Bones, baby owls and more bones!

By Kelsey Lang, State Parks Interpretive Specialist

Destruction and discovery

As far as weather goes, it was a relatively mild Winter at Fort Worden. For the past several years, each winter has brought dramatic change to the North facing sandy bluffs along our beach, but this winter was quiet. In the backs of our minds, we all were waiting for the report of a fresh landslide, but weeks turned into months and nothing … until spring. A section of the bluff that had slowly and steadily been undercut finally collapsed during a windstorm.

On the walk back from scouting the landslide, Ranger Bowen encountered a strange rock. As he bent over to inspect it, he realized it wasn’t a rock at all, but a large bone! He contacted our internal archeology team to determine the best course of action for the find. Over the next month, more and more bones were discovered. However, most bones were collected and turned in without the assistance of our archeology team. Why does this matter? We have the cool bones, right?!

The importance of bones

An artifact or bone’s physical surroundings tell its true story. Without this information, all we have is a bone, or, in many cases, a fragment of a bone. That makes it difficult to identify the animal it came from.

The exact position of the find allows archeologists to look at the surrounding layers of sand and clay to determine a rough age and make predictions about the type of environment the animal lived in. Even if it has washed up on the beach, we can use tides and current data to predict where it came from.

Knowing where a bone came from allows us to track “hot spots” or areas with a high concentration of finds. This is important because these sites are non-renewable resources. They tell us about an area’s ancient history and provide a physical link to the past. Sites along beaches are especially threatened by natural processes like erosion, sea-level rise and extreme weather events. Monitoring and correctly documenting finds from areas like the bluffs at Fort Worden offer invaluable information; it helps us understand past environments and creatures, share this information with park visitors and make informed management decisions to protect our resources.

Owls are a hoot, but they still need their space

But wait, that’s not all! Spring brought another surprise to the park – baby Great Horned Owls!

Did you know that most owls do not build their own nests? They depend on the leftover nesting sites of other species like woodpeckers, prairie dogs, or in this case, red-tailed hawks, crows and squirrels.

So, when you think an owl has chosen a strange nesting location, remember, they take what they can get!

The Great Horned Owl family at Fort Worden chose a nest close to a road with a popular trailhead, where it was spotted by visitors almost immediately! In all the excitement, its location was shared across social media and popular birding websites. The news inspired crowds of people to visit the park in hopes of seeing the adorable little fluffballs.

So again, what’s the problem? Any park visitor can now see a Great Horned Owl family up close and in person, right?!

Round-the-clock working parents

It’s one thing to see animals in a nature documentary, but quite another to experience nature in person. In fact, staff were as thrilled at this news as everyone else! It is our job however to act in the best interest of nature, much like the Lorax who speaks for the trees.

Nesting birds can be especially sensitive to crowds of people. The parents are working around the clock, not just at night, to feed and protect their young. Owlets are much weaker than fully grown owls and always on guard for perceived danger, so crowds of animals (AKA people) staring at them all day can cause great stress. There is also the risk that stressed parents will attack perceived threats.

Park staff are constantly balancing the human perspective with that of nature; therefore, we set up barriers to prevent visitors from walking into the woods and getting too close to the nest. Providing space between the nest and park visitors still allowed people to view the owls, but from a safe distance that hopefully reduced the stress on the family.

Adventurous owlet

Not long after establishing the barrier, the owlets reached the “branching” phase of their development; they were ready to step out of the nest. It just so happened that one of the three young decided to take a jump instead of a step! A bystander alerted park staff and coordinated with Discovery Bay Wild Bird Rescue. Believe it or not, this sort of behavior is typical for owls, and under normal conditions, the parents would continue to feed the young from the ground. Young owls are also great climbers, so those who jump to the ground can climb up other trees nearby. However, in this scenario, we worked with bird rescue professionals to re-nest the owlet since so many people were watching the nest. We didn’t want visitors to attempt a rescue effort of their own. Within a day, they had picked up the owlet, brought it to their facility for overnight care, built a new nest for it, and secured the owlet in its new home on the tree next to its siblings. Hooray!

Five minutes later, it jumped again! Like you, we were all shaking our heads… Again, the same problem persisted. The young owl was fine, and its parents would keep caring for it, but there was still a crowd of spectators. So, Discovery Bay Wild Bird Rescue decided to take the owl to their facility and let it be raised by one of their foster parent owls. When it’s old enough to fly, it will return to Fort Worden.

Takeaways from an exciting spring

Mother Nature always keeps us on our toes, and we are always looking for ways to work with nature and park visitors to create sustainable, yet memorable park experiences, and you can help us achieve this goal!

How? If you find a bone or artifact in the park, tempting as it may be (and trust us, we understand the temptation), please leave the item in place – do not collect it. Instead, take a picture, circle its location on a map or note the GPS coordinates and contact park staff.

Artifacts and bones must be handled very carefully, so it’s best to let professionals handle them. For more information on how you can be a park steward, check out our handy webpage on What to Do if You Find an Artifact in a Park. Also, be on the lookout for our cultural resource signs as a reminder.

When it comes to birds, or any animal in state parks, please keep your distance. We appreciate our personal space, and so do animals. We don’t like being stared at or pointed to, and animals don’t either. The main difference between us and animals is that they might retaliate, even the cute fluffy ones!

If you’re worried about an animal, maybe it’s young and alone or acting strange, contact park staff immediately! We work closely with trained animal rescue professionals and can get wildlife help if needed.

Our state parks are special places filled with diverse cultural and natural resources. We love being able to share these resources with park visitors, but we also need your help to care for them.

If you’re ever in doubt about what to do, that’s what we’re here for!

Header image by Dillon Bettinger