Bad Soden: The young eagle owls from the Hundertwasserhaus

A feathered head with bright orange eyes looks down from the tower of the Hundertwasser House in Bad Soden.

An eagle owl sits there undisturbed at a height of 30 meters and attentively observes its surroundings.

There are three cubs in total that hatched on the tower this spring.

The slightly different neighbors have long since become a habit for the residents of the house: For the eighth year in a row, a pair of owls is breeding on top of the tower.

Nevertheless, the sight is always something special.

Every spring one waits in Bad Soden for the first sighting of the newly hatched young.

And when they need a little longer to show their feathered heads, the first concerns are already spreading.

"This year we were of the opinion that there was no brooding at all," says Klemens Fischer, member of the board of NABU Bad Soden.

"It took an incredibly long time until we had the first evidence of young birds".

This is mainly due to the food situation: "The eagle owls start to breed when they notice that there is enough food for the young," says Fischer.

The number of boys is also determined according to this.

A rescue operation necessary

But at the end of May the first young bird was spotted on the tower. A little later, helpers from NABU and the local nature conservation authority had to move in for the first rescue operation, because one of the boys was stuck behind a metal fence in a neighboring garden. Armed with thick falconer's gloves, the young bird was put back on the top terrace of the Hundertwasser House.

This is not the first time such rescue operations have happened there.

Over the years, many an eagle owl had to be rescued after falling or colliding with the window of a nearby dance school.

But at the end of summer, all 23 Bad Soden Junguhus had flown away in good health, according to Fischer.

“We assume that all the young that were hatched here in the Hundertwasser House have become stately eagle owls.

But we don't know how it went on for them. ”The remote breeding site on the tower makes it difficult to ring the eagle owls, which is why their further life can usually not be traced.

An ideal breeding place

The eagle owls have found a unique breeding ground on the tower of the Hundertwasser House. Originally the owls are rock breeders, which is why they used to be found more often on steep walls, in the Alps and in some low mountain ranges. “The eagle owl cannot distinguish between a rock face and a large, free-standing building,” says Michael Orf, from the Lower Nature Conservation Authority of the Main-Taunus district. If such a building also has a high platform that people do not step on and offers cover, for example through bushes, as is the case on the Hundertwasser House, then that is ideal. “The eagle owls will stay there for a long time,” the ornithologist is certain. 

It cannot be ruled out, but it is unlikely, that the Bad Soden eagle owl pair is still the same that first brooded on the high tower of the Hundertwasser House in 2014. Although eagle owls can live over 50 years in captivity, the average life expectancy in the wild is between six and ten years. A full-grown eagle owl does not have any natural enemies, but roads, railroad tracks, medium-voltage lines and wind turbines can quickly become its undoing. But because one partner usually survives even if the other dies, good breeding sites are still permanently occupied. It is therefore possible that some of the eagle owl parents are still the same as those who brooded on the tower in 2014. "But the probability that both survived the entire time,is relatively low, ”says Orf.

In the meantime, all three Bad Soden Junguhus have left the nest and are exploring the area on their own. Again and again they are found and photographed in different places by the residents of the house. The boys can fly relatively well shorter distances: They like to train their wings, especially on the stretch between the tower and the adjacent forest. They are still learning to hunt and their parents continue to provide them with food. Towards the end of summer it has to work alone - then they are driven away by their parents and have to look for their own territory.