Nature Done Wright

I am a big fan of Raptors Are the Solution, the California-based group that is leading the fight against the rat poisons that do horrendous collateral damage — killing pets and wi ldlife that eat the slowly dying rats.

My Screech Owl Companion co-author Scott Weston and I are proud to get a mention on the group’s website:

The Screech Owl Companion by Jim Wright and Scott Weston (Timber Press) and What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds by Jennifer Ackerman (Penguin Press)—highlight the anticoagulant rodenticide (AR) crisis and RATS’ work.

Ackerman notes RATS’ collaboration with Jonathan Haw’s Owlproject.org, an educational effort aimed at South African schoolchildren. She also recounts the fate of Barry the barred owl, a celebrated resident of New York’s Central Park killed in a vehicle collision which may have been related to the sublethal effects of ARs: “A necropsy showed that she carried a potentially lethal level of rat poison, which might have impaired her flying and her judgment.” Wright and Weston include a summary of the AR problem and actions taken to address it, notably the moratoriums in California and British Columbia; recommend RATS as a source of information; and warn against resorting to bromethalin and other non-AR poisons for rodent control: “For owls…no rodenticides are likely safe.”

Despite some overlap in content (both describe the mega-roosts of wintering long-eared owls in a small Serbian village and the eastern screech-owl’s habit of stocking its nest with blind snakes that feed on pests and parasites), these are different kinds of books. While providing natural-history context, Wright and Wesson have produced a how-to guide for anyone who wants to attract nesting screech-owls to their property.

The Screech Owl Companion provides practical guidance for siting nest boxes, plans for building a squirrel-resistant (never say “proof”) box, the pro and cons of nest cams, and feedback from experienced owl hosts. The book is full of striking photographs, mainly of eastern and western screech-owls but also a gallery of other owl species that may or may not use nest boxes: small forest owls like the northern saw-whet sometimes do, while big owls like the great horned and great gray will use nesting platforms and burrowing owls have accepted artificial burrows. 

https://raptorsarethesolution.org/rats-in-print-by-joe-eaton/