Jeff Perez patiently scans the treetops at Aurora’s Oakhurst Forest Preserve for owls as the sun melts into the horizon. Perez on turns on a cassette tape player, sending the whistlelike call of a screech owl through the woods.
“You’ve got to start with the smallest owl’s call,” Perez says of his owl-call recording, a doctored-up version of a nature-store tape. “If you start with the biggest owl first, the littler ones will think their predator is here and they’ll leave.”
Within minutes, a screech owl responds with a cautious whistle. Perez translates: “He’s telling us he’s here, this is his territory.”
Although Perez’s recorded calls have encouraged owls to fly in as close as five feet, this owl answers from the thick of the woods. “He’s onto me now,” Perez says of the foot-tall owl that is learning that another owl’s call may be a potential mate or a rival. Around here, it is just as often Jeff Perez and a band of Scouts.
If a screech owl hadn’t responded, Perez would have played a tape of the bigger owls’ calls — the barred owl’s “who cooks for you, who cooks for you” call, then the great horned owl’s “who, who.” But they are higher on the owl food chain, so playing their calls would frighten away the screech owl, who rules this forest today.
By day, Perez is Oakhurst’s live-in ranger. “Officially, my title is assistant area manager, but everyone calls me the ranger,” he says. By night, Perez is the Forest Preserve of Kane County’s owl man, leading groups of adults and children, especially, on owl prowls, field trips that include the calling in of these nocturnal birds of prey from their treetop posts, plus informal, educational owl talks.
In the 1,000 owl prowls he has conducted since he joined the forest preserve eight years ago, he has failed to get owl responses only 10 times.
The best time to call in owls is at dusk, from October to January, when trees are bare and the owls are hunting, Perez says. “In January, they lay their eggs and don’t like to leave the nests,” he says. “So we leave them alone from January through March, when the owlets leave the nests” and the owl prowls resume in April.
Owls respond to the calls because they are territorial, Perez explains to his owl-prowl audiences. “When they hear a smaller owl’s call, they respond by saying, `Look out, I’m here and I’m going to eat you.’ If they hear an owl of the same type, they respond with, `This is my territory. Get out.’ “
As suburbia spreads out from Chicago, most native owls are adapting. “You drain a wetland and the frogs and water snakes are gone,” Perez says, “but the owls can move to the next area of woods. Their territories are as big as a forest preserve — a big, barred owl owns Camp Dean in Sugar Grove — or as small as a group of trees in a neighborhood. I’ve seen them in the Persimmon Woods neighborhood in St. Charles and in back yards in Montgomery.”
The exception is the barn owl, now on the state’s endangered animal list. “They like to live in barn lofts and eat rats, so they are called the farmers’ friends,” Perez says. “But there are few left now in DuPage and Kane Counties.”
The Illinois owls’ menu includes insects, rodents, birds, bats, snakes, fish and rabbits. They are one of the few predators of skunks. Puppies and kittens are not exempt from the great horned owl’s diet, Perez warns.
Perez’s owl talks are frequently requested by teachers and Scout and camp leaders, said Valerie DePrez, the forest preserve’s nature programs supervisor. “Jeff’s a patient teacher, able to talk to everyone from little kids to senior citizens,” DePrez said. “Owls are always a hit because they’re so mysterious. People like to hear Jeff talk about the myths and legends.”
Although Perez, 32, conducts the programs on his own time, he has his employer’s support and encouragement, said the forest preserve’s director of resources, Jon Duerr. In fact, Duerr said, public education is a key element of the forest preserve’s mission.
DePrez says Perez relates especially to the county’s city kids because he grew up with little exposure to nature. “Many of these kids have never been to a forest preserve before. They know nature from TV,” DePrez said.
Perez says he takes it in stride when children ask him if there are bears in the woods. “Some of them have never been out of their neighborhoods,” he says. “One little girl asked me, `What’s a woods?’ “
A native of Aurora, Perez is a graduate of East Aurora High School, where longtime friend Joe Kiss said Perez was known as “the guy who carried a briefcase.” Perez began his forest preserve career in 1990, after attending Aurora University and serving in the Army Reserve.
Perez worked his way up the forest preserve ladder, including a stint at the Fabyan Forest Preserve in Geneva. “There’s so much traffic there — weddings, picnics, bicyclers — that if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere,” he says. In 1994, Perez moved into Oakhurst’s ranger residence, which he shares with his mother and his two daughters.
Perez is one of the forest preserve’s “cadre of self-taught naturalists,” DePrez said. “They may not know all the plants’ Latin names, but they can relay and share their enthusiasm about nature and animals.”
