Owls Flock to Coral Gables

Owls in Coral Gables? They are Birds of a Feather

Drucilla Raymond is a longtime Coral Gables resident who lives on Aledo Avenue. As she describes it, the moment was sheer luck. “The timing was just right, and everything fell into place,” she says, recalling the time when she snapped the photo she’s cherished for almost a decade – the fleeting image of a small, alien-looking creature with piercing yellow eyes, reddish feathers and white fluff on its under belly. “I didn’t even know what kind of an owl it was, but it was the cutest little thing. So, I got a picture… I love owls [and] I think there are other types here.”

It turns out Raymond is right. While her photo captured an eastern screech owl, there are another four species of owls that live in South Florida: The burrowing owl, the barred owl, the great horned owl and the barn owl. The news from neighborhood social media is that, for whatever reason, there are more owls these days.

Cassandra Perez will testify to that. She recently discovered a baby owl on her back lawn. “We found him with his head planted on the ground and [that he] couldn’t fly.” Either he had fallen from the family nest or been pushed out; either way Perez took the baby owl to Pelican Harbor Seabird Station on the 79th Street Causeway, a nonprofit rescue organization that specializes in rehabbing injured birds. Fortunately, the owl was able to be released after three weeks of rehab.

So far this year, Pelican Harbor has received more than 70 individual patients directly from Coral Gables residents, representing 19 different species, a jump of 20 percent from 2019. These include the black-throated blue warbler, Audubon’s shearwater, blue jay, boat-tailed grackle, chimney swift, common nighthawk, common yellowthroat, fish crow, mourning dove, northern cardinal, northern mockingbird, ovenbird, red-shouldered hawk, turkey vulture and white ibis. And the most common species coming from Coral Gables? The eastern screech owl that Raymond photographed.

“I hear them all the time,” says Pam Peirce, a neighbor on Camilo Avenue, who shares a fence line with Raymond. “You can hear them like a small cat purr. They will purr back to you if you are good enough. On Camilo we have these exotic olive trees with lots of holes and they [also] do it with mahogany trees. They dig holes to rest and for their nests.” Her concern is that residents can inadvertently hurt these curious creatures; she recalls how in 2009 a campaign to control palm rats led to excessive poisoning that killed many animals in the area including not only owls, but also domestic cats.

“Sadly, measures taken to eliminate deemed ‘pest species’ causes destruction,” says local wildlife expert and lawyer Amida Frey, who has a Master’s of Science in Environmental Studies and Ecological Restoration. “The key to supporting our natural surroundings, in a time when urban sprawl and development continues to outpace mother nature’s ability, is often education.” Frey suggests going to the “Natives for my Neighborhood” section of regionalconservation.org for landscaping choices that help native owls survive. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden also has a “Connect to Protect” program on how to support these efforts in your garden.