of one of my maple trees. Tragically, an owl ate the heads off all the babies. This year the Herons have returned to the same tree. I would like to deter owls from any future baby heron owlicide, and am looking for suggestions.
I don’t begrudge the owls a meal, however, I want to try to help the herons propagate!
Did anyone actually see owls killing the herons? I ask because eating just the heads wouldn’t make owls my first thought. It’s the kind of feeding behavior I’d expect from a mammal (raccoon, fox) that is teaching its juvenile offspring to kill prey. I’ve seen zoo-type enclosures where a raccoon mother with 3 or 4 kids broke in and killed 30 or more gulls, terns, and herons in a single night. None were eaten, but most were decapitated. And I’ve certainly heard from plenty of “outdoor cat” owners (my cats have all been indoor, thank you) describing the headless offerings left for their ‘owners’.
Owls don’t hunt or kill for practice, or to demonstrate techniques. Killing several herons and leaving the majority of food behind is possible, but I don’t think it is very likely.
You could try some “Owl Exterminators” - YouTube
No one saw the event, but I did talk to a local zoo keeper (birds) who said owls use their beaks to sever the head, with the rest of the prey being “lost”. We do have raccoons too, but the nest is pretty high up and out on some fairly small branches that may or may not hold a raccoon. Opossum too, but again, the branches holding the nest are small. Although they do hold the birds…Just trying to help the herons!
Well… I don’t want to claim such self importance that “I am my own citation” but this just isn’t (generally) true. Owl beaks are well suited for tearing meat, not for decapitation. Talons are used for killing the prey and for holding it down while chunks are torn off and swallowed. It would be counter-survival to kill a prey animal, then eat a small, bony piece and discard the rest of the body. And to do that multiple times (how many baby herons? 2? 3? 4?) out on the end of a skinny branch just flies in the face of all reason.
Also, horned owls are big, powerful birds. I don’t know how big/old the herons were, but an adult horned owl can swallow prey the size of a sparrow or a small rat whole, no tearing necessary. Herons would be in this “swallowable” size range from hatching up through perhaps 6 or more weeks old. And the owl is totally capable of killing an adult green heron, or a fledgling, and carrying it off to eat elsewhere. A couple or three baby heron heads wouldn’t even be an appetizer.
The circumstances of a nest on flimsy branches also suggests to me a low likelihood of predation by horned owls. This just wouldn’t support a hunting stoop onto prey (baby herons in the nest) without crashing down and spilling survivors and the erstwhile predator.
I assume the carcasses were found under the tree, not by somebody climbing up to the nest. This reinforces to me my guess of mom raccoon with youngsters. One or more climb toward the nest, bouncing it on the spindly branches and eventually spilling a heron loose. The other raccoons are waiting to pounce, in the tree and on the ground. A quick kill by biting off the head but the body is abandoned because they’re really not hungry, just practicing. Lather, rinse, repeat until the nest is empty. Move on, there’s lots more the kids need to learn!
I don’t know what type of owls we have. We hear them, but I don’t know the different calls.
There were 4 baby herons - all the headless bodies on the ground under the nest. still naked, about the size of a cardinal, maybe. The adults look to be crow sized.
I guess my best bet is to let the dog out regularly, since she likes to keep the yard clear of vermin. Much to my dismay, she has dispatched quite a few things over the years. Raccoon, oppossum, juvenile Canada goose, skunk (she got sprayed 4 times that summer in her efforts). Not to mention the times we interrupted her! Yeesh, she sounds horrid…just a sweet hound that can’t pass up a scent trail.