The saw-whets are coming!

There's a traffic jam happening in the skies between Canada and the Lower 48: thousands of saw-whet owls are on the move. But it won't do you much good to sit on the porch with your binoculars watching for them to pass by; it's all happening in the dark of night.

About every 20 years or so, populations of saw-whet owls go through a significant surge in numbers. The last time was in the late '80s when I found several dead saw-whets on highways 97, 126 and 20 all winter.

The phenomenon that drives the surge in saw-whet owls is not, to my knowledge completely understood. Saw-whets are opportunists that will kill and eat anything smaller then themselves, and sometimes larger, such as flying squirrels, but their normal prey are small rodents, birds and insects.

If there is a buildup in prey, you can bet your bottom dollar that owls, hawks, coyotes and other predators are also enjoying the surge with more babies and better survival of young.

Nevertheless, studying saw-whets is a research project that takes a great deal of commitment and loss of sleep. Just about everything that little owl does is in the dark of night, when most Homo sapiens are deep in slumber. There is a dedicated researcher in Ontario, Canada, however, who banded more than 1,500 owls in the winter and live-trapped 270 in one night.

In the event you may not have had the pleasant experience of spending the night close to a male saw-whet wooing the love of his life, you've missed out on a noisy evening.

My son Dean and I chanced to camp out under a juniper near the Lost Forest years ago and spent the entire evening listening to the relentless love song of a male saw-whet set on taking a female to his abandoned woodpecker cavity. "Whoop!" pause "Wheep!" pause "Whoop!" on and on into the night, just like someone filing a saw, hence the owl's name.

My son finally said: "Dad, either we move or that owl better shut up." But I talked him out of moving or bothering the little guy. After all, I suggested, when do you think you will ever have the opportunity to spend the night with a lovesick saw-whet owl? He still tells his kids about that unique experience.

The police chief in Sedro Woolley, Washington wasn't as tolerant, however. A front page story in The Oregonian in the early '60s told of a strange sound that kept the town's populace awake all night, some of whom suggested it was a "space alien."

A little while later another story appeared in the paper saying the mysterious sound stopped after the chief shot a male saw-whet owl.

Surges in animal populations are sometimes a mystery to biologists. One that is fairly well documented is that of the long-eared owl. When voles (short tailed, mouse-like rodents) begin to increase in numbers - usually because of an abundant food supply - owl populations rise right along with them.

I saw this phenomena first hand in the haying community of Alfalfa in 1958, following a record snowfall the winter before. Native grasses and other plants produced a bountiful seed crop that meadow voles couldn't pass up. The result was perhaps the "thousand year boom" in voles.

It was virtually impossible to walk on the laterals between flood-irrigated fields without stepping on a vole. As water moved across the fields, voles ran ahead like a sea of fur. And every abandoned magpie nest had a long-eared owl nesting in it. Long-eared owl populations increased, and great horned owls and coyotes thought they'd died and gone to heaven.

If you live in any of the forested communities around Central Oregon and would like to attract a saw-whet to keep you awake all night, send me a 5x7 SASE (TWO stamps, please) to P.O. Box 1513, Sisters, OR 97759.

I'll send you my free guide to nesting boxes, bat roost and bird feeders. Be sure to make it a 5x7; the document is too thick for a business envelope.