Some citizens in the Delphos area, the owner of a nearby saw mill and a caring employee of the saw mill came together this summer to rescue, and relocate a family of barn owls.

Some owls were spotted in a building at Graves Forestry, which is located two miles south of Delphos, in April. Eli Yoder, Jr., the enterprising employee of the saw mill, saw the birds and began efforts to move them to a safe location in one of the buildings at the saw mill. He was aided by Redding resident Chas Abarr and his son Jasper.

The Abarrs built two nesting boxes for the birds. The first one was built in the building to entice the endangered birds to move to the safer location. The second one was constructed further out on the property to accommodate the birds when they get old enough to venture out of the building.

Pat Schlarbaum, a Wildlife Diversity Technician with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, stresses that while barn owls are endangered in Iowa that the birds are making a comeback statewide. He said there are a dozen other pairs of barn owls in the state besides the south Delphos birds.

"This is the highest number we have had in 35 years," said Schlarbaum, who works out of a DNR Wildlife Research Station near Boone.

Schlarbaum was also instrumental in establishing the prairie chicken habitat near Kellerton a few years back. He credits the federal [Page 9] Conservation Preserve Program (CRP) with the success of both the barn owls and the prairie chickens.

"The Kellerton habitat is improving with all of the rolling hills and calf operations," he said while adding that Josh Rusk, of Kellerton Management Unit, deserves much of the credit for helping to create the good grasslands that both barn owls and prairie chickens thrive in.

He said the barn owls do well because mice and meadow voles, the owls' primary diet, do well on CRP ground.

He stresses that the success of the operations that DNR becomes involved in often hinge on the efforts of locals.

"His interest got the owls into a more stable situation," he said of Yoder's efforts.

He also credits Chas Abarr for building the nesting box. Schlarbaum came to the saw mill recently to see that the nesting box was properly built and installed. He also banded the legs of the birds to help track their movement and to make them easier to identify. He said the nesting box was key to help keep the owls safe from predators such as raccoons.

"They do it. I just help out the best I can," he said about both Yoder's and Abarr's efforts. "I will do all I can to help out, but they are your barn owls."

Photographs courtesy of Mount Ayr Record-News
Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, July of 2017