Perez credits Kiss, who can call in a screech owl with his own voice, with encouraging him to become a naturalist. Together, the friends have hiked and canoed many a state and national park.
Perez’s owl education began at the public library, he says. “I researched owls by reading lots of children’s books and history books, tracing owls back to ancient Greece, when they drew pictures of owls sitting next to scholars, in stoic poses like generals,” Perez says. “During Colonial times, owls were associated with witches. Because of the way the great horned owls turn their heads almost all the way around, and have devil-like ear tufts, people thought they were demons.”
Perez keeps up his education to stay a step ahead of the children, he says. “Most school groups study owls before they come, and many of the kids have dissected owl pellets (regurgitated clumps of bones and fur),” he says. “The kids know when owls hunt, what they eat, about their nesting habits, how much they weigh. And they can name every movie that has an owl in it.”
For the owl-wise children, Perez gives a historical perspective to owl myths to dispel their fears. “I grew up with the superstition that if you heard an owl at night, someone would die the next day,” Perez admits. “The kids tell me they’ve seen pictures of owls with witches and devils. Some think their heads can spin like the girl in `The Exorcist.’
“So I tell them, yes, owls do have unusual powers, eyesight and hearing far better than ours, but there’s no reason to be afraid of them. I’ve never seen an owl attack anyone. And if it were true that every owl call means an upcoming death, then everyone would be dead tomorrow.”
It is the owls who should fear the humans, Perez says. Owls’ greatest enemies are cars (they are killed when they swoop to catch insects in front of headlights) and poachers. “Owls are protected by the Endangered Species Act; the penalties for killing them include fines and jail time,” Perez says when he issues warnings to suspects.
It’s all about respect, DePrez said. As a ranger and an educator, it’s Perez’s job to respect the wildlife and teach others to do so too. “Jeff calls (the owls) and gives people a glimpse but is careful not to intrude into their world,” DePrez said. “He doesn’t ask them to perform.”
To meet the growing demand for wildlife education, Perez and Kiss, a former science instructor at Waubonsee Community College, recently formed Change Wind Enterprise, a nonprofit organization through which they educate the public about nature, animals and Native American cultures. Perez’s interest in Native American studies is due, in part, to his grandfather’s Aztec heritage.
“Jeff is ready for all (the kids’) silly questions,” said Girl Scout leader Robin Shaff of Montgomery, who has enlisted Perez to conduct many educational programs through Change Wind and the forest preserve. “He has a sense of humor and knows how to talk to the girls at their level.”
Perez says he dreams of someday “going national at a park like Yellowstone. Bears, buffalo, eagles . . . now that’s being a real ranger.” In the meantime, being the Kane County owl man is a rewarding way to supplement his duties as the Oakhurst ranger, where he says his mission is to “keep it nice for the people who use it for the right reasons and to keep out the people who use it for the wrong reasons.” (His busiest night of the year is prom night.)
Humans could take a few cues from the animal world, Perez says as he recounts tales of troublemakers who confuse forest preserves with beer gardens and hotel rooms. “Respect, patience, independence,” he says. “The animals teach us. And they persevere.”
WORK, HOME AND RELATIONSHIPS
Did you know there’s an owl on the front of the $1 bill? You need eagle eyes or a magnifying glass to see it, though. It’s perched on the curve, next to the numeral one in the upper right hand corner. Following are some other owl facts from the Forest Preserve of Kane County’s owl man, Jeff Perez:
– Owls job-share with hawks and eagles. While the other raptors sleep, owls hunt the same prey.
– Owls don’t make nests. They steal them from other birds and from squirrels.
– Nature controls owl populations. When food is plentiful, they lay more eggs. When it’s scarce, they lay fewer or none at all.
– Just like in the storybooks, owls like to live in tree cavities, but they also like underground burrows and crooks in trees.
– Soft edges on their feathers allow owls to fly silently so they can surprise their prey.
– Owls’ sight and hearing are so keen, they can locate a mouse 100 feet away in the dark.
– “Till death us do part” usually applies to owls, but they don’t hesitate to find new mates after they are widowed.
– Contrary to the popular myth, owls cannot turn their heads all the way around. But they do turn them 270 degrees to see to their sides and back because their eyes cannot move.
– A mother owl waits two days between laying eggs, so the owlets’ sizes vary. It is not uncommon for the oldest to eat the youngest.
– In many languages, the words meaning “owl” double as definitions of what’s considered owl-like behavior. The French hibou also means “an outsider, a solitary person.” The Italian word for owl, gufo, also means “a gloomy, antisocial person.”
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For more information about Change Wind Enterprise, call Jeff Perez at 630-898-4560.
